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SoundCloud : The Success Story of YouTube of Music

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Today, there are several audio streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Unlimited, etc., available online, but there was a time when there was no such platform, where people could access audio music online. But then, in 2007, two students from Stockholm School of Economics, Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, influenced with the success of YouTube and Flickr, realized the need for a music sharing website, where artists could connect, and founded SoundCloud.

The Founders

Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, both belong to the Swedish descent and were always interested in music. Since his childhood, Ljung was interested in both music and technology and had decided to become a sound engineer in future. By the time, he had become quite skilled in the music creation and produced an album and was able to secure a job at a post-production studio, after completing his school education. But again, he was more concerned about his studies, so he joined the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

ljung and wahlforss
Image Source: sign-in-box.com

On the other hand, Wahlfros was also another alumni at the same institution pursuing a degree in MA. The two met at the college UNIX lab and found many things in common with each other, especially the passion for music. The two started spending more time together and did many university projects together.

Founding SoundCloud

At the time, Flickr was doing exceptionally well, and YouTube was emerging as a powerful video hosting platform. As the two were into music creation themselves, they thought of a new startup, through which they could make other music artists to share their music with other people and collaborate with different global artists, online.

After digging deep and working hard for a long time, the two launched SoundCloud, in 2007, keeping music and sound as its core objective. They founded SoundCloud in Stockholm, Sweden, but eventually established the headquarter of the company in Berlin in the same year.

In 2008, they launched the website for SoundCloud, where artists could share their creation and look for collaborations. But soon, the popularity of SoundCloud turned the platform into a music distribution platform.

The concept was unique, so it became popular in no time. In fact, in just two years, SoundCloud received worth €2.5 million investment from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, in the Series A funding. In 2010, the company reported one million registered users for the service. In 2011, in the Series B funding, SoundCloud raised a worth of US$10 million. In the same year, the company got raised to 10 million registered users, and in the next year, the number went to increase up to 15 million users.

Although since 2014, the company has been incapable of handling the huge empire it has built in a few years, SoundCloud is still working hard to maintain its spot in the music distribution industry. Even there has been the rise of several other new music platforms, it is SoundCloud that took the first step in providing the new artists to share their work on an online platform, and eventually, gave birth to new music distribution system.

SoundCloud has been the biggest medium for many artists to showcase their talent, and artists like Iza Lach from Poland and Lorde from New Zealand got their first break, through SoundCloud, and today are one of the most in-demand singers.

Alex Ljung served as the CEO of SoundCloud for almost a decade and stepped down from his position in 2017. Wahlforss holds the position of CPO in the company. He has also produced a few tracks that are available on SoundCloud itself.

Colin Huang : From Son of a Factory Worker to the CEO of a Billion Dollar Company ‘Pinduoduo’

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There are rare chances that the destiny of a person meets his talent and help him achieve the things that at a point might be unimaginable. But there are real examples in the past that has proved that in the success of a person his hard work and talent work even more efficiently if his destiny is working with him too. The son of worker Parents, Colin Huang, would have never thought that his brilliance, and his destiny, will coincide and he will have his own rag to riches story. The 13th richest person in China, in just three years. The life story of Huang surely is a great example and inspiration for many.

Colin Huang was born in 1980, in Hangzhou, to the worker-class parents. While in school, he participated and won a medal in a Mathematics Olympiad, after demonstrating an aptitude in Mathematics. This was the point when his destiny started pushing him towards a good life. The prize of the Olympiad was a scholarship to a reputable school in Zhejiang province.

Colin Huang
Image Source: colinhuang.com

In the school, he got to know many elite students and was even introduced to the daughter of the Mayor of the school, as she too studied in his class. This helped him a lot to build up confidence in him and hence became more comfortable in interacting with the most brilliant students of the school.

As soon he completed his school, another opportunity came into his lap, and he was chosen to study at the prestigious Zhejiang University, where he pursued a degree in computer science. In his first year, he was also selected to be a part of the Melton Foundation.

During his college, he started an internship at Microsoft Beijing, where he earned the stipend worth 6,000 yuan. According to an interview, Huang accepted that the stipend he received for the internship was already greater than the salary of his parents altogether, at that time.

After completing his graduation, he went to the University of Wisconsin to pursue a master’s degree. At the university, he was doing exceptionally well, and his professor impressed by his brilliance provided him letters for the recommendation for a few of the biggest tech giants of that time.

