Research Outline

Record Label Software Competitive Landscape

Goals

The goal is to understand the competitive landscape for record label management software by identifying the major players in the space and determining the following details for each major player: website, market share, number of users, yearly revenue over the past five years, net profits, services offered, and business model. business model, and subscription fees and their inclusions. These details will be used to inform a pitch deck for a new, differentiated product.

Early Findings

Analysis of BeatStars

  • BeatStars' website is www.beatstars.com.
  • BeatStars' market share could not be located in the public domain. The size of the market it operates in also does not appear to be readily available. What is known is that BeatStars has more than 2 million users at present.
  • BeatStars is a privately held company and is therefore not obligated to disclose its financial information. However, according to ZoomInfo, BeatStars' revenue was $21.2 million as of Q4 2019 and $23.1 million as of Q4 2020. And according to an article published by Forbes in January 2017, BeatStars generated a revenue of $3 million in 2016 and was on track to generate a revenue of almost $7 million in 2017.
  • As can be seen in the Form C-AR it submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BeatStars reported net incomes of $11,255 and $275,593.59 for fiscal years ending December 31, 2016, and December 31, 2017, respectively.
  • BeatStars offers a marketplace where individuals can buy or sell beats. It enables creators to publish or release their music to key digital music platforms such as Apple Music, Pandora, SoundCloud, Spotify, and YouTube and keep all the earnings collected.
  • It provides music creators with tools such as the BeatStars Marketplace and the BeatStars Studio App to help them grow their business.
  • Individuals who want to monetize their music have the following three price options to choose from: Free (for sellers who have just started their business), Marketplace (for sellers who wish to gain access to chosen platform features), and Pro Page (for sellers who want a customized storefront and access to all platform features).
  • The Marketplace option charges $9.99/month for sellers who wish to pay monthly or $95.88/year for sellers who wish to pay annually.

Closest Competitors of BeatStars

  • BeatStars' closest competitors appear to be Airbit, SoundClick, Soundee, Sellfy, Beat Brokerz, Soundgine, Beat Websites, Traktrain, and RocBattle.

Summary of Early Findings

  • The market share of BeatStars is not readily available in the public domain. It could be triangulated if the size of the market that BeatStars operates in is known, but, unfortunately, that is not the case. Triangulating the size of the market would warrant a separate job.
  • Early findings suggest that it is likely infeasible to provide the yearly revenue and profit of each player over the past five years. Revenue estimates, which are global in scope, could be provided but not for each of the past five years.
  • Players in the space are likely privately held companies that are not obligated to disclose financial information. The net profits of BeatStars' competitors are likely not available in the public domain.