In Crowded Music Market, Console.fm Signs up 10K+ in First Three Weeks

WHAT: Gathers electronic music from around the web and arranges songs into genre-specific rooms. Stream curated list or choose your tracks, and share them on Twitter and Facebook. Console.fm [ @consolefm ] sources stream from Soundcloud – about 2,200 songs are currently on the site – and is continuously updated with new music. Recently added Facebook comments to each page/room.

LAUNCHERS: Alex Baldwin, CEO and designer [ @alexbaldwin, LinkedIn ].
Alex Manelis, developer [ @amanelis, LinkedIn ]. Josh Deeden, Developer [ @jdeeden, LinkedIn ]. Jake Kuczeruk, community manager [ @kuczeruk, LinkedIn ].

WHEN/WHERE: July 10 / Mountain View.

INSPIRATION: "We wanted to find the best electronic music around the web," Jake told LAUNCH via email. "We were sick of wasting hours of time doing it manually. Unlike some other similar websites, there's nothing to click or no commercials to distract you from what you're working on. You can just turn it on and go."

BUSINESS MODEL: Experimenting with audio ads, promoted songs, and possibly premium accounts.

CUSTOMERS/GROWTH: Hit 10K+ sign ups in first 21 days.

COMPETITION: Pandora, Turntable.fm, iTunes, Spotify, Rolling.fm, Last.fm, Earbits, Rdio, The Hype Machine.

ON PANDORA: "The closest thing is Pandora," CEO Alex tells LAUNCH. "It's got kind of the same idea as press and play." What makes Console stand out, Alex says, is the fact that "you don't have to really train it – you just have to say generally what you like."

ON TURNTABLE.FM:  Regarding its competition with Turntable.fm, Alex says, "[Console.fm] is as interactive as you want it to be. With Turntable, your interaction is forced," Alex says. "You essentially are babysitting it all day."

INVESTORS: Dave McClure, 500 Startups, Mike Edwards, InitioGroup

RAISING: $500K

SCREEN SHOT:


Add favorites by clicking the heart located next to the song. To view favorite songs, users simply click their name located next to the "Sign Out" tab.