Grooveshark Team Challenge 2008

I should start by telling you I’m a big fan of working in small groups–which is what the GS Team Challenge is all about. Basically, the entire company was divided into groups of five or six and are responsible for accomplishing three tasks:

1. Come up with, design and implement a feature for Grooveshark.

2. Come up with, design and implement a marketing campaign with a limited budget.

3. Come up with, design and implement a fun, team-building activity for the company.

I think this “challenge” is an excellent idea, because it allows each person in the company to work closely with a group of people outside their department–something I think is vital to improving teamwork within the company. As a member of marketing, I don’t always get to see what goes on in the development side of GS, and the inverse is true for a developer.

After our first group meeting yesterday, I felt more productive than I have in a long time. I’ve been in a writing slump for a couple weeks and was feeling somewhat under-challenged, which leads me to believe that a little pressure, competition and responsibility has helped renew my vigor. Hopefully the rest of the company benefits from this challenge as much as I think I will, because I’d definitely like to see more of this sort of thing in the future.

My Holiday Break

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone!

This holiday break has been fantastic for my mental sanity, which was starting to become a bit unstable as finals-week, graduation and the holiday blitz took its toll. I spent the holiday break at home in Jacksonville with the family, catching up with friends and enjoying the free time I’ve become so accustomed to living without.

It was also a good time to clear my head on some of the inside issues we have at Grooveshark and talk to family and friends about the whole music sharing concept on a more personal level–after all, this is now my full-time position now that I’m a college graduate. The more I’ve talked about it, and the more people I’ve shared the concept with, the more confident I become in the concept itself. As I’ve said many times, the product, business model and idea itself are not our issues–it’s educating others about the music industry’s current state and how Grooveshark fills that void.

On a side note, I’ve been reading The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, and I must say it’s a great time in my life to have come across this book. I’m not that far into it yet, but I can already say I highly recommend it for those who want to reevaluate what they want in life–you might be surprised to find out it’s not more money.

Finally, Some Help

It finally happened.

I opened my e-mail, and there it was–a link to the Grooveshark forum. Usually, this means someone has gotten out of control in the forum and is on a crusade to make every person on Grooveshark fear for their lives. It’s not uncommon. It’s just annoying, for reasons I mentioned in the previous post.

But this thread was different. Someone was of course trying to tell the world how Grooveshark is the biggest failure known to humankind, but someone had already responded. And it wasn’t a Grooveshark employee. But it was someone on our behalf!

I could go into the finer details, but I think you should check it out for yourself. I’m just glad to see someone appreciates our effort…

An Open Letter To the Skeptic Scotts of the World

“In short, simply believing that the world should be different is not the same as changing it.”

The above quote was left on a forum discussing the Grooveshark business model. It was meant in such a way as to say the Grooveshark team is just a bunch of ignorant college kids with no understanding of what it takes to change an industry. I respect that. After all, we live in a world where being any thing less than hopeless, pessimistic and angry with the world makes you gullible and stupid.

But what really kills me is people who act like things are going to change by talking about how difficult and hopeless things are. These people are so quick to say what won’t work, but offer up no solutions in their place. If you don’t do something different or try to make a change, please tell me how the hell that’s going to help? I can’t stand reading comments left by people whose sole purpose in life is to tell others why their ideas won’t work. If you don’t have an answer, and you don’t have any constructive criticism to add, then don’t say anything.

I don’t really care if you think the Grooveshark model won’t work. I don’t need you to tell me you support what we stand for and you are rooting for us, and then try to dictate your hateful opinions on others as some sort of fact. We don’t need you to tell us the the music industry isn’t ready for us. How about you let the music industry speak for itself. In fact, that’s why we have lawyers–so we can speak to those who do know what the music industry wants.

I’m sick of all the negative comments and arguing on forums. You can argue forever on a forum and never be right or wrong. Don’t waste my time, as well as yours, asking questions that don’t have answers. Some things just have to be acted out to see the end result. You don’t know if Grooveshark will be successful or not. Nobody can know that. It has to be done first. That’s why we are doing it! We don’t live in a certain world where risk is some sort of luxury we can alleviate at will. Don’t tell me what will and won’t work. You have no idea, and if you think you do, then you obviously should be off arguing in a forum somewhere with all the other Skeptic Scotts of the world…

Life rewards those who take risks. It rewards those who act. It rewards those who ignore their detractors. In the end, the person who made that quote at the top of the page is right.

