Jacob Zax, BSBA’13, has been helping people make music since he graduated. From launching his first music composing app during spring semester of his senior year, Zax and his startup Edify have gone on to create another app, MusiQuest. We’ve got an update direct from Denver where Zax and his company are based.
Mariel Sokolov at WashU’s Fuse recently interviewed Jacob Zax. Here are some excerpts:
Today, Edify is a seven-person Denver company dedicated to making music education more accessible, creative, and fun for kids. Their new free app, MusiQuest, teaches kids how to compose their own music with lessons that first explain the fundamental roles of music (melody, harmony, chords, bass, and drums), and then go on to teach beginners how to create their own songs in different styles from classical to pop. MusiQuest is an educational expansion of Edify’s first app, Sketch-a-Song, which has been used by over 300,000 people to create over 1,750,000 songs to date. Jacob chatted about founding Edify and his entrepreneurial experience.
What inspired your business?
Jacob Zax, BSBA’13
We released the first version of our original app, Sketch-a-Song, as seniors in 2013. It was basically a side-project in our minds, just a fun way for college students to compose music together. But, we started hearing lots of stories about young kids loving the app so we set up some interviews to figure out why. We were immediately blown away by how articulate and excited these kids were about creating music with Sketch-a-Song — their passion is what convinced us this could be a real business.
What unexpected challenges have you encountered while developing or running your business?
One of the biggest challenges and constant surprises is how hard it can be to communicate effectively why your startup is novel and important. You spend so much time thinking about your business, and you’re so confident in the fundamental premises (that convinced you to commit your life to it, after all), that it’s easy to lose track of how little reason other people have to believe you’ll succeed. Effective pitching requires you to really embrace the mindset of “why should they care?”
The co-creators of the Sketch-A-Song app have been friends since they were classmates at Denver East High School.
For some more on Edify’s backstory check out this post from 2013, when Jacob and friends launched their first app, Sketch-a-Song. Thanks to Jacob for sharing this photo of his entrepreneurial bros from high school!
What life experience best prepared you for developing and running this business?
Definitely starting the chess club at WashU. I didn’t think of it as entrepreneurial at the time, but basically all of the skills you build in starting or leading a club: recruiting members, appealing for fundraising, planning events, building organizational culture, etc… are relevant in the startup world. Chess also maps well onto entrepreneurship in that you have to honestly assess your position, narrow down from a large pool of potential ways to move forward, make a decision in pursuit of a plan, and then start the process all over again shortly thereafter.
What advice do you have for future entrepreneurs?
Hard conversations — with yourself, your co-founders, your employees, your investors, everyone — are absolutely critical to success. Primary hat tip to investor Dave Morin on this one. It’s true in life, too, because the ability to make difficult conversations productive is how you get through the tough times.
