Majamba: Make Music Free!

Majamba@Paléo2013

This year at Paléo Festival we tested various propositions, thanks to the amazing team we attracted a wonderful group of people - picture attached.

Now the one proposition that is capturing the imagination of the people is - Make Music Free! Anyone will be able to MAKE MUSIC FREE by doing something good and get the best music experience.

// Majamba Music Experience will encompass the following: Music Concerts, Backstage Passes, Artists Meet & Greet, Dinner/Lunch with Artists, Exclusive Music Download, New Artist Showcases and more...

// Doing Good includes: Supporting Artists or Artisans with Social Marketing, Buying authentic products from artisans and Volunteering for social entrepreneurs.

Another achievement, Majamba One Million Sparks is THE largest pre-launch community for any Swiss Start-up - 63,000+ People - with a very, very limited marketing budget.

And we are now getting ready to launch the biggest crowdfunding campaign in Switzerland.

Exciting Times!

About Majamba: We are building a Swiss Social Music Network. We believe that MUSIC is a force for GOOD. Our goal is to lift 100 Million people from poverty, destitution and helplessness by increasing the SALES REVENUES of the social entrepreneurs, companies and organizations who create good JOBS for the bottom of the pyramid.

My Biggest Mistake

The biggest mistake one makes as an entrepreneur with a corporate background is to underestimate the time it takes to get things done. And the longer you spend in corporations and the higher you go in the hierarchy, the easier you think it is to bootstrap.

- It took us 18 months to get the design/development team, seed capital and platform built (some people with programming skills do it in 5 or 6 months).

- It has taken another 18 months to get the value proposition and contracts done (Contract negotiations with Music companies takes time and building an "Affiliate Marketing" program is not easy).

- Now we are focussing on finding the right SPARKS and in parallel working on closing a couple of mega deals.

We are looking to expand our Social Media team

A Small Step Towards Overall Success

Three months of hard work came together for six days and we interacted with thousands; had meaningful conversation with dozens; met with some remarkable people and made new friends. For the first time we have hundred's of people seeing Majamba!

Very grateful to Sasan, Nicolas, Jamila, Jenny, Amelie, Elena, Carla, Arno, Ophelia, Cyrielle, Kimmy, Fed, Diego, Wen, Aslam, Chirag, Ana, Cedric, Gregory, Anil, Narendra, Mike, Francois, Samantha, Damian, Enea and Alex - we had a successful launch of Majamba at Paléo - now we have to decide where do we go from here!

So we will be pulling together a task force to chart the next steps. We are exhausted but relieved!

Thank you everyone for your kindness, encouragement and love!


We are currently preparing a new blog at - www.majamba.me/blog

One Thing You Need To Know

Here is a talk I gave at TEDx Geneva. Hope you like it.

Are you ready for Web 3.0?

In the mid 90's we saw the birth of Web 1.0, I still remember like it was yesterday. Suddenly computers were not boring anymore. There was so much new information that was now available. Information that was locked away in libraries and proprietary databases suddenly made its way on to the world wide web. The World Wide Web (WWW) was the phenomenon and the best brains were occupied with harnessing and displaying this exploding information. First, we saw Netscape and then a bunch of other companies and then Yahoo! and then Google. Apple during this time rose from the ashes to became the maker of devices best suited to browse the Internet. Bulletin boards and transaction sites were everywhere but king of the hill of the 90's were the Information sites. I enjoyed the 90's from inside major universities and companies. I saw hundred's of people jump the corporate ladder or drop-out of the schools to start their dot com. Oh, it was all so cool.


The DotCom bust was the first shuffling of the cards. I remember people forecasting Amazon may not be able to survive. Survive they did to become the biggest eCommerce company providing consumers with incredible deals but also we saw the strength of the eBay's of the world. But really the Web 2.0 belonged to Social Media, Social Commerce companies and Mobile companies. Look at Facebook, Groupon and of course the rise of Apple. Apple stranded the Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 like no one could have imagined. If their Macbooks and iPods were primarily devices to consume and create media; iPhones and iPads became the devices to interact, yes they were the biggest winners of Web 2.0 by every single metric. Note that the things that became big in Web 2.0 were all present in the earlier years, just that they were not mainstream. Facebook leveraged the Bulletin Boards and so did Pinterest.


Now we are entering the remarkable Web 3.0 era. How do we know? Well look around you, people are becoming bored of just social networking. They are starting to look for something new. People are ready to dream once again because the reality is mundane for many and bitter for some. This is when color and design starts to appear everywhere. People are searching for new meaning. We are ready for the shuffling of the cards. Today in mid-2012, it is abundantly clear that the winners in 2014-2020 era will be companies that will allow individuals to mobilize the masses to get big and small things done. Things that are good for the society. This is a role that was the monopoly of politicians (and to some extent civil servants and consumer product companies). It is clear that the masses are not happy with the status quo and in time, instead of just talking about it, making and sharing beautiful infographics, taking part in shouting matches on the street or social media, people will start to do something. They will say it is time to ACT. This action will be captured by video and personal TV channels will thrive (this has already started). Yes, I believe that Web 3.0 will be broadcast live to your couch and will be so compelling that you will be jolted to act. Act from your couch instead of just browsing, socializing without meaning. Imagine reality becoming as real and entertaining as the best game you have ever played or the most engaging movie you ever watched.