After completing his education in 2004, he received the offer letters from three big companies, i.e. Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. Turning down all the three offers, he decided to work with Google, the company which had just filed its IPO in the same year.

Huang joined Google as an engineer. After working for three years with the company, in 2007, he resigned from his post, as he had got tired of flying back and forth, from the US to China, to resolve even the tiniest of matters. By the time, he had earned a lot of good money and was able to take the decision of quitting his job.

He flew back to China and started his first venture, an eCommerce website named Ouku. The website became popular soon, and after three years, in 2010, Huang sold the website. After Ouku, he founded Leqi, another website, and then, Xunmeng, a gaming studio.

All the three ventures he started, paid him well to lead to him to found another venture, Pinduoduo, which is also the most successful venture of the serial entrepreneur, Huang.

Pinduoduo is an eCommerce platform that provides its users with offers on group purchases. The company was founded in September 2015. Within a year, Huang was able to raise investments from the leading companies of China, i.e., Tencent, Gaochun and Xintianyu. The three companies alone invested a worth of US$110 million in company’s B round funding.

In 2018, the company reported the number of users, more than 200 million. On July 26, 2018, the company went public on NASDAQ, and with a US$1.6 billion IPO, it became the largest IPO of 2018. Pinduoduo is one of the youngest companies which is giving a tough competition to the more than a decade old eCommerce giants like Alibaba and JD.com. In fact, it is the third-largest e-commerce company in China by sales numbers, after the mentioned companies.

According to Huan, he had never thought of changing the world, but if he is contributing to that, there is nothing bad in that.

Pinduoduo, gets most of its traffic from the lower-tier cities, such that people belonging to the lower-class are also able to buy things on the website. The success of the company has even made Huang the 13th richest person in China. Currently, he is working as the CEO of the company, and his net worth is estimated to be $15.6 billion.

Duan Yongping : The Secretive Chinese Entrepreneur & the Founder of BBK Electronics

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The competition is not always with others, there are many who wants to compete with their own self, to be their own improved version. The famous Chinese inventor and entrepreneur, Duan Yongping, has similar thoughts on self-improvement. According to him, he does not believe in surpassing anyone, but he focuses on self-improvement. He is the real example of simplicity and brilliance, all together. The chairman and the founder of BBK Electronics Corporation, Yongping, is an inspiring personality, and the source of motivation for many.

Early Life & Career

Duan Yongping was born on 10 March 1961, in Nanchang, Jiangxi, China. He received a graduate degree in wireless electronics engineering from Zhejiang University, in 1978.

duan yongping
Image Source: alchetron.com

As soon he graduated from college, he started his career as a teacher and joined the adult education centre of the Beijing Radio Tube Factory. But soon, he left the job and entered the Renmin University to pursue econometrics, and later, completed an EMBA from CEIBS.

After completing his education, he started working at the state-run vacuum tube plant.

Career as Entrepreneur

During the time Yongping was working at the plant, China was moving towards capitalism swiftly, leading to the formation of many private industries. Influenced by the same, in 1989, Yonping left his job and moved to Guangdong province to try his hands in the business.

In the same year, he joined a newly founded electronic plant in Zhongshan. Soon he became the CEO of the company and was the biggest influence in the success of the company. At the beginning of the company, it was under 2 million RMB debts, but in the leadership of Yongping, the company became one of the leading companies of that time, i.e. Subor Electronics Industry Corporation.

Subor developed the learning computers and was one of the biggest suppliers of the same in China. It also entered into the video-game facilities production market and built its first gaming console named “Subor” embedded with dual-cartridge slots. The console was an instant hit, and even, gave a tough competition to its rival Nintendo.

Yongping left the company on 28 August 1995, when the company was at the peak of success, to found his own venture named BBK. He founded BBK in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, and started with the production of DVD and MP3 players. BBK also started its subsidiary company, Bubugao Communication Equipment Co., that produced the feature-phones and became the biggest manufacturer of the same in the year 2000.

By the end of the same year, there was a fall in the sales, and Yongping was looking for peaceful ways to shut down the company, such that the employees stay unhurt. But then his protege Tony Chen advised him to start a new company.

In 2001, along with Chen Mingyong, Yongping founded Oppo to manufacture and sell music players. The company became the subsidiary of BBK.

At the same time, BBK also started the production of other electronic devices such as television sets, MP3 players, digital cameras, etc.

