New Destination For Trends in New York City, "Trending In NYC" Debuts With Interview Of TheHub.fm Founder Jonathan Block

Online, July 15, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Trending In NYC sits down to ask 7 Questions with Jonathan Block, Founder of TheHub.fm

NYC - 1) You guys launched you're beta at South By Southwest in March with quite a lot of fanfare. We couldn't help hearing the buzz on the street at South By and reading all the great tech journalists that picked TheHub.fm as best app at SXSW 2013. Tell us, what does TheHub.fm do?

JB - We did get a lot of attention at South By Southwest. We topped Digital Trends list of their favorite app at this years festival in Austin. A lot of other writers picked us as their favorite as well because we are solving problems for both bands and fans with new and unique mobile technology. Bands have always needed an easy-to-use tool to help them sell and administrate their merchandise, music and tickets. Although our mobile stores sell to consumers 24 hours a day, we focus on in-venue sales as 85% of music merchandise sells at the venues. Our "secret sauce" solves age old problems for fans who have had to wait in long lines to get their desired items. With TheHub.fm, fans can browse and buy their items easily on their phones from anywhere in the venue and elect to pick them up fast or have them shipped. We are also collecting consumer data and conduct daily live and downloadable podcasts to train retailers and answer real-time questions on how to use our mobile tools to sustain long-term relationships with their consumer bases.

NYC - 2) You know the live entertainment consumer pretty well by now, don't you? 32 years in the music business is no small feat. How have you survived that long?

JB - Staying ahead of the technological curve has definitely been the main reason I'm still around after all these years. My first project was back in 1982, I produced a record in Kingston, Jamaica at Bob Marley's legendary Tuff Gong Studios. I ended up starting a record label while attending Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Communications. Back in those days we were selling vinyl, but it was my first experience with developing, engaging and monetizing a community. I believe a lot in the importance of community. Thirty-two years and hundreds of tours around the world later I've helped thousands of bands and brands do the same thing. The difference is, back then we were putting a pad of paper and a pen at the merch booth for fans to give us their mailing addresses, then we would mail out a monthly newsletter. Today we have mobile tools that do the job much better than ever before.

NYC - 3) So you also have a lot of experience with all the tools in mobile on a grass roots level that essentially no one else does. Can you explain this?

JB - Sure, I was a partner at the only direct-to-fan mobile platform in the world for five years. Those years afforded me the opportunity to get to know how to deploy all of the tools in the mobile landscape and each one of them is difficult to understand how to use. It takes time and actually getting your hands dirty to know how each tool works -- both separately and together. No one else really has this experience as there aren't any other direct-to-fan mobile platforms.

NYC - 4) What did you learn from that experience?

JB - The most important thing I learned was the user experience for both the retailer and the consumer has to be extremely easy. If you don't make the experience easy on both sides of the equation -- it won't work.

NYC - 5) You really have tapped into great needs. What most excites you about TheHub.fm and when will you launch to the public?

JB - The opportunity to improve on existing sales and payments solutions, improve the live entertainment fan experience and provide retailers and consumers an easy means to sustain long-term relationships with with new mobile technology is exciting. Secondly, everyone on the team we have set up to hire is world class. Our technology team that is finishing the build for our debut product right now is one of the most coveted in the country. They are former Facebook and Google senior level engineers who love the problems we are solving and are passionate about the long-term growth opportunity we have. I believe the technology team is the most important aspect to any digital company. If you don't have phenomenal coders, it really doesn't matter what your product is or how great your management and sales teams are. User experience is everything, it must be streamlined, flawless and show absolutely no signs of clutter. We have over sixty users testing our private beta now who are all thrilled with their results and will look to launch in September.

NYC - 6) Have you pivoted at all since South By Southwest?

JB - Great question. Yes, we have changed the scope of the market we are focussed on out of the gate. Originally we were tapping into a music merchandise market of four to five billion dollars. We have since talked with so many sports teams, conferences, fairs and festivals who want our product -- in fact, even farmers who get nervous at the point of sale at their farmers' markets are itching for it. So we are focussed on the "live entertainment" consumer. This market totals north of seventy billion and includes any physical and/or online group of people being monetized. So other than record companies, bands and sports teams -- restaurants, retail stores, bars and designers have signed up to use the technology as soon as TheHub.fm becomes available.

NYC - 7) Before we let you go, we have read you have ties to the tech and startup communities in Kansas City and New York City, how did this come about?

JB - I'm passionate about innovation and it is this passion that drives me. When I read about Google Fiber launching in Kansas City, I changed my life in order to get in on the ground floor of this world changing technology. Turns out, I love KC. Any advantage I can gain over my competition is important to me - my tech team and data centers are based in Kansas City. I love the people at the Kauffman Foundation and there are a lot of talented entrepreneurs there. The founders of WeWork Labs, Jesse Middleton and Matt Shampine, who are my tech guru little brothers, are the reason I moved back to New York City. WeWork is an amazing company and Mayor Bloomberg is doing a great job turning New York into a tech force to rival Silicon Valley.