The winners of Web 3.0 will be companies that make or enable this "Action", just as Web 1.0 winners were companies that made "Information" available and the winners of Web 2.0 were companies that made "Interaction"possible.

So are you ready for Web 3.0?

Majamba Missions: Get Good Done!

Imagine you are someone just trying to do something good for the society. You want to volunteer and help others. You will probably go to one of the websites like Idealist, Sparked, Catchafire, VolunteerMatch, Causes, GlobalVolunteerNetwork and look for interesting volunteering opportunities. They are all good sites. They are primarily one-way transactional sites. In essence, they are marketplaces that connect those who offer volunteer jobs with those who want to volunteer. You give your skills for free and the best volunteer jobs give you satisfaction, camaraderie, free lunch and a tee-shirt. 

Today approx. 140M people (only 2% of the world) volunteer in approx. 2M organizations, mostly NGO's or Charities or Foundations. Most people volunteer for organizations in their neighborhood or donate their service to religious or creative enterprise or undertake projects at particular stages in their life - student-hood, saint-hood etc.

Imagine if everyone could volunteer a few minutes of their time everyday to do good, to support start-ups, NGO's and good people. And the volunteers could build social currency, their social capital by helping others and use this social currency to get help from others. So imagine if we could expand the scope of Volunteering to include Start-ups and every individual involved in doing something good, it is safe to assume that we will unleash the DAILY GOOD revolution. 

That is exactly the goal of Majamba Missions. A mission is a task that needs to be done. Anyone can set missions. As a volunteer you undertake to do that task or solve the mission. And upon successful completing the person who set the mission gives you Hugs for a job well done. What makes Majamba Missions unique is the use of Majamba Hugs, our social currency. When you create a mission you give Hugs and when you solve a Mission you get Hugs. The more Hugs you collect, the more is your social capital score. You can also use your Hugs as discount coupons to get amazing handmade gifts for FREE from artisans around the world. 

We will be launching Majamba Missions on the July 4th 2012 to be in time for the Paléo Festival. Here is how Majamba Missions works:

Here are some examples of Missions or Micro-Volunteering from Jayne Cravens:

•  Translating one Web page, a flier, or a short brochure into another language.

•  Gathering information on one topic (identifying all nonprofit organizations in a large city focused on children, finding conferences in the next six months focused on human resources management, finding samples of volunteer policies online, finding samples of company social networking policies online, etc.).

•  Editing a press release, newsletter, or new Web site section.

•  Posting a request by a nonprofit to the volunteer's various networks (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), to see if anyone could answer or help ("We need a free meeting space for 30 of our volunteers to do a this Saturday, from noon to 3 p.m." or "We need a meeting table that could accommodate at least 10 people. Does anyone know of an organization that is looking to get rid of such? or "We have a survey for teenagers on our web site regarding what program activities they would be interested in. Please help us get the word out!").

•  Designing a graphic.

•  Setting up an account on an online social networking site for an organization, such as FaceBook, MySpace or Change.org

•  Analyzing information on a spreadsheet and offering a short narrative on what the data means.

•  Doing a Web search to seek out resources and activities that are needed for clients in a specific geographic location: summer camps, vocational training, child care, government programs to help a particular group of people, etc.

•  Checking grant proposal submission guidelines on the Web sites of various potential funders, such as foundations or corporations.

•  Creating a new Web page (putting up a newsletter article as a new Web page, for instance). Web site testing to make sure the site works on a variety of computers and Web browsers, and identifying any problems so that IT staff can take action to make a site more accessible.

•  Compiling a list of online communities relating to a particular field of expertise, a specific topic, a specific geographic area, etc.

•  Compiling a list of blogs relating to a specific topic.

•  Researching which Web sites link to your organization's Web site, and researching which Web sites should link to your organization's Web site but do not currently.

•  Identifying which groups on Flickr or another photo-sharing web site your organization might want to sometimes post photos to, in order to get the word about your work and events.

•  Adding new tags to your photos already uploaded on a photo-sharing web site, to ensure they will come up on a search of certain keywords.

Reaffirmation!

Imagine you are traveling on a very, very long road. Before you started you knew that the road was going to be hard. But now your family and friends are worried that you are so obsessed, so focussed and maybe too proud to admit that you are getting tired. Most encourage you but some are not sure whether you will reach your destination. Then someone who has travelled the same road and has been to the other side shows up and asks you a lot of questions and afterwards, says - you are on the right track! Your quest is noble and it does take time. Keep moving forward! And by the way, here are a few things you can do to survive and not get lost. Keep the faith! Bhade Chalo!


And as a result, on the 4th of July we plan to launch the next version of the Majamba.Me platform together with a multi-media campaign at the Paléo Festival starting on the 17th of July. 


My dear friends, keep the faith, you will be proud of Majamba.Me soon.