In 2007, with the launch of the first iPhone, like other cell phone producers, BBK was also inspired to start building those new and revamped smartphones. The famous smartphone manufacturing company Vivo is also the sister company of Oppo and another subsidiary of BBK. In 2009, both Oppo and Vivo started their operation in smartphone production and became the biggest pillars in the success of BBK and Yongping. Currently, both the brands are providing their service in over 100 countries and are among the best sellers.

In 2017, BBK was the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, ahead of Apple and Huawei, and sold 56.7 million smartphones in the first quarter of the year.

Currently, BBK is working on improving its smartphone lineup and involved in the R&D for the next-generation 5G network for smartphones. The headquarter of the company is located at Chang’an Dongguan.

Personal Life

Yongping is also active in the philanthropy works and donated US dollar 40 million to Zhejiang University in the year 2006. At the age of 40, he moved to California to focus more on investment and philanthropy works. He was the second largest individual shareholder of NetEase in the years 2002 to 2004.

Yongping is a private person and likes to keep away from the limelight. Even though, his life story is one of the most inspiring ones for not only the people of China but also the world.

Masaru Ibuka : Japanese Electronics Industrialist & Co-founder of Sony

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Don’t work for the profits, work for innovation, this is what the Japanese researcher and the entrepreneur, Masaru Ibuka, had always followed. The co-founder of Sony Co. is one of the revolutionary figures of Japan’s electronics industry. The believer of hard work, Ibuka, is the biggest inspiration for not only the people of Japan but people from around the world. His dedication and hard work gave new means to the global electronics industry.

Early Life

Ibuka was born on 11 April 1908, in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. He was a studious kid at school and loved performing experiments in the labs. He completed his bachelor’s degree in electrical communications from the Waseda University, in 1933. During the college, he researched on experimental projection-type television system using a nitro-benzol Kerr cell and wrote his college thesis on the same.

masaru ibuka
Image Source: prabook.com

After graduating from the college, Ibuka started working at the Photo-Chemical Laboratories Inc. He was employed as a researcher and was involved in the research work for the technology of sound recording on movie films. In 1937, he joined Nippon-Ko-On where he worked on the development of the home-based movie sound equipment. Later, in 1940 he left Nippon-Ko-On and joined the Japan Measuring Instrument Co., Ltd where he was involved in the research work on the mechano-electronic frequency-selective relays and telecommunication system. In the wake of World War II, he joined the department of Imperial Navy Wartime Research Committee.

Founding Sony

In 1945, Ibuka left his job in Navy and opened a radio repair shop at the Hirokiya Department Store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. Later, with the capital of 190,000 Yen, he founded Tokyo-Tsushin Kenkyusho (Tokyo Telecommunications Laboratory) Co., following a merger into the Tokyo-Tsushin-Kogyo Co. In 1946, another Japanese researcher, Akio Morita, found out about Ibuka’s venture through the newspaper and was wanted to work with him. So he met Ibuka and the two co-founded Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. Morita’s helped the two raise the funds for the company.

With the end of World War II and the big atom bomb attacks on Japan, the economy of Japan was devastated. Both the co-founders wanted to help in the economy of Japan and started their research work under the name of their newly founded company. In 1950, they were able to get a license to work on the transistor technology, becoming one of the first companies to use the transistor technology to non-military purposes. In the same year, the company launched Japan’s first tape recorder, the “G type.” In 1958, the company released another transistor radio, which was first of its kind. The company was soon providing its services to its international clients.

In 1958, the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation was re-branded as Sony, after the co-founders realized that the Americans had trouble saying the name of the company. The next big invention of the company was the world’s first transistor television. In 1967, Sony Co. launched its first colour TV named Sony Trinitron.

Ibuka served the company as the president from 1950 to 1971, and then became the chairman of Sony from 1971, and retired in 1976.

Sony Co., released its first Walkman personal stereo in 1979, followed by a Handycam video camera in 1989, the famous PlayStation in 1994, and a Blu-ray Disc recorder in 2003. The company is a conglomerate and currently manufacture almost everything from a Smartphone to laptops, cameras to television, the electrical vehicle to home-based products. Sony Co. has built an international empire and has set its arms into the finance, entertainment and health sector as well.

According to the records, the company made a total revenue of 507.6 billion yen in the financial year 2017. In 2018, the company had 117,300 employees working in its different branches in different countries.

