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Private | |
Industry | Music industry |
Founded | September 30, 2013 in Austin, Texas, USA |
Founders | Giulio Chiarenza and Michael Pierce |
Headquarters | Austin, Texas , USA |
Area served | Worldwide |
Owners | Giulio Chiarenza and Michael Pierce |
Number of employees | 1-10 (2019) |
Website | equipboard |
Equipboard [1] is an online database of music artists and their respective gear. It was founded on September 30, 2013, by Giulio Chiarenza and Michael Pierce.
Equipboard's content is crowdsourced by fans, musicians, and retailers. The database is searchable by artist, discipline, gear type, and keyword. Each item of gear listed on an artist’s equipboard [2] includes a citation to either a news source, photo, or social-media posting that definitively links the item to the artist. Gear entries feature ratings and reviews by the Equipboard community as well as links to authorized retailers.
Crowdsourcing is a sourcing model in which individuals or organizations obtain goods and services, including ideas and finances, from a large, relatively open and often rapidly-evolving group of internet users; it divides work between participants to achieve a cumulative result. The word crowdsourcing itself is a portmanteau of crowd and outsourcing, and was coined in 2005. As a mode of sourcing, crowdsourcing existed prior to the digital age.
The site also offers a library of articles and buying guides authored by a team of industry experts.
Registered members are able to follow the equipboards of pro artists to receive gear updates; create their own personal equipboards to index the gear that they have and keep track of the gear that they want; contribute to Equipboard by adding new artists and gear to the database, linking existing gear to a particular artist, and correcting inaccuracies; review gear for fellow musicians; and participate in forum discussions.
Giulio Chiarenza and Michael Pierce started Equipboard to connect musicians with the brands and equipment used by professional artists. The company adopted its current crowdsourcing model in 2014. As of 2019, Equipboard features roughly 57,000 gear profiles and the collections of over 55,000 individual artists.
Equipboard has been headquartered in Austin, Texas, except for a span of 6 months in 2014 when the company temporarily relocated to San Francisco in order to participate in the 500 Startups Accelerator Program. [3]
500 Startups is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, California in February, 2011. They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.
Equipboard has participated in three accelerator programs: Capital Factory (Fund 4), [4] Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs (Fall 2014), [5] and 500 Startups (8th Accelerator Class). [6] Equipboard has received investment money from Capital Factory, Jonathan Coon ( 1-800 Contacts ), Dave McClure ( Simply Hired ), Silverton Partners ( Silicon Labs ), and 500 Startups. [7]
Jonathan C. Coon is an American businessman who is the CEO and co-founder of 1-800 Contacts. He received his B.A. in Advertising and Public Relations in 1994 from Brigham Young University. While a student there, Coon created a small business selling contact lenses to other students. In 1995, his business model helped him win the 1995 Business Plan Competition hosted by BYU's Marriott School of Management, which awarded him capital to help grow his business into 1-800 Contacts. Coon is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1-800 Contacts Inc. is an American contact lens retailer based in Draper, Utah. The brands that 1-800 Contacts use includes Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Ciba Vision, Bausch & Lomb and CooperVision. In 2006, its last year as a public company, the company reported net sales of US$247 million.
Dave McClure is an entrepreneur and angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who founded the business accelerator 500 Startups, serving as CEO until his resignation in 2017.
As of 2019, Equipboard has raised a total of $650,000 in investment capital. [7]
Equipboard participates in several affiliate marketing programs to generate revenue. The company earns commissions on purchases made by consumers who connect with a merchant via links provided on Equipboard’s website.
Equipboard allows all registered members to contribute and add to the database. Members may connect existing gear to an artist’s equipboard, submit new gear, and correct any inaccuracies they may discover. Equipboard contributors work on a point system called GearIQ. [8] New contributors start out with a GearIQ of 0. A contributor’s GearIQ increases with every correct and factual submission he or she adds to Equipboard. [9] Contributors are granted additional editing privileges as their GearIQs increase. Members with higher GearIQ are featured on the leaderboard of their favorite artist's profile.
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