Simply believing that the world should be different is not the same as changing it. Learn to take your own advice…

The Art of Communication: GS Style

One of the great things about working at a start-up like Grooveshark is the ability to communicate thoughts effectively. For the most part, I can talk to anyone in the company face to face, any day of the week. This makes it extremely easy to get ideas across and correct any problems we face. If I need to tell Josh, our CTO, that the new Britney Spears album isn’t buffering correctly, I can just look slightly to my left and yell some profanity at him until he acknowledges me. The same goes if I need to talk to Sam, the CEO. If I’m feeling bored and need a good laugh, I can just barge into his office and tell him a major blog has covered us, and he immediately launches into one of his epic, morale-boosting speeches. In effect, all the answers I need are within yelling distance.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t have communication issues at times. With each person doing their own thing to accomplish the bigger goal, sometimes we lose track of what others are doing. One of the major challenges we’ve dealt with is the communication gap between development and marketing. Often, so much is changing, and so much is going on at once, we have to stop and discuss where everyone is just to make sure we are on the right track.

One of the things we’ve done to fix this issue is encourage interaction between the team. We’ve set up blogs, email listservs, share documents, use skype and just about any other mode of electronic communication you can think of, but our biggest asset is our ability to just hang out. We spend so much time together that everyone naturally has grown closer. It’s an excellent environment for creative thoughts, constructive criticism and teamwork, because everyone eventually grows comfortable with telling everyone else what they really think. I’m not afraid to tell the development team when Grooveshark is screwing up, or the rest of the marketing department that we need to handle something differently. It’s this removal of political correctness and fake understanding that allows us to judge our work objectively from within the company.

At some point, I responded to a comment left on some coverage we got on Boing Boing saying that we are our own biggest critics. This environment we’ve created here at the office is why I believe it.

The First Unofficial Post

Hey everyone/anyone,

I’m Nathan Thompson, and I’m Grooveshark’s unofficial blogger. I’m actually Grooveshark’s official blogger too, but I thought it would be nice to have a place where I could be a little more personal and cover things that may or may not fit on the official Grooveshark blog.

To start off, I’d like to say a few words about myself and my history with Grooveshark. First, I’ll say that I’m days away from being a graduate of the University of Florida, and I began working at Grooveshark as an intern earlier this year as part of my required internship for my degree. When I came on-board, the company was operating out of an old townhouse that had been converted into offices. At that point, the company was little more than a bunch of crazy kids with a crazy idea and no software to show for any of it. I was a little skeptical to say the least. The only thing I really knew about the company was they were going to pay people to share music over a peer-to-peer network, and somehow they planned to “revolutionize” the industry.

It didn’t make any sense.

But I needed an internship, I loved music and the thought of working for a “sketchy” Internet startup was too much to turn down. Right from the start, I realized the people I was working with were not your typical college students. Each person I met had some special talent or interest that made them a perfect fit for the Grooveshark team. Not only that, but everyone seemed to enjoy spending ridiculous hours at the office, and their enthusiasm for Grooveshark never seemed to waver despite the barrage of questions I asked them. It seemed they had an answer for everything, and when they didn’t, they went out and got them. I should mention that no one was getting paid at this time…

It’s been a few months since we moved into our new office located above Dragonfly and Starbucks in downtown Gainesville. And while it took some time to get used to actually having room to move, our own desks and some decent lighting, I’d say we’ve adjusted quite well. The Grooveshark Beta was launched September 1st with much relief, and about the only thing that hasn’t changed since my initial arrival is my respect for the Grooveshark team.

Today, as a full-time employee for Grooveshark, I can honestly say I believe in the Grooveshark model after having been its biggest skeptic in the beginning. This doesn’t mean I ignore the obvious obstacles we face or naively think we have all the answers–because we don’t–but it does mean I think we have the ideas, enthusiasm and team necessary to put the music industry back on track.

And to me at least, that does make sense…