iNDIEVOX
A Bastion of Indie Music in Taiwan
Eric Lin / photos Jimmy Lin / tr. by Chris Nelson
May 2013
iNDIEVOX is Taiwan’s biggest indie music download platform. In 2012 alone, more than 20,000 songs by young artists were uploaded to iNDIEVOX for sale, resulting in over 100,000 downloads. It’s a meeting place for Taiwanese musical creativity.
Founder Wu Pochang is the lead singer of the well-known Taiwanese band Echo. Composer, singer, entrepreneur, manager: he has many roles and talents. Struck by Beatles songs he heard in his youth, he formed the band Echo, determined to become a missionary of rock-n-roll. Discovering that Taiwan’s indie musicians had no channel through which to publish their music, he created the iNDIEVOX platform, finding a niche in the market. Wishing to unearth great talent, he has also become a business executive, serving as a vice president of Neutron Innovation (BVI) Ltd.
These disparate roles are held together by his love of music; indeed, they are synergetic!
During Chinese New Year, iNDIEVOX undertook a major relocation, moving from Taipei’s Muzha neighborhood with its mountains and streams, to Ren’ai Road in the heart of the city. This was because of a major corporate reorganization this year.
When you enter the company’s office, you will see an open, airy space adorned with new wood décor. Working in this large open space are 24 employees. But unlike the “geeky” impression often given by web technicians and engineers, the employees are dressed fashionably with an individual flair. Founder Wu himself exudes the air of a rock star, with a wild yet sultry voice that makes you want to shout.
(left) iNDIEVOX is also Taiwan’s most important ticket sales platform for indie music concerts. (right) Young artist Misi Ke often gets fans to attend her concerts through this ticketing system.
iNDIEVOX was founded in March 2008, at a time when the recording industry had experienced a decade of growing pains, transitioning from physical CD sales to online digital downloads. Recording companies were beginning to accept the mp3 as a mainstream reality, and consumers were gradually dropping their habit of illegal downloading, deciding instead to buy them. Around that time, Taiwan’s largest music downloading platform, KKBOX, resolved various royalty disputes, and Apple’s iTunes also entered Taiwan. It took courage and vision for iNDIEVOX to start up at this time.
Just by looking at the name “iNDIEVOX,” we can see where Wu is coming from, as well as the unique business advantage of the platform.
“Indie” is short for “independent” and “vox” is Latin for “voice.” Indie musicians can register on this online music platform, and can upload finished songs at any time for sale.
Indie artists have been able to flood into the market thanks to this scheme. As of April 2013, there are over 80,000 songs on iNDIEVOX, practically all of them indie works. The music sold here is completely different from what’s on KKBOX and iTunes, both of which sell mainstream music produced by major record labels. This way, iNDIEVOX can stay outside the fray of cutthroat price wars, providing a competition-free “blue ocean” for their unique products.
“The more dynamic the indie music market is, the more business that means for iNDIEVOX,” says Wu. So far, 4,600 bands and individual artists have registered to upload their music to the site, with over 400 of them active. The indie music market has seen an unprecedented boom, with iNDIEVOX the mover and shaker behind this wave.
Wu is charged with charisma on stage, and off stage he’s a fiery entrepreneur.
To understand the source of iNDIEVOX’s appeal, we first need to understand Wu.
Wu, 34, is a graduate of National Tsing Hua University in electrical engineering, who formed Echo with his classmate Mu Chunyou while still a student. After graduation he went to New York University for graduate studies in information science, but for the sake of his unfulfilled musical dream, against his family’s wishes he decided to quit school and return to Taiwan. Then in 2002 Echo released their first album, Sensual Drive.
At that time the global recoding industry was experiencing a rapid decline and Taiwan’s indie music scene was still immature. Wu took on website design projects while playing with his band, and from this experience he realized that in writing music, you need to be in tune with the listener.
“Designing a website is yet another form of creativity. It needs to be fast and easily understood at a glance, and users need to feel that the page layout is friendly before they’re willing to go explore its depths. Writing music should be similar,” says Wu. The purpose of creative work is to make people see. Songwriters are often enthusiastic, flaunting their uniquenesses, yet they ignore communication with the audience; thus, many talented geniuses all too often lapse into obscurity.
