Recently we had an opportunity to speak with Kathi Wilson, the One of the Founders at MusicTown Live about MusicTown Live

Please share with us the backstory of what motivated you to create this app.

MusicTown Live is a mobile app designed to help people find live local music. It began as an idea in a bar when two of the current owners (Kathi and Tamera) were trying to find somewhere to go see live local music and dance. They were searching the internet and found that there is no easy way to find out where the music was playing. Each venues website has to be searched to find their calendar. Luckily, Kathi's daughter had recently received her Masters in Computer Science from Cornell Tech University so the three got together to decide how to make an app to find live local music. MusicTown Live was born.

What features do you hope to roll out to your app in the future?

Currently we are only available in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. We will be expanding to Richmond and Philadelphia in the beginning of 2019. We are also studying adding a tipping add on to our app so people would be able to tip the bands that they are enjoying.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of the creation of this app?

We love live local music. The appreciation from the musicians that we are trying to find a way to spread information to allow more fans to find the bands is very rewarding.

What is the coolest or most innovative feature of your app?

The most innovative feature of our app is the videos of the small local artists. We add videos scraped from YouTube that show recent shows. This way you can preview and artist that you do not know before you make the decision to go see them.

What surprised you most in your journey to create this app?

The thing that surprised us the most is how difficult it is to actually monetize an app that has so many users and has so much great feedback. People love our app. They use it and we have gained over 1500 downloads in the first year simply by word of mouth. However, as much as people love our app we were having trouble figuring out how to make money from the app. We now sell tickets to events on Ticketfly and Ticketmaster but having people transition from an app where they look for music to an app they go to look for and buy music has been the hardest part.

Which other mobile apps or technology have inspired you?

We're inspired by great app design! We love to look at the latest winners of awards competitions like this one to see what other great ideas are out there.

Do you have any recommendations or advice for others wanting to create a mobile app?

If anyone else is trying to create a mobile app I would tell them one thing – it is hard work. You don't just come up with a great idea and become a millionaire overnight. You need to be willing to work on and promote your app every day. You also need to be able to have the emotional distance to be able to pivot and change goals as you go.

How did you decide which platforms to release your app on and do you plan on releasing your app to other platforms?

MusicTown Live was released initially on IOS but is now on Android as well.

How is your app different than the rest of the market? Which unique need does it fill?

MusicTown Live solves two problems in the music world today. The first one is that there is no easy way to find where live music is playing. The app combines all of the live local music in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Northern Virginia into one easy to use and attractive app. There are a few other apps out there that attempt to show live local music but no one has as many events or as much information about the events.

You can view MusicTown Live here