Kayla Trinh & Rila He of Project Play: Skip the 10,000 Hours — The Synth That Lets Anyone Make Music in 15 Minutes

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to our audiences. It's a huge welcome to our guests today, Kayla and Rila, who are the co-founders of Project Play, a company building a pocket-sized music synthesizer that lets anyone play and create music regardless of their musical backgrounds. Which is very friendly for both new beginners as well as some of the more professional players. Thank you so much for joining us at the 22nd episode of the 18VC podcast.

And for our audiences who may not be familiar with us, we are a podcast featuring student founders, young founders, as well as researchers and investors willing to back those youngest and smartest minds. Today's hosts will be me, Philip, and also David. Hello. Great. I think I came across Kayla and Rila during one of the events hosted by Marshall's Greif Center of Entrepreneurial Studies open house events.

And what you're building at Project Play, I think, is just so interesting because it's just quite different from what all the other guys are building about AI B2B SaaS, which we hear it a million times. That actually helps them stand out a little bit, and I think it's very interesting what they're building a hardware product as well as into the music industry that we rarely covered in our previous episodes. Which is super great, and we are just so excited to have you here, and we can move on to your stories and the stories of Project Play. Sounds good.

Thank you for having us. We're actually so excited especially because 22 is my favorite number, guys. Ooh. Okay. It's my birthday. Oh. Oh, my birthday is also 22nd. Really? Yeah. But we're in different months. But that's still crazy. Yeah. That's a really interesting coincidence. What a coincidence. Yeah. That's great. Then we can start a little bit with your personal backgrounds.

Before the Project Play, what are you doing? What are you exploring? And what makes you into the startup space? Because it's not that typical. A lot of students may go for corporate jobs. What brings your interest in doing a startup? Do you want to go first, Rila? Yes. So I joined SparkSC in the second semester of my freshman year. There was an entrepreneurship club at USC, and both Kayla and I were in that club.

At that time, I didn't know what I want to build, but I know I have a passion for making a positive social impact on campus. So I just want to keep looking around and keep exploring what I want to build. And in the second semester of my sophomore year, I joined a really interesting class at Viterbi called "Lives Not Grades." So it gave us a chance to focus on a topic, find a solution, and build a solution within one semester with the support of three professors from different industries. At that time, I built Relief Match, which is a Chrome extension that can make donation really easy and seamless on Amazon.

And we worked with a local non-profit to help them facilitate about 90 donations during the LA wildfire. That was a really valuable experience for me, and that make me continue building and exploring myself in the startup place until I met Kayla, my co-founder. Aw, oh my gosh. I love our story. But for me I grew up in a really low-income community, and a lot of people that come out of that community from high school either go straight to trade school or pursue a more traditional path like accounting, doctor nursing, things like that.

So I didn't even know what business was coming into college. I didn't even know what entrepreneurship was. I actually came in as a health science student, just following the path that's all I knew until I took Foundations of Entrepreneurship. I think it's BUAD 403 or something. But in that class, I learned that entrepreneurship and startup is not just for the sake of making profit or something, but rather finding a problem and being able to amplify your reach through entrepreneurship.

So in high school, I did a lot of teaching music. Everything I did was relating to music. I did master classes private lessons for free, building programs. But I didn't know that if I used entrepreneurship, then the people I impact and help could reach way more. So that was kind of my drive and when I started to really enjoy entrepreneurship. And then I joined Spark SC because it's a shared values organization.

I feel like a lot of people from Spark really value impact and that's where I met Rila, too. Or met her again. Yeah. Because we took a GE class, but we never talked like ever. But in SparkSC, we were really able to align on our shared values and build something together. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Both from the class and from the clubs, I think there's definitely some great entry points into entrepreneurship, and I think USC did a great job in creating this ecosystem where there's those abundant resources where you can start your journey.

