Signups from international artists meant we had to go international & open all doors. Which also means subscribers can now enjoy music, movies, & books from artists anywhere around the world!
UI Changed!
We’ve tweaked & rearranged & redesigned our website! Making it all the more easier for you to know exactly what we’re doing & how we plan to do it!
Artists acquired!
There’s nothing more inspiring that artists coming forward to support us & let us know that they believe in us!
We have onboard:
Will Sid Smith - A 17 year old singer/songwriter from UK!
Head over to our “Moshlist” a.k.a Artist feature page from more info & links on these amazing artists! You’re also welcome to comment & rate these artists!
There are also two startling observations we’ve made & are yet to fully understand the reasons for it.
Our landing pages for artists & subscribers got far more new signups than our actual beta website!
The existing list of artists who signed up showed little enthusiasm to our email launch alert & I reckon were lazy to share their links with us.
The whole episode has humbled us & now it’s time for introspection.
Can we ask you to give us your honest feedback & pick one of the below?
1. You hated the idea!
2. The website sucks!
3. I still don’t get it!
4. We’ll wait till you launch the full version with all the features!
Comment here or send in your replies to comet@moshbag.in & give us your head smacking opinions that we really need right now!
We will truly appreciate your response!
P.S. We’re looking to increase the number of artists who signup with us & truly appreciate any help from your end on this. So if you have a good network of artists following you or if you can just help us reach them, we’d be grateful. Again, you can reach out to me here comet@moshbag.in.
- Moshbag lets musicians, writers, & filmmakers upload ONLY their newest, latest, & unreleased singles/movies/books & Subscribers get to download it ALL for a small subscription fee every month.
“Beta” literally translates to “son” in Hindi language. So yes, we’re inlabor trying to give birth to our one ‘n only and our much awaited “son” - Moshbag beta. The only question is when?
Now I have to admit, we had initially planned to launch Moshbag in July to coincide with our birthdays (Yes, both founders are July borns!). But we both knew that it was far fetched. There are 2 reasons for this: first, we started work on Moshbag only in June this year & second, we have day jobs (this is of course to fund this project. We don’t intend to meet any Angels at this juncture & would instead prefer to meet Bootstrap Bill!)
We have a ridiculously shortgestation period, going by the principles of Lean. So, we’ve compromised on a fancy UI & you won’t find a zillion features to begin with. Just the basics - artists will be able to upload their new stuff on Moshbag & subscribers will be able to signup & stay updated. That’s it!
I’m also not embarrassed at all to reveal that the entire UI was built using Weebly! It has allowed us to mock-up a quick website with limited coding skills. But don’t worry, we’ll be working on our Moshbag Baap version once we celebrate our baby shower & set things rolling. Oh, and btw, “Baap” literally translates to “father” in Hindi!
I still haven’t given out our launch date, have I? The doctors say we’re due sometime in the first week of next month, i.e. September, 2012. So here’s hoping that all goes well & we have a healthy happy Beta arriving!
You can have a look at him once we’ve confirmed the delivery. Till then, I thank you for your patience, support, & encouragement!
Art they say is relative. So it must be the artist who sells. Fame is a good indication of how good or bad he is. But surely, there must be more to it.
I’m often confounded by this question, “How do you rate an artist?”. Is it the number of facebook likes or the number of twitter followers? Is it the number of visitors to his blog/website or the number of comments he gets? Is it number of gigs/premieres/publishings to his name or his sales figures?
Quantifying artists is not the same as the quality of artists. How would you measure the uniqueness of his art? The unlikely chord changes, the lyrical genius, the abstract passages, & the unexplained mind provoking scenes.
While envisioning Moshbag (http://moshbag.in), our new platform for independent artists, I had to take these questions into consideration. ‘Cause for one, subscribers who wish to discover new music/movies/books often expect the unexpected. It is foremost, that they truly appreciate what we’re offering & that they find the best artists out there in the industry.
We on the other hand have the liability to showcase the most underground, the often unnoticed, & equally deserving performers to our subscribers along with other known celebrities on our platform.
So it is imperative for us to be brutally selective of the artists we accept on Moshbag. We’ve decided to take a holistic approach to rate artists. We expect every artist to have at least a Facebook page/ twitter account, & a simple website to start with. We are eager to learn and discover every gig/story/movie they have their names associated with. We’ll take pains to follow & track their every artistic activity. We’ll also give a personal listen/read/look at every work they’ve published.
As as sidekick, we are also hoping established artists will recommend other awesome artists to join our platform & help us find them.
We recommend every artist to often blog about their work & journey. We wish to see them pursue their art feverishly & tell us all about it. We’ll soon study & feature their amazing stories.
So here’s me calling all introverted artists to write to me at comet@moshbag.in with their story & extroverted artists to step in.
We’ve made a new video for Moshbag using some simple free tools! Chk it out!
I used Prezi to create a visual flow of the storyboard, screencast-o-matic web app to capture the screen, & windows movie maker to add music & final touches.
We need to make more videos explaining things & this little experiment turned out nice.
So what do you guys think? Give us some feedback!
Useful tip:
You can find an ocean of music free for commercial use
“One thing that kills your marketing/sales effort is DESPERATION.
Desperation blinds your creative outlook, it demoralizes, makes you anxious, & you feel hopeless all the time. It’s goodbye to life as you know it & you give up a “piece” of your mind to get back almost nothing in return. That’s what it does to you. You can’t sit still, you can’t focus, & you definitely can’t manage everything. The more desperate you get, the more fake you appear. There’s no love in it, no means. There’s only an end.”
