A local tech startup provides economic relief for local musicians during the pandemic and beyond.
Chance Smith and Ajalon Elliott have been best friends for over 20 years, ever since they met at a Roanoke basketball camp and realized their common love of music. As kids, they’d spend hours together not only creating music, but searching for artists and learning how certain types of music moved people. This led to the creation of their first business in high school, an entertainment company for Elliott and Smith to provide safe environments for local high school students to socialize with music.
“We’d bring hundreds of our peers together in the Roanoke gym,” Smith says. “We would not only coordinate the event, but DJ and handle the doors. We wanted something for younger people to do in the area.”
They lost touch after going away to college, though ended up with similar educational backgrounds. Both majored in business (Smith at Radford University, Elliott at Wake Forest University), and Smith continued helping musicians even as he studied and played basketball. But, as lifelong friendships are prone to do, the two young men reconnected over the very same thing they originally connected on: music.
“Ajalon called me to share a story of musicians ‘passing the hat’ [a concept of musicians collecting donations from listeners after a show],” Smith says. “Around the same time, I was beginning to enjoy exclusive house parties over bars and clubs. It made us think about several things: musicians being compensated, listeners being able to bring live music to their homes (or wherever they are) and more opportunities for musicians to play outside the normal venues.”
Smith’s wide exposure to the music scene in various capacities gave them insights that would eventually become the basis for GoghNow, expanding the concept of guaranteed “pass the hat” money for musicians to one of endless opportunities for musicians and access to live music for all – even those beyond the traditional live music scene.
With their technical skills, business acumen and marketing ability, Smith and Elliott took it upon themselves to create an app that eventually turned into GoghNow. Born in 2017, after three long years of market research, music studies and creating the just-right app for users, GoghNow is “your personal musician for any scenario at the tap of a button.”
Elliott currently lives in Roanoke, a target market for the tentative July 3, 2020 launch of GoghNow (Charlotte, NC, is another, as Smith lives there). The two spent years traveling domestically and internationally doing research on various music. Through travel, they gained an understanding of how different cultures used live music to enhance even the most casual experiences, which framed many different scenarios when building the platform.
Here’s how it works: As soon as you log in, you can type your location, or where the live music is needed. The technology takes over and searches for available musicians in the area; a list of people appears and the user can select them as the entertainment that night. Smith and Elliott did their research on rates, removing the negotiation process and guaranteeing reasonable payment for musicians. The request is sent, the musician receives and accepts and shows up with everything they need to perform.
“One thing we’ve noticed is that people typically see live music as a huge production,” Elliott says. “As tech has increased, it’s becoming easier and more cost-efficient to have quality live music productions with less equipment. GoghNow has the ability to specify certain things, but we kept it as simple as possible to give users direct access to live access live music without planning.”
GoghNow’s Roanoke kickoff is a soft launch, a way to tap into their audience with live marketing. They expect, once Phase 3 of CV-19 launches and things go back to “normal,” that their app will gain speed as users become familiar with it; with the uncertainty of CV-19 and what it means for the future of events, GoghNow offers a chance for small gatherings to still enjoy live entertainment. Their technology streamlines the booking process and anyone from restaurant or business owners to individuals hosting private parties can have live music at their fingertips.
Smith and Elliott stress that GoghNow is available for all musicians, whether solo acoustic, five-piece bands, DJs and more. With GoghNow, musicians can now be booked during times their schedule would otherwise be empty. Because the app removes the hours-long research, booking and negotiations, musicians have more chances to explore their craft and prepare for larger shows with smaller shows in between that they may not have normally had on the books.
“One of the important things you look at, like 60% of musicians do not work as musicians on a full-time basis,” Smith adds. “You’re looking at a market where musicians are busy and the time to play plus market themselves, is difficult. What we’re trying to do on our end is use technology for them to play and not worry about the marketing aspect. With GoghNow, they might not have to work a full- or part-time job. They can create and play full-time [because our app gets them gigs to fill the holes].”
For more information on GoghNow or its creators, visit their website at https://goghnow.com.
