The current state of Muxtape
I was browsing News.YCombinator as per usual and came across an interesting concept and site named Muxtape. As I said via Twitter, I like simple. Muxtape is simple.
From what I can tell, it’s going to be a new take on the prowess of having a band profile on Myspace, but made as simple as Virb—hopefully even more simple than Virb is. I’ve come to appreciate the more simplistic designs and companies as of late, and it’s becoming less and less surprising to see they are often the more successful, both financially and in staying true to their initial motivations.
Muxtape was created under the idea of sharing mixtapes with people online, in a rough and more “real” way than something than “having a profile with a playlist;” where the playlist is the profile. As it gained instant popularity, the music labels and their little lapdog, otherwise known as the RIAA, came knocking asking for settlements and business deals—otherwise complicating the dead-simple model of the site and sucking Justin and his site into the black hole of big business.
It’s impressive to me how Justin decided to abandon the labels, effectively dumping a large portion of the music available to place on his ‘muxtapes,’ staying true to his original goal. He says about this:
The [deals] had become too complex for a site founded on simplicity, too restrictive and hostile to continue to innovate the way I wanted to. They’d already taken so much attention away from development that I started to question my own motivations. I didn’t get into this to build a big company as fast as I could no matter what the cost, I got into this to make something simple and beautiful for people who love music, and I plan to continue doing that.
This reminded me of an image I saw on Flickr earlier which is a great example of staying true to one’s self, showing the policy of financial guru Dave Ramsey, where he refuses to accept credit card payment for his products because it goes against his personal finance philosophies. From a business standpoint, many see denying a large portion of potential customers as suicide. Such conviction, sticking to your ideals, is something I respect a lot, and I suspect is a good platform to build a solid business on.
Do you think keeping it simple is the best route in developing a new business? Would you go as far as not accepting credit cards to prove yourself to your customer base?
Muxtape on Twitter: @muxtape
