We were interviewed by Republic -- Check out our Founder Story below!

What’s the inspiration behind Quantum Music?

As a Ph.D. in physics and an analytical Venture Capital investor, I love the science behind live music, especially how sound waves can change our bodies’ heartbeats and adrenaline levels. My unique background makes me believe in the “magic formula” by mixing Science with Art. We have also coined this combination into our company’s name: Quantum stands for the scientific part, and Music stands for the artistic part.

After attending many music festivals in and out of the States and running the Snowstorm Winter Music Festival in Chicago back in 2015, I realized how unevenly distributed the resources are among the creators (e.g., musicians, DJs, singers, dancers, etc.). Top creators usually get the lion's share, leaving the rest of the creator community with fewer resources. I wanted to build a platform that improves the existing ecosystem and better serves more of the creator community, focusing on the micro-influencers. 

How did you meet your co-founder? How do you work together? 

I first met my co-founder, Quanwei Hu, at the Snowstorm Winter Music Festival in Chicago back in 2015. We quickly became close friends, and we found out that we shared the same enthusiasm and passion for live music and the creator community. The name “Quantum Music” not only stands for the science and art that we both love but also contains part of both our given names.

Quanwei and I came from very different academic backgrounds. I majored in Physics at the University of Chicago, and Quanwei got his degree in Film Production at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Our skills and personalities genuinely complement each other, reflecting the Science vs. the Art parts of Quantum Music. And we divide our responsibilities accordingly: Quanwei is in charge of the creative content while I oversee the overall business development and quantitative analysis.

What goes into choosing qualified influencers for each brand? Can you give us a broad look at your team's process? 

It is like a matchmaker’s job to connect brands with influencers. We have to understand the needs of both sides deeply. It takes analysis, chemistry, and our team’s commitment to making the match work. 

Over the years, we have developed a robust end-to-end process to match brands with influencers. When executing a new promotional project, we always start with a shortlist of goals that a brand aims to achieve (e.g., # of impressions, conversion targets, social media platform preferences). Our team analyzes these parameters and screens out an initial subset of affiliated influencers in our database via a proprietary algorithm. We provide the initial recommendation list to the brand and get the brand’s quick feedback. It usually takes a couple of iterations to finalize the influencer list with the brand. Then our team oversees the influencer execution, quality control, performance-tracking, evaluation, and feedback.

Can you speak to why a company might be interested in micro-influencers over established, "blue checkmark" names? 

The total number matters, of course. For example, to reach 1M impressions, a company can look for a single “blue checkmark” influencer with 1M followers. Or it can choose to work with 20 micro-influencers, each with 50K followers. 

However, the community of micro-influencers has several advantages compared to the well-established ones:

First of all, the price per impression is not linear to the number of followers. It is usually much more cost-effective to work with a group of micro-influencers than a single established, big-name influencer.

Secondly, research shows that followers tend to have a closer affinity towards micro-influencers than established ones, and this behavior results in more trust and higher conversion rates for brands.

Lastly, the market of micro-influencers is largely ignored. As everyone focuses on the big names with the highest follower numbers, a micro-influencer strategy leads to many more opportunities with much less fierce competition.

Thus, with proper execution, micro-influencers can be more beneficial for brands than established ones.

How do you handle risk and competition?

To me, competition leads to opportunities and innovations. So when facing the competition, I will embrace the opportunities behind it and use the external competition to push us to improve internally.

The opportunity of the influencer economy is enormous globally, and the pandemic has expedited its growth. With the ongoing Web 3.0 evolution, I expect the influencer economy to continue rapidly expanding. Thus, at Quantum Music, our current priority is to capture a bigger slice of the new pie baked each year instead of getting too bogged down in competition.

Risks and opportunities are indeed the two sides of the same coin. The most significant risk of our business is not moving fast enough to continue adapting to this dynamic market. I always urge my fellow teammates at Quantum Music to “stay hungry, stay foolish” and to keep pushing the boundary in this fast-changing new industry.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced while launching your company?

The biggest challenge for sure goes to “building a team of A+ players”. 

