While studying at Houston Community College in the US, an Audio Engineering student from Nigeria, was missing home culture. Most importantly, the authentic African music he was used to. A lot of searches on the internet for African music yielded little. Then in 2006, he decided to start his own African streaming music site.
TruSpot is Africa’s answer to the Sweden based music streaming service, Spotify. Spotify has become an instant hit all over North America. The market gap for TruSpot is that Spotify isn’t available in Africa yet. Africa also needs a service that is dedicated to its music fully.
Started as a podcast in 2006, TruSpot has come a long way in developing apps for mobile, including blackberry and tablets. Users can also easily sign up and get access to unlimited songs on their desktops or laptops. Currently TruSpot is offered free. Spotify on the other hand, started charging its customers.
So far, TruSpot has over 30,000 users, with 5 employees. The founder is still based in the US with partnerships in Africa. It is expected to grow as they expand in Africa. But TruSpot is not the only swimmer plunging into these waters. Uganda’s Zikify and Ghanaian’s Streemio are also targeting to stream African music on all devices. So it is not a market up for grabs for TruSpot.
