Lebanese duo strikes success with roadie

October 20, 2015

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What happens when you bring together a musician and an engineer? Better yet, two musicians-cum-engineers? In the case of Band Industries co-founders Bassam Jalgha and Hassane Slaibi, it’s an entrepreneurial success story of combining your passions to solve a real-world problem.

While they joined forces three years ago to create Roadie, an automated string instrument tuner, its inspiration dates back years before they met as students forming a band at the American University of Beirut.

“One of the major hurdles when I first started playing the oud was tuning,” said Jalgha, who began his studies as an adolescent. “It’s very difficult … it’s a 12-string instrument and in double, so every string needs to sound exactly like the other [in the pair].”

“This is where the idea came to mind – why not create a device that would do that automatically?”

Tuning remained a problem when playing in the band at AUB, he added. “Everybody has to calm down for half an hour while I’m sitting in my own corner trying to listen.” But as a mechanical engineering student, Jalgha had begun to acquire the technical skills to turn his adolescent dream into reality.

After graduating, he participated in Qatar’s inaugural 2009 edition of “Stars of Science,” a televised science innovation competition. Building a rough prototype of an automated string instrument tuner won him first prize.

“It was just a proof of concept,” Jalgha said, noting it required additional technology he lacked expertise in.

He shelved the project and returned home to pursue graduate studies in robotics. Slaibi, who had studied computer and communications engineering, also returned from an overseas job in audio processing.

That was “exactly the field I needed help with,” Jalgha said, “and we decided to join our expertise.”

“And passions – that’s important,” Slaibi chimed in. “We’re both musicians [Slaibi plays the flute], and I’m into audio and he’s into building small robots.” Roadie is essentially “a small robot that tunes music instruments.”

Initially the tuner remained shelved, as they collaborated on freelance projects to create “cool stuff.” Consulting proved to be unsustainable, however.

“Every time you get a project, you start from scratch,” Slaibi said. “Having a product in the market is much more repeatable.”

In January 2012, they chose to focus on developing Roadie, funded by $300,000 in cash and in-kind support that Jalgha had won from Stars in Science. They spent the next year and a half on research and development, huddled in a garage in Furn al-Shubbak after work and on weekends. Eventually, they quit their day jobs to devote themselves to Roadie full time.

Some of their biggest challenges were creating an audio processing algorithm for Roadie to function in noisy environments, and designing the automation to work for different string instruments.

While Roadie is marketed for tuning guitars, it also works on instruments equipped with guitar-like pegs, including the banjo, ukulele and mandolin. It does not work on the oud.

“We got good results with the oud, but [the tuning] wasn’t reliable so we had to make a business decision,” Jalgha said. “Instead of spending a year or two on the oud, let’s focus on the biggest market: guitars.”

The next stage was figuring out how to manufacture Roadie. In 2013, they were selected to participate in the hardware accelerator HAXLR8R, moving to Shenzhen, China for four months of incubation.

“This was a whole new experience for two engineers working in their garage,” Slaibi said. With newfound mentorship and community, they developed a look-a-like prototype and learned about crowdfunding.

Launching a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign not only raised the necessary funds for manufacturing, but it also validated the volume of demand. (Backers who donated at least $79 would receive a Roadie.)

While their goal was raising $60,000 in 45 days, they secured nearly three times the amount, including 2,000 preorders. Around 60 percent of their backers originated from the U.S., with the others mostly from Europe and Japan.

Roadie has two main components – a pocket-sized wireless device affixed to the peg of the string to be tuned and a smartphone app that programs the tuning. Jalgha took charge of manufacturing, staying in Shenzhen for eight months, while Slaibi returned to Lebanon to finish the mobile app and establish sales channels in the U.S.

As a HAXLR8R alumnus, Jalgha benefited from a wealth of resources in Shenzhen. Although he found an experienced manufacturer, the first production run hit several hitches – at one point, a quarter of the batch had a defective part.

Nevertheless, Jalgha posted detailed updates on Kickstarter. “Whenever there is an issue, we directly show it and tell the story behind the issue and how we’re trying to solve it.”

Backers responded sympathetically “only because we’re transparent with them,” he noted. “If we took the money and disappeared for five months, they would go crazy.”

The first run of 3,300 units – all presold through Kickstarter, their website and to retailers and distributors – was shipped in September last year. Most of the 6,000 Roadies made in subsequent production runs have also been sold, Jalgha said.

The U.S. remains their largest market and they have secured placement in six leading music retailers. Slaibi said this is part of their strategy of “focusing on the 20 percent of the market that’s going to give us 80 percent of the results.”

Moreover, they report having turned a profit, with just the funding from Stars of Science, Kickstarter and sales of the device, which retails for $99. “This is something we always tell investors,” Slaibi said. “Companies take millions to get to our stage of development and sell that many units.”

Jalgha credits their quick profitability to keeping costs low. The pair handles most responsibilities, with one staffer in the U.S. overseeing sales, and a part timer in Lebanon.

The future looks bright, with the team in the final stages of securing investment that will enable them to hire four staff.

They have also been selected by the U.K. Lebanon Tech Hub accelerator to attend a six-month program of training and networking in London. Slaibi plans to set up European sales channels, while Jalgha will work with industrial designers on a second product under development.

They would also like to expand Roadie’s capabilities to tune additional instruments, perhaps the oud.

“When I came back [from Stars of Science], there was support for startups, but it was very confused and messy. Even in 2012, the support was minimal,” Jalgha said. “Now things have changed a lot. We see a lot of startups coming out of here.”

“I wish more people would create startups, because we do need … fresh minds to start new companies, instead of just leaving the country.”