Ep 23: Helmuts Bems
on just raising $6 M, entering China, building B2B partnerships, evaluating R&D progress, and never voting on decision when to pivot
Helmuts Bems is the co-founder and CEO of Sonarworks, a company making individually perfected sound for creators and listeners used by Grammy-award winning producers. Having recently raised a fresh investment round of $6 M led by Almaz Capital (and $13.8 M in total to date), Helmuts and his team are working tenaciously on getting their software into your headphones and changing the way you listen to music, podcasts, and any audio content forever
In this episode we talk about the future of sound, discuss the peculiarities of conquering China and other innovative Asian markets, building a B2B strategic partnerships business that is targeted at B2C as well as the nature of developing an R&D intensive product
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The topics covered in this episode (with Timestamps)
🔈 [03:15] Introduction and sound tech
Making any sound come out of any sound device
How do listeners know what sound they like?
Bass&Treble knobs - in fact, a super complicated UI
Simplifying the sound taste discovery experience
🔈 [20:40] How Sonarworks products can improve your listening experience
Sonarworks SDK is integrated into headphone manufacturers
Customize your sound taste via the Sound ID app
Megatrend - hardware products as base products and software upselling as the main business
Whoever owns the user data, has the value in the supply chain
🔈 [29:45] Conquering China and global markets
China is more innovative than the west, at least in consumer electronics
Who is better fit to produce the future car - Volkswagen or Apple?
Europe is a global laggard in consumer electronics
Having B2B product, but with a B2C engagement
User interfaces in China are generally different than in the west
🔈 [39:10] Specifics of selling a B2B product with B2C audiences
Leveraging professional niche market for consumer product credibility
Benefits of using partner marketing budgets for your promotion
Working with media and bringing media benefits for partners
Working with influencers
Structuring a long term integrated partnership
🔈 [56:00] Building an R&D intensive product
Planning of R&D process with a sprint+iterations approach
Managing pivots & building teams with strategists and executors
Soundtech cluster in Latvia and its origins
Hiring highly specialized engineering talent
Using Winamp to develop automotive sound products
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