Interview Indiana Gregg Music Star, Businesswoman – Building Kerchoonz.com one of the first Music Social Networks
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” – Plato
Indiana Gregg is an artist, product designer and entrepreneur and businesswoman. Born in Terre Haute, USA. Indiana Gregg started her career as a musician in 1994, with hits such as “Tonight,” “Sweet Things” and “For Life.” As a tech entrepreneur and businesswoman, Indiana founded and was director of Kerchoonz.com, a social networking platform and artist aggregation and marketplace that was launched in 2008 and bought-out in 2010. The model for which changed the face of the music industry today.
Interview focus
1. An introduction from you – background, overview, education…
2. Career highlights as a musician?
3. Can you tell us about your company Kerchoonz.com?
Kerchoonz.com, was one of the first social networking platforms and artist aggregation and marketplace that was launched in 2008 and bought-out in 2010. The model for which changed the face of the music industry today. Can you tell us about it?
4. You are a serial entrepreneur can you tell us about it?
5. Cosmetics industry experience?
6. Work as an entrepreneur and creative person?
7. Work on app interface, product design and UI and UX.
8. What are your views on our society, technology and digital transformations?
9. With Covid-19 what ways do you envision to redesign our society with technology and social impact?
10. What are your visions for the present and future?
Indiana Gregg Interview Quotes and Highlights
· When I was a child I had speech issues so I started to take piano lessons. To help me speak better I was told to write songs with lots of “s”s and difficult words. That was how I got into music in the first place. After some challenging times in my adulthood I decided to start a music career.
Music was my life at some point. I saw it as a solving-problem where I can go and be myself. It helped me and is still helping me a lot.
· About the music industry. When I started my career in the early 2000s, mp3 was taking off and the music industry went through a crisis. Streaming became a huge thing and music started to be consumed via mp3 downloads instead of buying the albums and the songs. We tried to move into the new trend in the music industry which was these digital marketplaces, including early streaming platforms. But the industry in the beginning was reluctant to move quickly to these platforms. In fact, they believed that mp3 download was the to-go trend. However, improvements in wireless communication with the release of 3G and better bandwidth helped for the streaming platforms to settle.
· About the Kerchoonz.com social network. We built a social network at the time when Myspace was at its peak. Kerchoonz.com, is a social networking platform and artist aggregation and marketplace that was launched in 2008 and bought-out in 2010. The model for which changed the face of the music industry today.
· We decided to launch home concerts in 2007 through My Space and different platforms. We decided to do it so to have a different experience for our audience and for the artists to enjoy and feel music. When you are on a stage, in front of thousands of people both the artist and the audience feel music as a massive event. We wanted to do it differently, in a more intimate space and it worked very well.
· The music industry has been ripped off for years and years. The music industry is made by a lot of people that work really hard to follow their dreams. They invest their whole time and energy into it would be just fair to ask for a fairer share. We saw this back then and we tried to do something about it. We went to lobby governments and increase awareness of the inequalities of the music industry.
· Indiana Gregg as an entrepreneur. After a while I decided to move to product development and business and I was involved in different initiatives all these years.
· About entrepreneurship. I would say to people that want to start a business to look for partners and collaborations who can guide and support you all the way. If you start something alone, in my experience at least, you can be overwhelmed, especially in this digital world we live in where there are so many channels and opportunities to take advantage of. In parallel, it is important to do the homework and think about your “magic sauce”, what are your competitors, what is your target market, brand consistency, marketing, etc.
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Indiana Gregg Biography
Indiana Gregg is an artist, product designer and entrepreneur and businesswoman. Born in Terre Haute, USA. Indiana Gregg started her career as a musician in 1994, with hits such as “Tonight,” “Sweet Things” and “For Life.” As a tech entrepreneur and businesswoman, Indiana founded and was director of Kerchoonz.com, a social networking platform and artist aggregation and marketplace that was launched in 2008 and bought-out in 2010. The model for which changed the face of the music industry today.
In July 2008 Indiana Gregg instigated a series of e-mails with ThePirateBay.org concerning a perceived copyright violation. Indiana then wrote a lengthy article on the subject of respecting artists’ copyrights internationally.
Music Career
The roots and beginnings of Indiana’s professional career began in 1994 when she moved to southern France and lived there for 12 years (amongst other countries such as Germany, Finland and England). During her time in France, she worked in various bands exploring progressive rock, jazz, and dance music. She recorded several studio demos at Marilyn Studios,Cagnes-sur-Mer over a period of three years revealing the songwriter’s deeper retreat into her music exploring jazz and soul music and penning a number of songs. In 2003, she joined a progressive rock band and the musical influences turned to a more aggressive tone mixed with both alternative and gospel influences.
In 2004, she was invited to appear on the track Tonight from Kool and the Gang’s album, The Hits Reloaded, other artists appearing on that album include Angie Stone, Beverley Knight, Lisa Stansfield, Big Brovaz, Jamiroquai, Tony Hadley. In 2005, she formed a Scottish-based independent record label called Gr8pop with her later-to-become husband Ian Morrow. Ingenious Venture Capital Trust (Avatar, Life of Pi) and Scottish Enterprise supported the project alongside the Gr8pop investors. Her debut album, Woman at Work, was released to the UK in April 2007. The diversity of her music has been explained as an artistic well or “stew”: “It’s like a stew that has been cooking for a long while: well blended and tasty. Ms. Gregg has achieved a rare feat in the world of music outside of jazz: she has created something organic. And it didn’t happen overnight.”
In 2005 two of her songs, “Sweet Things” and “For Life”, made it to the top finalists in the Pop category (56 finalists out of the 4000 songs entered) of The UK Songwriting Contest. These two songs were later also released on her 2007 album titled Woman at Work. In 2005, Indiana also did a supporting tour with Wet Wet Wet. Five additional songs by Gregg made the semi-finalist category in the same year: “Something like me”, “Crazy”, “How Many Tears”, “Love is Blind”, and “Oh Me Oh My” all of which were also included on her debut album “Woman At Work”.
In 2005, the demo album “Something like me” had a limited release on the independent label Onestone Music Later that year, Onestone Music did a deal with Scottish label Gr8pop Ltd. In 2006, Gr8pop ltd. did a deal with Ingenious VCT with a view to release Gregg’s debut album in 2007.
“Home Concerts”
Indiana received media attention in early summer of 2007 surrounding her “home concert” competitions where fans entered from all over the world to win a chance at having her play in their home for their friends. The competitions were covered in articles appearing in the Evening Times, Daily Record, Daily Mirror and various regional newspapers in the UK. Videos of her home gigs were posted to YouTube, Myspace, MSN and various other websites with a message about the free competition details. Winners for the series were announced on Myspace and subsequently, UKgigs TV began filming the new series in May 2007. Subsequently, videos of the home gigs were streamed on the front pages of Bebo and over the UK gigs and theatre networks.
The Home concerts first appeared in the press when the Express wrote about a surprise concert she performed for a fan’s fiancée home in 2005 after he saw her live in Exeter supporting Wet Wet Wet. Indiana Gregg announced home concerts in the fall of 2005 which took place primarily in October. In December 2005, she embarked on a Starbucks coffee house tour in every major UK city playing intimate acoustic sets in the coffee houses throughout 2006 whilst recording her debut album in the same year. In February and March 2007, she played a UK support tour with Lemar. Immediately following the Lemar tour, in April 2007 she began a third “House Gigs” tour which led to UKgigs.tv taking interest in filming the home concerts. The first filmed home concert took place in her own Glasgow home on May 21. On May 23, she played a concert in Finchley North London for the Ovarian Cancer Support group. Subsequent gigs were scheduled and filmed across the UK in Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh the week beginning June 10.
The general awareness at this early stage of her career led to performances in festivals in the UK in summer 2007.
Tech Entrepreneurship And Executive career
Indiana founded and was director of Kerchoonz.com, a social networking platform and artist aggregation and marketplace that was launched in 2008 and bought-out in 2010. The model for which changed the face of the music industry today.
Likewise, Indiana served as COO of Sportside, global managing director of Cosmetic Laboratory of Europe. Indiana has also been involved as CMO in Digitzs, a Fintech company in the payments space and as COO for Your dChi, a platform experience that seamlessly integrates your digital footprint creating synergies between people, businesses, and their network.
She is a keynote speaker MIDEM on digital marketing and effective content delivery. Tippit Festival on the topic of Socially Conscious Creativity and Entrepreneurship.
Links/Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Gregg
https://twitter.com/indianagregg?lang=en
https://www.linkedin.com/in/indianagregg
https://www.last.fm/music/Indiana+Gregg/+wiki
https://www.instagram.com/indianagregg/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerchoonz.com
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