Jérémy Cochoy is based out of Paris, France and is the CTO and co-founder of Symphonia SAS. Symphonia is an app that turns your voice into music.
Jérémy has a doctorate in mathematics and computer science with a PhD on Persistent Homology. He has taught computer science at the IUT d’Orsay and University Paris Descart and given conferences on ML and functional programming from time to time.
In an exclusive interview with AsiaTechDaily, Jérémy says:
Marketing is not packaging your existing product in a fancy way to sell it to the customer that does not need it. Marketing understands the customer needs and make incremental improvements to your product according to this information so that your product becomes a necessity for them.
The advice I would give to entrepreneurs developing apps is to do a lot of testing with a broad range of users. Do not restring yourself from your family or friends because they may not represent a sampling of the actual population/market. Go to a Starbuck and ask random peoples to try your product. See why and when they get confused, fix your product and try again.
Read on to know more about Jérémy Cochoy and his journey.
Please tell me about your personal background, and what are you working on currently?
Jérémy Cochoy: I studied mathematics at the university after one year in an engineering school that didn’t provide enough challenge for me. I continued on this path until I got a Ph.D. in Mathematics and Computer Sciences. I had been programming since middle school and didn’t felt myself staying inside academia, especially in France, where opportunities are lacking. I met my partner around the time I was looking for a new challenge, and after some time, we concluded we should build a software company together. We both have a strong « Musical sensibility,» and my partner has been with this idea of using your voice to compose music. Realizing the technical challenge could be met, we founded Symphonia.
Symphonia is an app that turns your voice into music. You sing a melody to your phone, and Symphonia can play it again with the sound of a Piano, a Violin, an Ocarina. You can layers different instruments together, each of them playing their melody, and build a full song like a professional musician—all of this using only your voice and the idea in your head.
For professional singers and musicians, Symphonia is a tool that allows you to take « musical notes » of your ideas while you are in commute and work on them when you go back to your studio.
What motivated you to get started with your company?
Jérémy Cochoy: We are both create peoples, we want to bring values to peoples, and we think that by being active and invested, we can make the world of music app changes and move faster. We were very thrilled with the idea of writing music using only our voice. When the first prototype came to life, we were thrilled.
How have you attracted users and grown your company from the start?
Jérémy Cochoy: We are still at the beginning of the process. The simple search of the app on the App Store accounts for most of the traffic. Visibility from music websites that wrote about the app comme seconds. Finally, the words of our users to their friends shouldn’t be neglected.
What’s your business model, and how have you grown your revenue? What strategy worked best?
Jérémy Cochoy: We considered diverse models. After looking at statistics and gathering pieces of information from similar companies, the best monetization strategy for a high-quality product is a subscription. But the fees should reasonable for the value your app brings. If you make a single mistake of 1$, customers can shift from « this app is very affordable » to « it is overpriced.»
How much money (funding) have you raised in total so far? When was the recent funding round? (Additionally, any plan for the future?)
Jérémy Cochoy: We got funded by the « French Tech » initiative created by the French government to promote the emergence of successful startups in France.
What are some marketing tips to help maximize the success of a product launch?
Jérémy Cochoy:
- Make sure you understand who your customers are. They may not be who you expected when you started your company.
- Make your product easier to understand. You should be able to describe your product in one sentence. Otherwise, it is too complicated.
- Make sure it is easier to use and peoples take ownership of the product. With Symphonia, they enjoy when they realize they can sing what they have in their mind. You would be surprised how conscientiously they do it.
What are the most common mistakes founders make when they start a company? (or What should all first-time startup founders know before they start their business?)
Jérémy Cochoy: There are two very common mistakes:
- Staying in an ivory tower for two years and build a product without user feedback.
- Shipping an unfinished/unpolished product after a few months.
The first one is the most mentioned. In the first case, you will build a product that is perfect for your conception of the world. Unfortunately, your conceptualization of the world and the world itself are likely different. Therefore such a product will probably not find any market.
The second one is the opposite extreme. It is releasing a product that is still at the stage of a prototype and does not work ultimately. Although it can be appealing to think that customers won’t judge the book by the cover and forgive some few crashes or little bugs, it is rarely the case. If your product isn’t finished, users will likely be disappointed, uninstall your app and never touch it again.
The advice I would give to entrepreneurs developing apps is to do a lot of testing with a broad range of users. Do not restring yourself from your family or friends because they may not represent a sampling of the actual population/market. Go to a Starbuck and ask random peoples to try your product. See why and when they get confused, fix your product and try again.
What should all first-time startup founders know before they start their business?
Jérémy Cochoy: It is harder and harder than it looks. Not because of the individual problems you have to solve or the size of the task you are trying to accomplish but the rhythm which you have to sustain.
You will face many small problem continually that you will have to consistently solve without loosing your motivation. At the same time, you should always question yourself, either you are heading in the right direction. You want to be aware of any mistake you make as soon as possible so that you can correct your trajectory. It is challenging, especially at the beginning, when you do not have positive feedback yet and don’t know if you are doing everything right or everything wrong.
What do most startups get wrong about marketing?
Jérémy Cochoy: Marketing is not packaging your existing product in a fancy way to sell it to the customer that does not need it. Marketing understands the customer needs and make incremental improvements to your product according to this information so that your product becomes a necessity for them.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? And What advice do you have for someone who is interested in doing similar things like yours or in a similar direction?
Jérémy Cochoy: Go to a Starbucks and give your phone to a potential customer. What were they do with it, you will learn a lot.
What are the one or two things that you would do differently if you could go back to 10 years ago?
Jérémy Cochoy: I am not sure I would go for a Ph.D. and all those years of studies, but for sure, I would allocate more time to understanding how to turn projects and prototypes into a real product that are both appealing and useful to people.
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