MixAlbum.com

MixAlbum.com, a site selling dance music using their exclusive auto-DJing system, has found a new market for it's "pick-and-mix" download service.

 

When Ian Chamings entered the Den in 2006, Deborah and fellow dragon Theo Paphitis invested in MixAlbum.com and the technology behind it: the world's only fully automated mixer, developed and patented by Ian.

For £150,000, Deborah and Theo bought 40% of the business, and so MixAlbum was launched.
Deals were signed with major record labels such as Sony BMG, EMI and Ministry of Sound, and the service went live in August 2007.

Aimed at customers who buy dance compilations, MixAlbum struggled to get a hold on the market, partly due to the big names already established, and because by that time many potential customers instead preferred to download music illegally for free! 

However, Ian kept getting emails from aerobics instructors, asking if they could use MixAlbum, and suggesting small changes which would be really useful to them. Ian admits: 'Initially I thought, "How many aerobics instructors are there, it can't be that big a market?" - how wrong I was!'.

But after a few meetings with some from fitness professionals the scope of the market became clear, and within a couple of months a licensing deal was struck with Power Music Inc, the world's largest provider of fitness music.

The mixing system is perfect for instructors as they can choose which tracks they want, at the speeds they like, and it's mixed continuously, which is exactly what instructors need for their classes.

Clickmix.com is the name of the first fitness site running the mixer, with 80,000 customers signed up after only 3 months from launch. Clickmix sells 'workout mixes' of popular tracks, and a new site to be launched in September 2009, FitMixPro.com, will supply the original artist tracks. 

From the figures to date MixAlbum in all it's guises is forecast to sell over 500,000 tracks annually, and in the pipeline MixAlbum is planning an iphone mixing app, and a fitness version for personal workouts.

For more information visit any of the sites: MixAlbum , FitMixPro and Clickmix .