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When David Baird moved to L.A. 11 years ago, he found connecting with compatible, local musicians very difficult. Part of the problem was the vast, competitive market. A lack of resources to find people with similar playing styles, interests and ability levels didn't help, either. He could have turned to Craigslist, sure, but in L.A. a musician’s Craigslist ad would soon be dwarfed by countless others.
Baird founded Santa Monica-based Gigmor to solve this problem. By using matching technology, Gigmor enables users to create a social profile and link up with compatible musicians.
“A drummer I played with used to tell me he was on Craigslist two hours a day,” Baird said. “We can basically save him all that time.”
[ibimage==35852==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-right]Gigmor came out of beta in fall 2013, empowering musicians to fit their need for a band or even a jam session.
“We saw a real need for millions of musicians, whether they're amateurs just starting out or semi professional or professional players who freelance and are just trying to make a living,” said Baird (pictured right).
Musicians and bands from any and all genres use the free online network, though according to Baird, classic rock, hard rock and rock & roll are the most-featured genres.
To start, Gigmor kept the filters somewhat general, filtering by instrument, genre, playing style and skill level. Baird said that was a deliberate choice. If Gigmor started too narrow, it might have struggled to build up its user base.
Baird said Gigmor will soon release a premium service that allows users to pay a fee in order to further narrow the search for compatible musicians, using variables such as distance from one’s location and preferred pay rate at gigs.
“I think the biggest challenge when you’re building up a social network of any kind is starting with zero users,” Baird said. “Those first 2,000 users are putting their faith in you that you’re going to be able to do what you say you can do.”
That decision proved effective, as Gigmor now has a user base totaling in the mid five figures that spans the U.S. and Canada.
The holy grail for musicians
Before introducing the premium service — which Baird said is hopefully launching by the end of the year — Gigmor is looking to bolster the free services it offers. It will roll out an events platform in the coming weeks that will allow musicians to find suitable performance events.
“The holy grail for all musicians is to be connected to paid gigs,” Baird said.
After the events platform launches Baird’s focus will turn to raising seed money. Gigmor is currently bootstrapped and operates with four full-time employees who work for equity. Baird expects to close a seed round within the next few months, allowing Gigmor to grow to 12 full-time employees.
That money would also be used to develop other services, one of which will be a booking feature that will serve as an extension of the event platform. Outside of musicians and bands, industry professionals are prominent Gigmor users.
“There’s a lot of fragmented booking agents and talent finders who don’t have a good way for assessing talent. There’s a lot of talent looking for work and live gigs,” Baird said. “Our goal is to create a marketplace to put those two together.”
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