I seem to be telling myself this since few days. User acquisition is hard work! Its not easy enough convincing one guy let alone hundreds. I’ve tried doing everything that I can think of & used everything that exists out there to reach out.
Back story: I started Moshbag with a sole aim of helping independent musicians, writers, & filmmakers make a decent living. The existing platforms offer less & take more than what is eventually paid to the artist. It was easy enough to assume that artists would jump at something better when they see it & art lovers would run after this offer.
But after following artists on Soundcloud, posting on tumblr & the Quora board, pushing stuff on Facebook, tweeting & re-tweeting stuff, non-stop for 2 consecutive days, Moshbag now has around 10 artists who’ve signed up & 31 subscribers. Yeah, I did think I’m done. But, in one amazing Zen moment on the third day (today), I’ve come to realize that sometimes spreading a good word is not like spreading a virus, but only a long learning process, it’s persistence & dedication, it’s taking a deep breathe & letting things happen.
And I finally reasoned:
Maybe, just maybe, they’re not sure yet. What if we turned out be another rip-off? What if we were not credible enough? What if we never launched!?
Yes, I have a lot to answer & I’m looking forward to it now. But what I’m not looking forward to is anymore days of desperation.
So, what I won’t be doing from now on is - Writing marketing posts to get attention, repeating the same things with different word arrangements, hoping/praying people take a look at it just once, checking our launchrock page for number of signups every hour, & tweeting useless things that don’t help.
Instead what I do intend to do is - Genuinely interact with artists on every platform, write stuff that relates to everyone, show off what we’ve “actually” done, & answer every damn question!
Some links to make this happen,
Ask a zillion questions on our Quora board, Moshbag & I promise answer each one.
Have a look at our possible launch UI version. Just heard over to http://moshbag.in & request for your password! :)
Independent Artists who wish to join us, head over here:
Discover & Download New Music, New Movies, & New Books!
We’ve found crazy ass musicians, filmmakers, & writers who often go unnoticed in this marketing driven industry! You only see movies, hear music, or read books that are pushed down your throat on television, radio, or press. Now here’s you chance to go down the rabbit hole & discover a whole a new world of independent artists.
Artists upload their work on Moshbag & you get to open the box of chocolates. As the saying goes, you’ll never know what you might get or what to expect! But we assure you that you’ll love what you hear, see, or read on Moshbag. We handpick artists who’ve struggled to get where they are, who’ve touched many lives, & who’ve given it all to get some love in return.
We’re launching Moshbag soon. Get ready to hit that DOWNLOAD button to discover music you’ve never heard, books you’ve never read, & movies you’ve seen!
If you are an independent musician, writer, or a filmmaker waiting to be discovered, head over here: http://artists.moshbag.in & join our ever growing community!
I’m Comet, yeah, the one speeding right at YOU, right now, Yes, YOU THERE!, making music in your garage, shooting movies, watching stars, & writing random shorts!
Me Da Founder of Moshi Da Bag, a platform for only the new stuff, new releases, original work, and for the first time ever. I love discovering new music, & while existing streaming radio business, digital distribution platforms like iTunes are doing their bit to pay ya’ll proudly independent artist folks, I honestly find them doing just that - very little! I’ve been a musician myself, with an ex-band that played ONLY and Purely Original work. Few Gigs, here & there, some pay, here & there, & we ended, with - “ok, now what!?”. To give every artist an honest way to live off of his art, to help fans celebrate every new song, new movie, or new book you come out with, and to find those unnoticed hidden gems in ya’ll, we’re opening a new door, OUR STARTUP, OUR LOVE, OUR PASSION - MOSHBAG!
And this is Aashish, I call him “Mum Boy” cuz he hails from Mumbai. He mockingly calls me “Anna” & respects the Rajanikanth in me. “Looks” damn innocent. We’ve never met & he claims to be a Java expert. He’s the Co-Founder of Moshi Da Bag. We work on blind trust. I’ve never had to tell him what to do, but often asks me what I do. He codes & I joke. He had his first dream of artists queuing up “his” office to be featured on our site. He promises many things, says he can achieve great things, & it’s all sooo easy, but honestly, I’m not sure how such fragile shoulders will bear such a HUGE burden - of building MOSHBAG! I’m kidding! I Know He Will!
Last, but not the least, we have Justin Timberlake. No, he is NOT AFFILIATED WITH US IN ANYWAY, NOR IS HE FUNDING US, NOR DOES HE KNOW US. But he’s always in our conversations, “What if one day, Justin, would release his new single on Moshbag!” “Imagine Justin endorsing Moshbag” So we decided to make him an IMAGINARY BOARD MEMBER of our startup - MOSHBAG! & bring sexy back into this business!
and that’s who we are..The Men (and boys) behind MOSHBAG!
and this is OUR F*ING PROMISE TO YOU! -
“NO NEW SONG, NEW MOVIE, & NEW BOOK, will EVER GO UNNOTICED, UNAPPRECIATED, OR UNPAID FOR!”
Music addicts, movie buffs, & book lovers, head over here:
I’m Comet, yeah, the one speeding right at YOU, right now, Yes, YOU THERE!, making music in your garage, shooting movies, watching stars, & writing random shorts!
