Member Article

North West Startup Season: AudioScratch

The brainchild of Stephen Robinson, AudioScratch is a social media website for artists and music lovers. After spending two years building the site from the bottom up, he is ready to go.

However, the Blackburn-based entrepreneur is delaying the launch of his company until the completion of Virgin’s ‘Pitch to Rich’ competition, in which Audioscratch is one of theNorth West’s eight shortlisted companies).

Audioscratch aims to incorporate all of the things we know and love about social media while letting music makers have followers and a place to shine.

Stephen said he wanted there to be a go-to place for up and coming artists, in which they could exhibit their music and find fresh new sounds.

For Stephen, the support from friends and family has been invaluable with lots of encouragement from everyone he has told about the project.

Stephen is secretive, with many of the details of how he has made his network still under wraps, but all will be revealed when he finally launches AudioScratch this summer.

Stephen told Bdaily: “I have been that busy for the past two years, I have been constantly working on the project by myself.

“I’m ready to launch the project to the public soon.

“I only had 13 days of public voting as I was a late entry into the competition

“I have a music background, I started Dj-ing and did it on and off for 17 years of my life

“I have met a lot of talented people over the year and noticed how they were networking online, and I didn’t think it was the right way to do it.

“I decided to look into it, started digging and two years later I’m here, having created something brand new.

“I can’t divulge too much, with it not being in the public domain yet, it’s hard to say whether people will flock to it, it will be trial and error but I have a lot of interest from a lot of artists.”

Harnessing a lifelong interest in computers, Stephen taught himself how to code for this project. he says he has carried out heavy research and learnt a lot over the last few years as he has got stuck into the project.

Building the site himself over the last two years means that Stephen hasn’t needed a much financial investment. Greater server space, however, will be needed as the project gets bigger and he hopes the inbuilt revenue streams will fund future growth.

Winning ‘Pitch to Rich’ overall would mean Stephen would gain expert advice and guidance as well as a cash injection that would allow him to launch the website with advanced server configurations from the outset, along with boosting brand exposure.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .