Michael Tougher founded Soundbops, a musical instrument for children, when he left university in 2015. With the science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) toys market set to be worth $30 billion by 2019, Tougher believes Soundbops can carve out a space in that market. The company has achieved £51,202 through a Kickstarter funding campaign [at the time of writing] and has pre-orders for the product in Asian and European markets.
Name: Michael Tougher
Age: 26
Position: Founder
WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS CALLED?
Soundbops.
WHERE IS IT BASED?
WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?
I STUDIED product design engineering at university so I have always been a designer but I am also a musician – my dad taught me to play guitar when I was younger.
Soundbops is a music educational platform of hardware and software that enables children to create, learn, play and love music. It promotes the idea of everyone being able to enjoy music.
Soundbops are musical building blocks. Rather than using fixed keys, like a traditional keyboard or piano, it has brightly coloured buttons [the “bops”] that each play a different musical note when pressed and that can be moved around, rearranged and piled on top of one another in any order.
Each block is a different note and you can create your own musical arrangement. It gives young children a way to get into music.
The fact the blocks are colour coded simplifies music. It’s basically like the Lego equivalent for music and allows children to experiment.
When I came out of university in 2015 I went to Scottish EDGE, the Royal Society of Edinburgh enterprise and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
We also launched a Kickstarter in February. We are now at the stage where we are looking for external investment.
HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?
A LOT of musical instruments for kids consist of small keyboards and guitars they can’t actually play and musical starter kits.
Soundbops is the only musical building blocks on the market. Kids can use it alone – it makes it easy to teach themselves. It is also good when parents play too.
WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?
KIDS (and adults) aged three and above. We see it as a starter instrument for kids. It’s their first intro to music and their first step. Kids love it and are very engaged with the product.
Three to four year olds are very quickly able to play songs.
Parents also love Soundbops because they can play it too even if they are not musical.
Lots of primary teachers have to teach music but don’t know how to play any instruments so it also works in a classroom environment.
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT RUNNING THE BUSINESS?
I HAVE always been quite creative. My product design and engineering at university consisted of a Mechanical Engineering course taught at the University of Glasgow and a Design Course at Glasgow School of Art.
Therefore, setting up my own business seemed to be a natural progression from that course.
I have always wanted to run my own company as it allows me to be as creative as I want to be.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS’ TIME?
IN 10 years’ time I hope Soundbops has established itself in the musical instrument market.
We are already exporting with preorders, the majority of our customers are from out with the UK. If you set up a Kickstarter it is easy to go international.
We have preorders from the UK, the US, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan and Singapore.
The product is just available on the website right now but we have got distributors lined up.
In terms of staff numbers, it’s just myself and a few advisers from the industry at the moment. We plan to grow our staff base this year.
The main thing is that we want to make all kids musical – not all kids are musicians but that shouldn’t stop them from making music. Music is really beneficial to kids in terms of creativity and imagination.
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