Every startup that connects two worlds always crashes into the same monster: the chicken and the egg. Who comes first, the artist or the fan?

With Fankee, we found ourselves right there from day one. We’re not just a label, not just a marketplace. We’re a bridge, and bridges at the beginning are always empty. On one side, the music. On the other, the people who want to live it. But who do you let cross first?

It’s the classic dilemma of those who build platforms. Except in music the tension is even sharper: without artists there’s nothing to share, without fans nothing explodes. And yet, instead of choosing one side, we decided to hack the logic.

Fankee is not a new social network, not another online music store. It’s a layer that has never existed before: an invisible stratum that sits on top of socials, certifies who pushes, and turns fans’ work into status and real value.

But let’s take a step back.

It hasn’t been an easy choice in these 14 months. Every startup manual and every VC who has seen dozens of marketplaces born and die will always tell you the same thing: pick one side, and start from there.

Okay, thanks. But music is not Uber.

We understood the priority right away: without music, you can’t bring anyone on board. It’s hard to convince a fan to join a platform if there’s nothing to listen to. That’s why we started with the artists: it was the most natural choice.

But once you’ve fueled the platform with music, the next step becomes inevitable: focusing on the most delicate and complex side of the marketplace (I prefer to call it the Fankee Label, but in “tech words” that’s what we are), the side that truly decides whether the model lives or dies. The demand side: the fans, the users. Without them, the magic doesn’t start, the community doesn’t take shape, the model isn’t validated and doesn’t scale.

So at the beginning, we leaned on the artists’ fanbases: it made sense to leverage their voice and the credibility they had with their audience. But that’s not enough. Depending forever and only on someone else puts a ceiling over your head. You never build your own engine. In the next newsletters I’ll share the results of these tests, which could be useful to other founders or builders who, like us, are creating consumer products (good luck guys!! I feel you).

That’s why we test new approaches every single day. It’s not easy, in an era where capturing attention on socials is a bloodbath, with billions of pieces of content flying past you every second. We’re breaking our heads trying to find that unique insight that can open a distribution channel, the right content that not only sparks the flame but gets the loop going.

But the question is: why is this so important?

The obvious answer is: revenues (really???!!!). But we also need to feed our flywheel, where every piece of fan-generated content becomes more streams, more streams turn into more royalties, and more royalties grow the entire community.

But there’s something even more urgent. And here I go back to Jim Currier: the real competitive advantage doesn’t lie in immediate revenues, but in network effects.

Currier has been saying it for years: if you want to build a company that truly matters, for yourself, for investors, and for the world, you need a moat. And in digital, there are very few defensibilities. The most powerful one, and at the same time the most accessible to startups, is exactly this: network effects. Because once they kick in, they become a self-feeding engine that’s almost impossible to stop. In practice: every new user who joins increases the value for those already inside. More nodes, more connections, more strength. It’s the mechanism that makes a community not only useful but also defensible: the bigger it gets, the harder it is to break.

The numbers speak clearly. In the last thirty years, over 70% of the value created in technology has come from companies with network effects at the core of their model. And yet, less than 20% of business plans actually design for them from the start. It’s almost paradoxical: everyone talks about them, very few actually build them.

And that’s exactly where the true “unfair advantage” is created: a loop where every new entry isn’t a cost but reinforcement.

And here comes the point.

A classic marketplace is not enough. The only way to turn network effects into a true unfair advantage is to think bigger, to think in terms of a Market Network. A hybrid category that blends three ingredients:

Within a Market Network, it’s not the single transactions that matter, but the people and the ties they create: collaborations around projects, unique profiles that bring value, relationships that strengthen over time. It’s a world where every node adds energy to the others, making the network itself stronger and stronger.

Bringing it back to music, think of it as a jam session: it’s not the solo that makes the track, but how each instrument locks in with the others. That’s how a Market Network works: the more people join, the more the whole thing gains strength, rhythm, direction. You’re not just adding volume, you’re creating harmony.

NFX describes this perfectly with a Venn diagram: the convergence of marketplaces (multiple buyers and sellers, transactions), networks (identity, communication), and SaaS workflow tools.

A few months ago, we sat around a table to do a simple but fundamental exercise: if we want to build a real moat, based on network effects and on a Market Network, we first need to understand where those who tried before us failed.

And so we looked at the biggest of them all: Apple.

With iTunes, they had built a massive competitive advantage. Yet when they tried to create a “music community,” they got slapped twice.

Ping (2010–2012): launched by Steve Jobs himself, with the ambition of becoming the “Facebook of music.” You could follow artists and friends, discover new music, comment, share.

Apple Music Connect (2015–2018): same idea, updated version. Artists could post content, fans could like and comment.

The result? Both shut down after a short time. Why? Here are the mistakes:

Starting from this lesson learned, and keeping our eyes fixed on our north star — building a true Market Network — we set a few non-negotiable principles:

That’s why Fankee must not be “just” the place to discover unreleased music. It has to become above all the place where that discovery gets validated and recognized. This is the difference we hope will keep us from falling into Apple’s mistake: not yet another attempt to build a social network, not yet another streaming platform, but a layer that attaches to existing behaviors and makes them visible, measurable, and rewarded.

That’s why we started analyzing our Ideal Customer Profiles: interviews, needs, real desires. Not all fans are the same: there are those who want to feel like “early discoverers,” those who seek status by sharing, and those who love to curate and recommend music.

Each of them needs different levers. This is where mechanics like points, badges, levels, leaderboards, and rewards come into play: tools to give recognition and visibility to what they already do every day, especially on social platforms.

We decided to run our first test around the release of one of our UK artists, Shugz. Instead of doing onboarding inside the platform, we did it directly through WhatsApp groups, to stimulate and observe fan behavior.

As a first test, we chose to start from something concrete: the release of our artist Shugz (Check him on Spotify). Instead of forcing everyone into the platform, we onboarded them directly into WhatsApp groups, to see what would happen.

The image below tells the story better than a thousand words: the Shugz community divided into roles, Co-producers, Promoters, Members, Supporters , each with a different level of participation. Proof that fans are not all the same, and that when you give them a clear role, they start acting like a real team.

The goal has never been, and still isn’t, to make Fankee a new social network (it would be madness even to think about it), but a status layer on top of the socials that already exist.

But a layer can’t be built with words alone. It takes iteration, method, and execution. And above all, it requires starting from clear principles, the ones that guide us in every choice. These are our pillars.

The first pillar is clear: Fankee is not a social network. It is a status layer. We don’t want to compete with TikTok, Instagram, or SoundCloud. We play directly in their arenas, amplifying behaviors that already exist. Actions like sharing a link, curating a playlist, launching a challenge all happen outside — but inside Fankee those actions are recognized, certified, and rewarded. That’s how distribution grows organically: not against socials, but together with them.

The second pillar is proof of work. Every badge of status must be tied to a real action: a piece of content created, a link shared, a purchase made. Not meaningless symbols, but visible traces. The more you contribute, the more you grow: badges, visibility, ranking.

The third pillar is about the true currency of our time: status. At first, the value is not economic, but symbolic and cultural. Being a “Promoter” or “Co-producer” is not information locked inside Fankee, but a title to show off on TikTok, Instagram, SoundCloud. This is what activates virality and builds the reputation of fans both inside and outside the platform.

The fourth pillar is the multiplayer nature of the experience. No one plays alone: each user’s actions are intertwined with others. Every track becomes a micro-team game: who discovers it first, who pushes it the most, who makes it spread the furthest. Leaderboards, badges, and challenges are not vanity metrics: they are tools that legitimize users’ value and give meaning to their effort.

Finally, the fifth pillar: community first, monetization after. We don’t start with shares or money, but with a shared culture of support. Emotional involvement comes first, then economic involvement. This sequence is what makes the funnel authentic, sustainable, and aligned with the true motivations of our users.

These must be the foundations on which we build Fankee. Our challenge.

The future of music doesn’t belong to those who own the catalogs, but to those who build the networks.

This is the game. And this is where Fankee wants to play.