Connecting artists with audiences has become a subject of Wu’s pondering and practice. He took advantage of his ample connections in the music scene to make appeals, successfully raising NT$5 million in capital. In early 2007, a key stage in the commercialization of music downloading in Taiwan, he got to work preparing the iNDIEVOX platform, and in the same year Echo released their second album, Bastille Day. All at once, momentum surged, driving a new wave of musical creativity in Taiwan.
2009 was a banner year for Wu: that was when iNDIEVOX started to break even. Then in 2010 Echo released their third album, Virgin Air, and were nominated for the Golden Melody Award for best band.
Wu’s web engineering team is chock full of both techie talent and a passion for music.
When business started to take off, everything clicked. iNDIEVOX finally received corporate support in late 2010. Neutron Innovation, owner of the StreetVoice online platform and organizer of the Simple Life festival, decided to invest in iNDIEVOX. Neutron asked Wu to serve as a vice president, helping with corporate restructuring. Their combined power helped make the indie music market bigger and louder.
Wu’s first job was to restructure overlapping parts of iNDIEVOX and StreetVoice. iNDIEVOX’s blog functionality was removed, instead focusing on commerce, while StreetVoice became fully non-profit, a simple promotion and exchange platform. The paid download functionality was connected to iNDIEVOX, focusing its firepower.
In 2012, iNDIEVOX’s yearly turnover reached almost NT$30 million, helping elevate many new bands. For instance, within six months of the release of the band 831’s first post-hiatus single on iNDIEVOX, they became popular enough to hold a concert at the National Taiwan University Sports Center, drawing an audience of more than 3,000. Because of the large jump in the scale of the business, profits grew by 50% in the first quarter of 2013 over the same period in 2012. Profits for 2013 are projected to be double those of last year.
At present, iNDIEVOX’s revenues come chiefly from three sources: music downloads, concert ticket sales, and major musical events.
There are great business prospects in music downloads. iNDIEVOX is cooperating with Academia Sinica to develop a “music discovery” application that helps consumers find songs they like. The way it works is that after a consumer buys music, the software runs an algorithm to seek songs with similar rhythms and audio frequency profiles, and then recommends them for trial listening or purchase. In this way, the consumer can explore new territory.
Regarding ticketing, iNDIEVOX is not only a ticketing agent for major “live house” venues and music festivals throughout Taiwan, but also cooperates with Taiwan’s biggest indie music performance venue, Legacy Taipei. They have launched a smartphone app that lets people order tickets online, then pay for and collect their tickets at a convenience store.
As for major musical events, iNDIEVOX has worked with StreetVoice since 2012 to produce live concerts for TV, recording over 40 popular indie band performances. Starting in April, concerts are scheduled to be aired on the cable TV show The Next Big Thing; this should drive the wave to greater heights.
(left) iNDIEVOX is also Taiwan’s most important ticket sales platform for indie music concerts. (right) Young artist Misi Ke often gets fans to attend her concerts through this ticketing system.
Wu is a charismatic individual, and his live performances explode with energy. When he sings an especially spectacular phrase, he often takes off his shirt and throws himself on the floor, driving his fans into a frenzy. To him, the band and the website are both forms of entrepreneurship, and are helping to weave a beautiful rock-n-roll dream.
This summer, Echo will finally release their fourth album. Looking back at the past decade, Wu can’t resist sharing how music has shaped him as a young man.
“I heard rock-n-roll for the first time when I was in high school, and I was hooked. It was like a muse, urging me to dedicate my life to music and to those who like music.” Over the years, Wu has worn many hats—singer, webmaster, executive—often simultaneously, and has reveled in it throughout, because his dream revolves around believing music can change people.
Wu states perceptively that his purpose in founding iNDIEVOX wasn’t just to put an end to the “starving indie musician” phenomenon and help all forms of music thrive, but also to give the public the chance to hear the magnificence of indie music. This gives meaning to his entrepreneurship, making it all worthwhile.
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