Distributing Music on Mobile Profitably in Africa, a journey with Spinlet’s Chairman

What are the unique offerings that Spinlet is going to provide that will make people change the current habit of getting music for free? Without people using your platform the ecosystem is not complete and artists won’t make money.

As of today, we have rights for about a million songs. Non-exclusive rights. But some of the big labels signed an exclusive agreement with us. We dont go out seeking to sign exclusive contracts or pay money upfront to artist as a way to get them to sign up to us..  Instead we let our actions speak for it self.

What Spinlet is selling is ease and convenience.

We have an easy way for you to search in our over a million catalogue of music and still growing. What Spinlet is selling is ease and convenience. Downloading songs on Spinlet is pretty fast. We took time to work on the technology behind it and we keep improving that taking in consideration the speed and availability of bandwidth. We are in partnership with the guys that is working with Appstore for apple to enhance search. This will make searching around the Spinlet store a more pleasant experience.

Smartphone penetration in Nigeria is low, about 5%. Your service is only available on Smartphones–Androids, Blackberries and S60 Symbian phones. Music is not consumed by Smartphone users only. What happens to the remaining 95%?

We are going to work on reaching them. Our priority for now is those on Smartphones. It’s in our plan to reach the others.

You did your soft launch in Nigeria March 3, 2012. What countries are you planning to reach?

We are going to four African countries before end of summer. Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana and Kenya and 22 African Countries before the end of the year.

Will there be songs from International artiste and Artistes from Europe and America?

There are major labels that manage these artists, EMI, Universal and Sony music. We are signing deals with them. These music will be available in the future. In Launching the Samsung galaxy Pocket phone, two International songs were included in the phone.

Where did you develop your apps from? Who are the developers behind it?

Spinlet was conceived in Finland. We have an office in Tampa, Finland. All the development of the apps is done in Finland, except for Blackberry and Java being developed out of Silicon Valley.

Will the streaming be free forever or it is just going to be on for a while?

Free streaming is part of the service and it will remain. Those who do streaming will be presented with audio ads before listening to a track, or after a few tracks. They have the option of upgrading to premium membership with no ads. The premium membership costs 500 SC [Spinlet Credit] where 1 SC = N1. For now, only the operator billing method using premium SMS is available.

The operators take a large chunk of the money, that is the reason you paid about N1,400 for premium membership on your MTN network

The operators take a large chunk of the money, that is the reason you paid about N1,400 for premium membership on your MTN network, which should have cost you only N500. We are working on implementing Mobile Money Options and Paying with Cards, credit and debit. When that is implemented, 1 SC will be equivalent to N1.

Will there be integration with Social Media like Facebook, twitter and the like?

In our next version, we’re integrating that. Interaction with BBM will be included.

How about iPhone? No Spinlet app for iPhone? 

iPhone is not huge here, except for South Africa. We will develop for iPhone, but it is not top priority. Java version is more a priority than the iPhone version.

Why the partnership with Samsung?

We are open for partnership with a lot of people and we are always open for partnerships. We are in partnership with all the OEMs.

How many users do you currently have since the soft launch?

I don’t want to disclose that now.

But are you impressed with the figures?

I am surprised. I am shocked, not about the number of people but the usage. The amount of time used within the app.

What new stuff should users be expecting from Spinlet?

We are working round the clock and releasing new tracks, and we are coming out with new version of the app.

How is Spinlet funded?

I have been part of a company called Verod Capital. It is an investment firm similar to a VC firm. We invest in private equity. Verod Capital in funding Spinlet. No other investors yet. We are in talks with investors from outside of Nigeria that have interests in investing. But we don’t need the funds yet. We want to make a massive impact first.

The conversation came to an end with me sipping my Chapman. It was an interesting conversation. I couldn’t possibly write everything here. From the way Spinlet is being designed, they will be working with artists, record lables, new artists and brands that are looking for reach to the demography that use their product.

This reminds me of the saying, if you are not paying, you are on the menu. Brands can use Spinlet as a platform to market to those who stream music for free. Will Spinlet be as successful as iTune and Spotify?