Featured Startup on Windows Phone - Digital Geek

You know how you are at the beach sometimes, listening to your portable listening device, jamming to some music and you realize, "Actually, at this moment, that Bruce Springsteen song, Glory Days would be really good." But you can't listen to it, because you don't have that song on your device, because you didn't sync it properly the last time you had it tethered to your computer.

Whatever the cause, you normally cannot take ALL of your music with you ALL of the time.

Well, a dude from Romania wants to solve that problem for you, and his company, Digital Geek, aims to give people access to their entire music collection all the time, no matter where they travel or the device they are using in an easy to use way. He's created the app Style Juke Box, which you can find in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

According to Digital Geek founder Ionut Antiu, who is from Romania, the idea for the app came from a personal need.

"As a music lover and frequent user of music apps, I listen to music daily on my way to college. But sometimes I forget to sync my phone before leaving the house, making it impossible to listen to the latest songs for example. Together with my colleague, Radu Prescura, we started to work spare time on a music app that will also sync the music automatically."

BizSpark:   Tell us who you are and your role in the company:

Ionut Antiu:  My name is Ionut Antiu and I’m the CEO and Co-Founder at Style Jukebox

 

      

BizSpark:   What did you do before creating your company?

Ionut Antiu: I studied CS at INSA de Lyon and I worked for almost one year at a software company in France. Meanwhile, in my spare time, I continued to develop Style Jukebox, a project that I began in high-school. After attracting an angel investment for Style Jukebox it became clear I had to leave France to focus on the startup.

BizSpark:   What is your company’s mission?

BizSpark:   In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:

Ionut Antiu: We are developing Style Jukebox, a revolutionary app allowing people to access their entire music collection anywhere on their devices, even offline.

BizSpark:   Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?

Ionut Antiu: We founded our startup in 2012, after raising an angel investment from a Romanian entrepreneur that allowed us to give up other projects and focus entirely on Style Jukebox, a dream that became true.  We developed and launched an early version in late 2012 and a major update in 2013. We help more than 30 000 users listen to their music on their mobile device. Currently, we are looking for funds to grow our team, allowing us to support a bigger user base.

BizSpark:   How many employees do you have? How many developers?

Ionut Antiu: We are three full-timers, all developers. We also have some support from some local l Marketing and IT community. In the following 6 months, we would like to grow our team up to build a social component to our apps and to ensure that we deliver high-quality apps and service to our users.

BizSpark:   Are you hiring?  If yes, what are you hiring for and where?

Ionut Antiu: We are looking for developers and marketing & PR people to help us grow.

BizSpark:   Which platform are you building on?  Why?

Ionut Antiu: Style Jukebox is a cross-platform service. Our expertise area expands over desktop, mobile and web programming. Our server-side is built entirely on Windows Azure. We have client apps natively on Windows, iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Also, we have a lite web version of Style Jukebox, built using HTML5 and ASP.NET.

BizSpark:   Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?

Ionut Antiu: I see tremendous opportunities in mobile development and Cloud based services. I think startups should build cross-platform solutions instead of getting trapped in the platform war. They should work on empowering users to focus on the service they provide no matter the platform.

BizSpark:   What do you think about the BizSpark Program?

Ionut Antiu: BizSpark is one of the best supportive programs a startup can wish. It helped us save money on Microsoft products and Azure service and focus on developing and marketing our product.

BizSpark:   Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?

Ionut Antiu: Launch as soon as possible. Cut the features that don’t matter so much for your service to launch and focus on metrics and users feedback.

BizSpark:   Who’s your role model?

Ionut Antiu: No one in particular. There are a lot of people I look up for.

BizSpark:   What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?

Ionut Antiu: If you think about starting your own company, just do it! And if music motivates you, check out Style Jukebox! Music and Style Jukebox works for me ;)