The company headquarter is located at Minato, Tokyo, Japan.

Personal Life

Ibuka was one of the prominent research engineers who brought innovation in the field of his interest. For his contributions in the rise of technology and the economy of Japan, he was awarded multiple awards. He even received the three doctorate degrees from three different institutions, i.e. from the Sophia University (1976), Tokyo, Waseda University, Tokyo (1979) and Brown University, US (1994). He also received the IEEE Founders Medal in 1972 from IEEE and the highest distinction of the Scout Association of Japan, the Golden Pheasant Award, in 1989.

Ibuka also wrote a book named ‘Kindergarten is Too Late’ in 1971. According to the book, the leaning for humans begins at the age of 3. On 19 December 1997, he died at the age of 89 in Tokyo, Japan.

Cher Wang: A Brilliant Entrepreneur & Contributor in the Rise of Wireless Devices

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HTC is a renowned name in the smartphone manufacturing industry and is also emerging as one of the leaders in the field of virtual reality. The company headquarter is based in Taiwan and was founded in 1997. It was founded by Cher Wang, H. T. Cho and Peter Chou, as an original laptop and computers, designing and manufacturing company.

The company is known for its innovation, and so is its female co-founder Cher Wang. Cher Wang is one of the most successful woman entrepreneurs in the world and is successfully breaking into this male-dominated industry.

Early Life

Wang was born on 14 September 1958, in Taipei, Taiwan. Her father was a businessman who ran a business of plastic until he died at the age of 92.

Wang completed her high school education from The College Preparatory School in Oakland, California and pursued a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1981.

cher wang
Image Source: talkandroid.com

In 1980, her sister had co-founded a motherboard manufacturing company, named as First International Computer (FIC). Wang joined the company and started her first job in 1982. During her job in FIC, she got the opportunity to travel to several new countries in the world, where she was marketing the motherboard for personal computers.

Founding HTC

While pitching the motherboard features in front of the foreign traders, Wang realised the need of a portable computer system as the desktop computers were big and wired, so taking them to any other place was not that convenient.

After a lot of brainstorming, she thought of an idea to start a computer manufacturing business and founded HTC along with her co-founders H. T. Cho and Peter Chou. In the beginning, the company started with manufacturing Notebook laptops. In 1998, the company was building one of the world’s first touch and wireless hand-held devices.

Initial years were tough, but having the blood of businessman in her veins, Wang was able to foresee the upcoming success, hence invested a huge amount of money in the business. With time, she realized that the laptop manufacturing business is not working according to the plan, and she decided to switch her focus from building laptops to mobile phones. So, HTC started partnering with other companies to build Windows Mobile PDAs and smartphones.

In 2007, HTC acquired Dopod International, and in the next year the company launched its first GSM mobile phone, named HTC Max 4G. In the same year, the company also released its first Android Smartphone, the HTC Dream.

In 2009, the company rolled out its first touch screen smartphone powered by Windows OS, the HTC HD2, and also released its first user interface the HTC Sense.

In 2010, HTC sold over 24.6 million handsets. In 2011, Luxgen adopted the HTC smart technology to build the ‘Think Ahead’ feature for its vehicles such that the software would capture road conditions and potential hazards to its drivers.

In 2011, HTC won the “Device Manufacturer of the Year” in the Global Mobile Awards. In the same year, the company became the third-largest smartphone manufacturer, after Apple and Samsung. In the third quarter of the same year, HTC became the largest smartphone vendor in the U.S. ahead of Samsung and Apple.

The year of 2012 was challenging for the company, earning the lowest profits of all time, but in 2013, the release of HTC One the changed the scenario. In fact, it became the best phone of the year, winning various industry awards. In 2014, the company changed its marketing strategies, and with the launch of HTC One (M8), the company started selling the phones online, resulting in a rise in its sales.

In 2015, HTC partnered with Valve Corporation and launched its first virtual reality head-mounted display, Vive. After suffering by huge losses in the Smartphone industry due to the raised competition, it was Vive, that helped the company survive.

In 2017, Google acquired half of HTC’s staff that had worked on HTC’s design and research, by paying US$1.1 billion to the company. Google employed the HTC manpower in the manufacturing of Google’s Pixel smartphone.

Currently, the company is expanding in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) and virtual reality. In 2018 HTC partnered with the games and apps developer and publisher Animoca, such that to work in the field of games, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality and virtual reality.

