Founded less than a year ago by Thionville residents Michael Gonzalez and Xavier Michely, KEYM aims to establish itself as the go-to social media and networking solution for music industry professionals and beyond. Still in its early stages, the co-founders provide a glimpse into their origins and future.
In an industry as competitive and saturated as the music industry, finding suitable talent for your projects should be a piece of cake. But according to KEYM’s co-founders Michael Gonzalez and Xavier Michely, this is not the case.
The problem of finding talent first came to the attention of Michael, a business developer, when he started working with Xavier, an artist manager and studio owner.
“Xavier spent hours on the phone trying to chase down people with the right skills and I could not understand how in the age of smartphones, 5G, and social networks he was forced to work like he was still in the 90s. So that’s how I came up with the idea of KEYM and thought of building an organisation tool which would allow people from different fields to find the correct partners in a few easy clicks,” explains Michael Gonzalez.
While this frustration was born out of their experience in music industry, the two co-founders insist that their platform will also be open towards other industries. By using advanced search filters which include location, experience, instrument and genre, just to mention a few, KEYM wants to make it simpler for professionals across industries to collaborate.
“We want to decrease the big separation between beginners and professionals and make it easier for beginners to get some exposure.”
Michael Gonzalez
Opening Doors For Beginners
KEYM’s ambition goes beyond creating a LinkedIn for the music and entertainment industry. Indeed, the co-founders explain that they want their platform to have the UX of Instagram and the trustworthiness of LinkedIn.
By giving every user control over their own feed, KEYM wants to achieve two aims. On the one hand, they want to create an online space where users can upload their portfolios and check out potential collaborator’s work. On the other hand, they want to their platform to act as an online community where professionals can interact with each other and their fans, promote themselves, and sell their merch.
Furthermore, in an industry as reliant on word-of-mouth networking, KEYM also hopes to make it easier for beginners to break into the market and create a more level playing field.
“If you make it easier to meet people in the industry and if you give a platform for people to show their work, you can increase and develop the quality of the music industry, and that’s one of our goals. We want to decrease the big separation between beginners and professionals and make it easier for beginners to get some exposure,” says Michael Gonzalez.
Currently in their funding phase, KEYM is still developing their platform and is looking to finish their MVP by the beginning of March. With the help of Xavier’s extensive network of industry professionals, they aim to get 5-10k users for their beta testing phase next year.
Then the platform, which will be both available as an app and website, is going to be launched in Luxembourg, France, the UK and Spain.
