[Music], [Nerd-Content], [Personal] It all comes back …

Two years and six days ago I was a third-semester student and in the middle of an internship at SoundCloud. Additionally I played in an acoustic band and, on that very Thursday, we had a gig in Admiralspalast Berlin. Before us played Mugison and, to cut the story short, he accidentally destroyed my guitar. (Read the full story in German here. Damn, has my writing style changed …)

Now, two years later I work full-time at SoundCloud and don’t play in a band anymore. But today I discovered, by accident, that Mugison uploaded a lot of his music to SoundCloud. Many songs are free for download. And he even has a premium account. I hope he takes the discount code I’ve sent him so that he keeps using SoundCloud. This is the song that he played when my guitar got smashed:

I like that things constantly change and come and go. But it is also comfortable to know that things come back and that this life is going in big circles. I am super excited about what the future has to unveil …

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[Mobile Photos] Goodbye HPI

Today was my last visit at HPI for now. Bachelor Graduation done. Maybe I’ll return someday …

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[Nerd-Content] Twitter Roundup #24

• Switched from Firefox to Google Chrome. Amazed by the speed and stability
• Real Life is a great (german speaking) about-nerds blog …
• Ruby Koans are a great way to learn Ruby
• I will be at Music Hack Day Barcelona in two weeks
• SoundCloud is hiring like crazy. YOU should apply!
• Flat prizes in Berlin have increased by 14 percent within a year

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[Nerd-Content], [Personal] On doing things fast

When I was a kid I had electric bass lessons for some years. Whenever I got a new song to play or a new technique to learn my teacher said: “Do it really slow in the beginning. Focus on doing it in the absolute right way. Once you got it perfect increase the tempo a bit. Repeat this until you reach the desired speed.”

Appart from the fact that ‘Practise is everything’ this taught me that speed is not achieved by doing it as fast as possible but by practising quality. Speed is a by-product of quality work and a lot of practise.

Currently I’m experiencing this exact phonemena again. I have to find my way around in a big new codebase and by the way learn Ruby and Rails. I discover new exciting and new bugging things every day. And programming a feature or fix a bug takes me ages.

I focus a lot on doing it in the optimal way. Code quality is nothing to compromise on. And the great thing is that I can already see and feel how I get faster with it. Not by ‘getting it done asap’ but by really understanding what I’m doing. It feels good to work that way.

P.S. Code reviews are awesome!

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[Music] Small #a2n_camp Retrospective

In the beginning of this week I was at the all2gethernow camp. This are some of the things I took home from there. But I might be wrong on some or all parts …

There is money to be made with music apart from signing a major record deal, like:

• Playing Gigs
• Selling Merch
• Get Donations (e.g. with Flattr)
• License your music to third parties
• Do clients work
• Sell your music to a small audience but get big cut of revenue

Music can not be sold as physical product anymore. It is changing to being an experience. The experience of being a fan of an artist and being constantly engaged with them. The goal for artists is to build a loyal fan base that stays with the artist for a long time and not only listens to music but is accesible in other ways like mail or sovial networks as well.

Music streaming (like Spotify) does not generate substantial revenue for artists, but is great for building an audience and eventually making fans.

The people most complaining about the state are the ones that do not add value. The music industry has a massive infrastructure that is not needed anymore but still wants to be supported. One of the biggest problem with the decline of big labels is financing. Small artists have to find other ways like finding investors outside the music circus or bootstrap without big money.

“Everyone gets 15 minutes of fame” could be replaced with “Everyone gets 15 people one is famous to”.

Interesting people on a2n_camp were: Zoë Keating, Steve Lawson, Peter Sunde, David Strauss, Audiolith Label

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[Nerd-Content] I’ll be at #mhd London and #a2n_camp

Come say “Hi” to me at Music Hack Day London this weekend or at the all2gether now Barcamp in Berlin on Monday and Tuesday.

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[Nerd-Content] I work at SoundCloud

Starting today I work full-time at SoundCloud in the API team. I will make sure that all the great apps that access the API continue to work and thrive. I will answer questions of developers and users on the mailing list and in person. And I will get my head around Ruby and Rails big time.

Sounds like a shitload of fun, fuck yeah!

Among my fellow students I appear to be one of the few who starts a full-time job. I got asked several times how I got hired, so this is the story:

In summer 2008 I read about SoundCloud in De:Bug (original article in german as post or in this pdf page 22). I got an invite to the private beta by Tanith and was impressed by the well-executed concept and the slick design. At that time I was searching for a brief summer internship. I figured that it should either be at Ableton or SoundCloud. My mail to jobs@soundcloud.com was answered so fast by Eric, the CTO of SoundCloud, that I didn’t even sent the application to Ableton …

During the three-weeks internship I worked on the Facebook app and helped with the launch. After the internship I somehow stuck around. At Music Hack Day Berlin we programmed Tracksonamap which we also used for Twestival.fm later.

And I became a SoundCloud evangelist. If you hung out with me within the last two years chances are that I tried to give you SoundCloud stickers or made you promise to get an account. My identification with the Cloud is pretty high.

So in the last two years I was able to watch how the idea of SoundCloud grew into a real business and part of today’s music industry. My enthusiasm for SoundCloud is unbroken. Thus it was only a logical step to get together when I finished my studies. And now I am really looking forward to a great time in the Cloud …

BTW: We are hiring!

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[Mobile Photos] I’m in the Alps

On top of Mt. Mythen in Switzerland

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[Mobile Photos] Heading South

Last trip before starting to work. Hitchhiking to Switzerland.

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[Nerd-Content] Twitter Roundup #23

• I survived Iceland
• Volksbegehren zur Offenlegung der Wasserverträge in Berlin unterzeichnen!
• live fast, die old
• $ telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

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