Personal Life

Cher Wang is married to Wen-Chi Chen, the CEO of VIA Technologies. The couple has two children. In 2011, Wang and her husband were named as the wealthiest person in Taiwan, with a net worth of US$8.8 billion by Forbes. Wang was also listed in The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women at #56 in August 2012, and 54th most powerful woman in the world in 2014, by Forbes.

Wang is also active in charity and philanthropy works.

Hiroshi Mikitani : Founder of Japan’s Largest eCommerce Marketplace, ‘Rakuten’

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A degree from a famous business school, and a 9 to 5 corporate job, the dream of every parent for their child. And, there is no denying the fact that most of the youngsters want this settled life for themselves, too. But not every child is interested in the comfortable 9 to 5 race as some are who wants to make their own identity, and do not want to work for others but themselves. A similar situation goes to the success story of Hiroshi Mikitani, who got perfect education and even a perfect job, but his dream of entrepreneurship encouraged him to take the leap and fulfil his dreams.

Early Life

Mikitani was born on 11 March 1965, to Ryoichi Mikitani and Setsuko Miktani, in Kobe, Hy?go Prefecture, Japan. His father was an economist and was Japan’s first Fulbright Scholar to the US, and his mother worked for a trading company. His father even taught at Yale University, so the family moved to New Haven, Connecticut, from 1972 to 1974. He has two siblings, a brother who is a professor of biology at the University of Tokyo and a sister, who is a is a physician. Mikitani’s grandfather was also an entrepreneur and founded Minolta. In 1928.

Hiroshi Mikitani
Image Source: hbs.edu

Mikitani graduated with a commerce degree from Hitotsubashi University in 1988. He, later, completed his master’s degree in business administration from the famous Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1993.

Career

As soon he graduated from Hitotsubashi University, Mikitani was recruited by the Industrial Bank of Japan, in 1988. In 1993, he was transferred to the US, where he took two years of break from his bank job to pursue a master’s degree from the Harvard Business School. Along with his education, he started a consulting service, his first official business.

In 1995, his birthplace, Kobe suffered from great loss due to the 20 seconds destructive earthquake. The incident was very heart-wrenching and led Mikitani to move back to his country to help revitalize Japan’s economy, and leave his job.

Founding Rakuten

After coming back to Japan, Mikitani did not want to start over with a corporate job. Instead, he started looking at the different business model to start his own new business. At the time, the internet was revolutionising the various industries and had initiated the inception of e-commerce businesses. Netscape was working as an e-commerce website, and Amazon was just starting up its own.

The step was risky, but Mikitani was inspired to set up his own e-commerce website. So he founded a company named MDM, Inc. with three co-founders on 7 February 1997 and launched Rakuten, an online marketplace. The website helped many small shop owners to reach new customers and with the growth of their business, charging a small monthly fee from them. The platform also helped the farmers sell their goods online. All the four co-founders invested a total of US$250,000 from their own money. In 1999, the company was renamed to Rakuten Inc. Just in three years of its inception, Rakuten went public on JASDAQ in 2000. The website became popular in no time and had grown to 2,300 stores and 95 million page views per month.

The next year, the company launched Rakuten Travels, an online hotel reservation platform. In 2004, Rakuten started its financial services and launched a Rakuten credit card in 2005. It soon became the largest tech giant operating Japan’s largest Internet bank and third-largest credit company.

As Mikitani’s prime reason to go back to Japan was to help in its economy and infrastructure, in December 2005, Rakuten established the Rakuten Institute of Technology in Tokyo. In 2008, the company began to expand outside Japan, and in 2011, the company invested in Pinterest. By 2012, the company had established its online services in Austria, Canada, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, France, China, Hong Kong, Korea, etc.

In March 2015, the company started trading in Bitcoin. The company also made some acquisitions, earning more profits in the overseas business including Buy.com, PriceMinister, e-book service Kobo, Ebates, and also the messaging app Viber. By 2017, Rakuten had over 14,000 employees, over 42,000 shops on its e-commerce sites, and sales of nearly US$6 billion, with over 100 million members in Japan.

Peesonal Life

Mikitani married Haruko in 1993 and have two children with the marriage. In 2012, Mikitani received the Alumni Achievement Award from Harvard Business School. He was awarded the rank of Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government in 2014. He was also awarded the Spain-Japan Business Contribution Award by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in 2017.