During the early stage, we had fewer resources. And A+ players are rarely available in the market, as they are always in high demand. In addition, these A+ players are incredibly competent, and many choose to launch their own startups instead of joining others.

From Day 1 of Quantum Music, I have been fully aware of the gravity of building a fantastic team. We made some hiring mistakes, and our team continued to learn from the mistakes and never stopped improving. Nowadays, Quantum Music still needs more A+ players to join us. I hope that we will build an even better team with the fundraising via Republic over the next few years.

Have you learned anything new or surprising about yourself through this process?

I'm the “King of Pivot”, a title that some investors joked about giving me, as Quantum Music never stops innovating and continues to push the envelope. 

Over the years, as a startup founder, I learned that leaders of a young organization must absorb new knowledge/information like a sponge and stay as nimble as possible when marching forward. I am surprisingly good at this.

Why did you decide to raise from the crowd via Republic?

We just love the concept of equality in investment via Republic. It perfectly resonates with our philosophy of bringing more opportunities to underserved communities, such as micro-influencers. 

Previously, we had raised over $1M via traditional venture capital financing. We got introduced to the concept of Reg CF financing on Republic, and we fell in love with the idea. Compared to traditional financing, Republic provides access to many fast-growing private companies for individuals who previously may not have access to these opportunities. This is the concept of equality that we are also promoting in the influencer community. A big bonus of partnering with Republic is that more people will get to know about us and share our future success via the platform.

What’s your team culture like? 

Team culture defines a startup company’s personality. I would like to describe Quantum Music as a really passionate, hard-working scientist. 

At Quantum Music, we have three core values:

1) Do what you love and love what you do: We are passionate about the influencer community, and we work hard to improve every day.

2) Speed is everything: We are willing to take risks in conducting new experiments and emphasize fast iterations. We want to pivot off obstacles swiftly and aim for the right direction.

3) Being disciplined and measuring the unmeasurable: We are scientists among artists and stay disciplined on tasks that we execute daily. We commit to quantifying different major business elements and focusing on generating measurable results.

Guided by these principles, our team continues to deliver incredible results over time.

What is your superpower?

I have to say that “Finding Waldo” – finding the best solution in a complicated situation – is my superpower. 

I am super comfortable solving complex problems. Whenever putting me in charge of a difficult situation, I can always quickly pull a structure out of a seemingly unstructured environment and rally my teammates to execute towards a common goal. Such a “superpower” has allowed us to scale up Quantum Music and achieve the rapid growth of our business.

What’s your kryptonite?

It is hard for me to say no when someone reaches out for help, even when I have my hands full. I need to learn how to manage this better.

Do you have any unusual routines or habits? 

I like to walk while taking phone calls. Walking helps organize my thoughts and keeps my blood pressure under control during heated discussions.

What do you like to do in your spare time? 

I love listening to podcasts in my spare time. Podcasts have become an important source where I continue educating myself. Here are some of my favorite podcast channels if you are interested – “Acquired”, “How I Built This with Guy Raz”, and “Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy”.

Are there any apps or gadgets that you can’t live without? 

I use Pedometer every day to track the number of steps I take. NutriSense is another good one, which helps monitor my glucose level in real-time.

Please drop me a note if you have any recommendations on other health apps.

If you could give yourself one piece of advice 5 years ago, what would it be?

Don’t worry too much about other people’s choices or opinions, and take more risks when you can afford to fail. 

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?

“Understanding is getting used to” – this is the advice I received from my professor in the General Relativity class at the University of Chicago. That was a really challenging class and gave me some nasty nightmares.

I always remind myself about this when facing a complex problem. If I can grind through the General Relativity class, I can survive in any situation.

Do you have a(ny) mentor(s)? If so, what have they taught you?

I am so lucky to have many mentors in my life. They have backgrounds in different industries, and I have learned so much from them.

From time to time, I have to rely on their wisdom and expertise to tackle the problems I encounter. They have been very generous with their time and opened new doors for me when I needed help the most. They taught me the importance of resilience in life and gave me the courage to keep the lights on even at the darkest moments of my journey.

I am very thankful for their encouragement and support throughout these years.