MixMatchMusic was founded to serve the needs of millions of musicians. Its technology-based products and services help musicians interact with fans in order to convert casual music fans into loyal fans, and loyal fans into paying customers. MixMatchMusic has created tools that musicians and fans want and need in order to create the deep and lasting connections that build loyal audiences and enable musicians to profit from their music. These highly interactive tools enable musicians to engage with fans through mobile applications, remix and music collaboration promotions, and viral music promotions across the social web.

The concept of MixMatchMusic was conceived by three college roommates (Charles Feinn, Derek Prothro, and Alan Khalfin) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) based upon their desire to make music with friends who had moved away to other parts of the world after graduation. Charles, Derek, and Alan put their heads together and created a place where they could collaborate with each other online. Along the way, they realized that collaboration is only a small part of the problem faced by musicians in a dramatically changed music industry. They discovered that the biggest problem musicians face is developing deep, lasting and monetizable connections with their fans in a music 2.0 world.

MixMatchMusic was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in California's Silicon Valley.

More than nine million musicians are trying to connect with more than 200 million music fans, according to some estimates. The huge numbers alone would suggest the odds are in their favor. Yet the channels musicians have traditionally relied upon to get their music discovered, promoted and sold are increasingly irrelevant and as a result, musicians are increasingly on their own, without labels, record stores or radio to help them. The artist's challenge is to convert casual fans into loyal fans, and loyal fans into paying customers. Getting music discovered is no longer enough. Musicians have to engage and involve casual listeners in order to build deep and lasting connections with them, and to convert them to loyal fans. These connections are what drive sales of the concert tickets, band merchandise, and CDs artists need to pay the rent and put gas in the van.

Record labels play a smaller and smaller role in breaking new bands or even promoting signed bands. Record stores are disappearing and radio is less and less of a factor in promoting new music - and it's hard for a new band to breakthrough amongst the millions of songs in the iTunes Store. It's also true that music fans have changed, acclimated to the read/write web and the social interaction that comes with it, and looking for the same experience with music and the artists who create it.

While the business part of the traditional music business is breaking down, music is alive and well and there is more music than ever. MixMatchMusic is on a mission to help keep music alive by helping artists forge deeper and more meaningful connections with fans by giving musicans tools that they need to:

• Constantly interact with fans wherever they go through custom, mobile applications
• Engage fans creatively through remix contests and collaboration promotions that enable any fan with an internet connection and a browers to participate in the creative process.
• Virally promote their music on Twitter and other social networks.

MusicMatchMusic is addressing each of these needs.

By combining highly engaging mobile applications, music collaborations tools, and viral music promotion tools, MixMatchMusic empowers musicians on four levels:

1. MobBase is a service for musicians that makes it easy for them to create, launch and manage their own, custom iPhone applications. MobBase is a low cost way for musicians to share music, photos, videos, tweets, news, information about shows, merchandise and other content with fans on their mobile devices. MobBase is built on an advanced content management system that makes it easy to add, manage and update content in real-time.
2. the Remix Wizard is a lightweight music mashup widget that lives on artists' sites and social network pages, and gives them with a new way to engage fans through remix contests and promotions. The Remix Wizard is powered by the MixMaker, an online audio sequencer and editing tool, that combines the power of a professional Digital Audio Workstation music sequencer with an intuitive UI and ease-of-use that makes it accessible to the masses, enabling creative experimentation by fans.
3. Tra.kz is the easy way for musicians to share and promote their music on Twitter and other social networks. Musicians can create a Tra.kz page for their song and features a custom short URL and a player for the song. The page has all the tools fans need to share the song on Twitter, mobile devices, Facebook, and other social networks. Musicians can check how the word is spreading, even getting to see every time someone tweets about the song.
4. the MixMatchMusic Community is a dynamic music creation community that promotes collaboration between artists and fans. The Community features an online music sequencer, called the MixMaker, highly effective social media tools that promote collaboration, and a marketplace where fans go to find new music, stems, and musical ideas, and where the artists who have created them get paid.

There are numerous disaggregated sites that offer some parts of MixMatchMusic's artist solution, ranging from cookie-cutter mobile application solutions, to music collaboration platforms that leave fans out of the creative process and appeal exclusively to musicians, and tools to share music across the social web. Only MixMatchMusic combines custom mobile applications, collaboration tools that unite artists and fans in the creative process, and a way fan musicians to virally promote music on Twitter to provide artists with a comprehensive solution that builds deep and a lasting connections with fans in order to enable them to succeed in a dramatically changed music landscape.

MixMatchMusic is helping shape the way music is created, experienced and distributed in the 21st century. Its product roadmap includes the addition of greater functionality for its tools and expansion of its offering through a series of artist and fan friendly technologies designed to forge even stronger and deeper connections.

He was inspired to start the company in part by his immersion in the technologies that have revolutionized the music industry. Noticing the similarities between the human brain's networked structure, his field of study at UCLA, and the Internet, Charles began to look to the brain for a better understanding of what the Internet could become. Through this study, Charles has focused on creating better connectivity and information exchange between groups of people centered around a common purpose. The result is a continued effort to use technology to help connect musicians and fans around music.

Prior to founding MixMatchMusic, Charles worked in an electrophysiology lab studying the kinetics of temperature sensitive proteins (TRP channels) at the Centro de Estudios Cientificos in Valdivia, Chile. The spanish-speaking lab was run as a community of scientists centered on the belief that they were doing something important for both themselves and the world. To that end, Charles continues to strive.

The co-founder of MixMatchMusic, Alan is an attorney, musician, and a producer. He has played music since childhood and is an accomplished drummer, guitarist, keyboardist, and singer.

Alan was inspired to start the company through his love of music and a desire to help artists leverage technology to succeed in the digital music age. Prior to founding MixMatchMusic, Alan was a business and strategy consultant to many artists, helping to shape their success in the new media marketplace.