Why I Left My Day Job to Build a Better Music Pitching Platform
Why I Left My Day Job to Build a Better Music Pitching Platform
I'm going to tell you the story of how I went from frustrated user to founder — and why I think the music pitching platform market is long overdue for real competition.
This isn't a polished origin story crafted for a press release. It's the honest version, with the doubts, the calculations, and the moments where I almost didn't do it.
The Frustration That Started Everything
For years, I worked in music licensing. I composed, I pitched, I managed catalogs, and I used DISCO to share playlists with supervisors and clients. Like everyone in the space, I accepted its quirks because there was no credible alternative.
But "accepting quirks" gradually became "absorbing pain points." The frustrations accumulated:
The pricing kept climbing. What started as a reasonable monthly fee grew with add-ons, removed plans, and price increases. I was paying nearly $60 a month for a tool that often frustrated me. As an independent, that stung.
The interface fought me. Simple tasks — creating a playlist, adding a section, sharing a link — required more clicks than they should have. The design hadn't been meaningfully updated in years. Every session included at least one moment of "why is this so hard?"
The analytics were shallow. I could see that someone had played a track, but I couldn't see how long they listened, whether they came back, or which tracks got the most attention. The data I needed to make smart follow-up decisions simply wasn't available.
Transcoding was unreliable. I uploaded a track that sounded perfect on my system. After the platform's transcoding, it had an audible artifact in the first five seconds. I'd sent the link to a supervisor before I caught it. That's the kind of mistake that can cost you a relationship.
Support was slow. When I reported the transcoding issue, it took four days to get a response. For a tool I was paying premium prices for, that felt unacceptable.
None of these issues was catastrophic on its own. But together, they painted a picture of a platform that had gotten comfortable. When you're the only game in town, there's less incentive to innovate, less pressure to listen to users, and less urgency to fix what's broken.
I kept thinking: "Someone should build a better version of this." And then one day, the thought shifted: "Maybe I should build a better version of this."
The Decision
I didn't quit my job on a whim. I spent six months researching, planning, and pressure-testing the idea before making the leap.
The questions I needed to answer:
Is this a real market? Music pitching platforms serve a specific niche — publishers, sync agents, composers, and music libraries who need to share playlists professionally. It's not a massive market, but it's a professional market where people pay for tools that work. I estimated the addressable market at tens of thousands of active users globally, with the majority concentrated in the US, UK, and a handful of European markets.
Is there a real problem? I talked to over fifty music professionals — composers, publishers, sync agents, and a few music supervisors. The complaints were remarkably consistent: too expensive, too complex, analytics aren't good enough, support is slow. These weren't edge cases. These were the mainstream experience.
Can I build something better? I had enough technical skill to build a prototype, and modern tools (React, Supabase, Tailwind) made it possible for a small team — or even one person — to build something that would have required a full engineering department a decade ago. The technology stack had matured to the point where a solo founder could build a production-quality SaaS application.
Can I afford the risk? I had savings. Not a huge runway, but enough to cover twelve months of living expenses if the product generated zero revenue. I didn't have kids or a mortgage at the time. If there was ever a window to take a bet on myself, this was it.
After six months of deliberation, I made the call. I gave my notice, cleared my calendar, and started building.
Building in the Open
I decided early on to build DropCue in public — sharing progress, design decisions, and even mistakes with the community I was building for. This wasn't a marketing tactic (though it turned out to be effective marketing). It was a philosophy.
The music industry is a relationship business. Trust is everything. If I was going to ask music professionals to switch from the platform they'd used for years, they needed to trust that I understood their workflow, cared about their feedback, and would be transparent about what the product could and couldn't do.
Building in public meant:
- Sharing screenshots and prototypes before features were finished. People could see the product taking shape and offer feedback that directly influenced the design.
- Being honest about limitations. When DropCue launched, it didn't have a marketplace or discovery features. I said so. I didn't hide it or promise vague timelines. I said "this is what it does today, this is what's coming, and here's why we prioritized what we prioritized."
- Responding to every piece of feedback personally. In the early months, every email, every DM, every feature request got a personal response from me. Many still do.
- Publishing the roadmap. Users can see what's planned, what's in progress, and what's shipped. No black box.
This approach attracted the kind of early adopters I wanted — thoughtful professionals who cared about the tool and were willing to invest their feedback in helping it improve. The Founding Member lifetime deal ($599 for permanent Pro access) was my way of rewarding that trust with exceptional value.
Why Competition Matters
Some people ask why the market needs another music pitching platform. "DISCO works fine. Why reinvent the wheel?"
Here's why competition matters:
Prices drop. When there's only one option, the price is whatever the market will tolerate. When there's a credible alternative, prices reflect actual value. DropCue's Pro plan at from $15/month puts pressure on the entire market to justify premium pricing.
Innovation accelerates. Monopolies don't innovate — they maintain. Competition forces everyone to improve. Since DropCue launched, I've noticed the incumbent platform quietly shipping improvements that had been requested for years. That's not a coincidence. That's competition working.
Users get choices that match their needs. Not every music professional needs the same tool. A solo composer has different needs than a major publisher. A boutique sync agency has different needs than a global music library. Choice means better fit.
The entire ecosystem benefits. When pitching tools are better, pitches are better. When pitches are better, supervisors have a better experience. When supervisors have a better experience, more music gets placed. Better tools lift the whole industry.
I didn't build DropCue to destroy the competition. I built it because the market deserved an alternative, and the people working in music deserved better options.
What I Got Wrong (And What I Learned)
Building in public means being honest about mistakes. Here are a few things I got wrong in the early days:
I underestimated the emotional cost of switching platforms. Even users who complained about the incumbent were hesitant to switch. Their playlists, their contacts, their shared links — all of that lived on the other platform. Switching wasn't just a feature comparison; it was an emotional decision. I had to learn that making the switch easy wasn't enough. I had to make the switch feel safe.
I tried to build too many features at once. In the first few months, I wanted DropCue to have everything — marketplace, submissions, watermarking, the works. A mentor told me: "Ship the thing that's ten times better, and add the rest later." I refocused on the core workflow — create, organize, share, track — and made that experience exceptional before expanding.
I underpriced the lifetime deal initially. The Founding Member deal was originally even lower than $599. Early users were getting incredible value, which was the point — but I realized the price needed to reflect the quality of the product to maintain credibility. At $599, it's still an absurdly good deal (pays for itself in about a year), but it communicates that this is a serious tool, not a side project.
Where DropCue Is Today
As of early 2026, DropCue has:
- A production-ready platform with playlist creation, sections, analytics, access controls, document attachments, and a beautiful shared playlist experience.
- A growing community of Founding Members who are actively shaping the product through daily feedback.
- An inbox feature for receiving music submissions from external artists and producers.
- A roadmap that includes marketplace features, team accounts, and advanced branding — all informed by real user needs.
- A pricing model that proves you can build a sustainable business without overcharging your users.
We're not where we'll be in a year. But we're already where a lot of users need us to be today.
The Bigger Bet
Leaving a stable job to build a SaaS product in a niche market is, objectively, a risky move. But here's the bet I'm making:
I believe that the music professionals who pitch music for a living deserve tools that are modern, affordable, and built with genuine respect for their workflow. I believe that a small, focused team that listens to its users can build a better product than a larger company that's stopped listening. And I believe that the sync licensing industry is big enough and professional enough to support more than one platform.
If I'm right, DropCue becomes the tool that a generation of music professionals grew up with. If I'm wrong, at least I tried to make something better.
So far, the bet is paying off.
[Join the Founding Members and be part of what we're building.](/signup)