Danielle Newnham
Shazam Founders (L to R) Dhiraj Mukherjee, Chris Barton, Avery Wang and Philip Inghelbrecht
Shazam is one of the most widely-used apps of all time but what’s its founding story? I talked to Chris Barton, and his co-founders, including friend Dhiraj Mukherjee, classmate Philip Inghelbrecht, and engineer Avery Wang to learn more about what it was like to launch an app business back in 1999 (just before a global recession and almost ten years before the launch of the smartphone and App Store.)
Here are the top seven tips the founders shared with me:
1. Aim for the moon
Think BIG when you are trying to solve a problem. Great entrepreneurs know that the time and effort it takes to build a a successful startup might as well be spent on game-changing ideas; ones which create new markets, not simply new products. The Shazam founders were no different — as Philip Inghelbrecht states when it comes to startups, “Think big and shoot for the moon; plan for every person to use your product at some point in time. It’s much better to fall short on a lofty goal than to exceed a reasonable projection.”
2. Nothing is impossible
It just hasn’t been done yet. Chris Barton knows all about aiming high, timing, and the importance of perseverance. After all, it’s how he got technical co-founder Avery Wang to develop Shazam’s music identification algorithm in the first place, despite every expert in the field telling the young founder it couldn’t be done. Even Avery questioned if it could work, “After a few months of working on the problem, I was getting ready to give up and tell the guys that I couldn’t do it. Chris, however, wasn’t convinced that it was impossible.”
“Never take no for a final answer; never accept defeat; never give into fear.
Creating the algorithm which would catapult Shazam into millions of hands was not the only hurdle the founders faced. Working on something so ahead of its time meant that almost everything they desperately needed to ensure success — from the phone operators, to the music labels, to the technology and funding — seemed out of reach, but Chris didn’t give up, and it is undoubtedly that drive which fueled Shazam through those hard times. “The number one determinant of entrepreneurial success is persistence. If you are not prepared to go to superhuman levels that are beyond rationality to realize your dream, then your chance of finding success is virtually zero.”
Dhiraj went on to advise would-be entrepreneurs, “Never take no for a final answer; never accept defeat; never give into fear. When you do a startup, everything is stacked against you. You have no money. You have no product. You have no customers. You have no track record. You have no proof of anything you claim. Everything you do is met by resistance, skepticism, and rejection. If you give in to it, your career as an entrepreneur will be short and unfulfilled.”
3. Make your passion your purpose
To truly succeed, you need to believe in your mission. Why are we working on this? Losing sight of your purpose can cause you and your staff to lose focus, as Blake Mycoskie of TOMS recently explained in his blog post.
Chris had always been passionate about music and wanted to allow people to identify music, any time, anywhere. Shazam was a natural fit. “If you are going to do a startup, you must make sure you are truly passionate about the business because you are going to need that raw passion to power you through the really tough challenges. There were other businesses I considered other than Shazam that would not have brought that same passion for me.”
4. Values are vital
Dhiraj strongly believes in startups setting, and sticking to, core beliefs: “Values speak in a quiet voice that can get drowned out by inexperience, uncertainty, fear, greed, bad advice, or group-think. Being able to tune into one’s values and act according to them scrupulously is an infinite source of strength.”
He continues: “Never drop your standards: if you are trying to move quickly with limited resources in a competitive market, it can be tempting to take shortcuts and let standards slip. Don’t. Quality is a mental model, a habit that should not be compromised even under extreme pressure.”
5. Diversity is key
Silicon Valley is often criticized for its homogeneous teams but Shazam learned that diversity in background, and skills, was crucial to its success.
