A FINE TRACK RECORD

Social Mob houses hundreds of tracks by new and independent artists from around the world

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Aghin Johnson received a mail from an independent music artist from a Scandinavian country. As he opened his email from his office located in Thammanam, Kochi he was delighted to read out to his colleagues that another band has agreed to provide their music for Socialmob, an app that streams music from international independent artists to thousands of users.

A business management graduate, with an experience of 10 years, Aghin's jump into building a music-based community Social mob was seen by his loved once with a bit of concern. His father, P M Johnson, asked him one question Are you sure?

"They saw through my commitment and passion. It was not so easy to convince my parents, to leave an MNC job" says Aghin who had waited for five years for the smartphone revolution to reach the possibility of introducing his idea.

Today, as we witness, the internet data availability is unlimited. A few years ago, smart phones were of less capacity and streaming speed was sluggish and costly. I have been always questioned about the viability of the concept and who will stream online. I always used to tell them to wait and in the 3-5 years the world has changed rapidly. The first prototype of the app was made in 2013 and it turned out to be a flop. Moreover the phones of those days with 600MB to 1GB RAM never had the capacity to run such a complex system. It was indeed too ahead of its time. "I am from the management background. I had the marketing strategies in place but I was not completely satisfied with the output of my product, Felt we could do better," reckons the entrepreneur who had faced one of the biggest roadblocks. Nevertheless, it was pure determination and a never-say-never-attitude that helped him to find the ways during those tough times.