And I would just dig a little bit into each of you. So first, Kayla, you've been studying in IYA right now as well as in the music school. I think you've been working as an audio engineer helping with the Trojan event planning things. How's that experience teach you about, or brings you up the interest in the music industry, and how's that connected to the product you're doing today?

Yeah. I'm a mixing engineer for Trojan Event Services, so all of the events on campus in Bovard Tommy's Place, is completely student-run lighting, audio, and stage production. But what I learned in music industry as a music industry major is that the opportunity is quite limited. I feel in my classes, I didn't feel a lot of diversity not only in gender, but also race and also in technological advancement.

I feel like the music industry was super behind, and I felt like I wasn't growing. And that's why I added IYA as a second major because I felt like it was actively looking in the future and solving problems. And I really wanted to be a part of that. But my formal training in Thornton has allowed me to have an expertise in something and dive into that to solve problems through IYA.

Definitely. And I think you also been interning in TikTok during the past few months. How's that experience like? And comparing to working in a big corporate comparing to doing your own startups which experience you prefer more? It's so hard. It's so hard. I've been working at TikTok for six months and while on one hand it gives me a lot of exposure to structures and how things can be more efficient and it's also given me a lot of opportunities in having my own autonomy in projects and even entertainment and networking and creating strategy documents and stuff like that.

It's really nice to be able to model after them. But the impact part and personal fulfillment is a little bit low. Even though I have really cool opportunities, like I get to meet celebrities and work with them, but I just don't feel anything. It feels like you're going round and round in a hamster wheel. Whereas when I work with Rila on Project Play, it feels like I'm making progress towards something.

So I would say that's the biggest difference and I get to take the skills that I learn at TikTok and everything and transfer over to our startup. Yeah. That's great. I think you definitely have a passion in what you're building in Project Play. You're just not doing a work, but it's a commitment, it's a dedication that you really enjoy doing. I think that's the charm of doing a startup.

100%. Yeah. Yeah. And going to Rila I think you did mention about the relief match that you have been building up during your previous classes. Can you share us a little bit more about that experience? Is it more like a project, or did you run it as a organization or startups? And what did you learn from that experience that you migrated to what you're building right now?

Yeah. That was a really memorable experience for me. Although we built it more like a project instead of making it profitable but the impact was genuine and really moving for us because we went on site to different nonprofits. And we also had real connections with people who were affected by the wildfire. For example, someone that we reached out to, her bakery was burned down and so all the products that she required from us was different bakery items.

So we feel like we are genuinely helping a real person, and we can help our donors see how their money is going into a real person on really specific items instead of donors don't know where their money is going into. But I think two things that I learned and that applies to Project Play, is that first, a business model is really important because at that time we worked more like a nonprofit where we provided our effort, our time, and our product for free for these nonprofits. So at that time, although it's really rewarding, but it's also not really sustainable for us because we all have different things going on in life. It's really hard for us to go all in into this project for a long time.

So that's why gradually some of our members graduated, and we stopped the project. The second thing I learned is team dynamic is really important, and everyone should put time and energy into cultivating genuine friendship with their team members. At that time, although all of my team members, they're really amazing, but we're not really close. We're just working on it for the project, and sometimes there's some beef going on in the team.

which I don't know how to say, but it's really hard to support each other to continue working on this project when people are not really satisfied what some other people is doing. But for Project Play, we've encountered a lot of problems. We encountered all of failures, but we still pushed through because everyone is very committed, and we all know that everyone puts theirselves into this project and want to see it succeed. That's why we all feel really safe, and we are making progress every day.

Yeah, definitely. Since we talked about how your corporate sides have contributed to how you're working on Project Play right now, let's expand a little more on your contributions at school right now because you guys are pretty deep into USC's entrepreneurial ecosystems, right? As president and vice presidents of SparkSC, how would you say that experience leading such an organization on campus has helped you build build Project Play? Give us one second.

Yeah, take your time. I would say for SparkSC honestly, SparkSC pretty much changed my life in terms of entrepreneurship. Wow. Not only did I meet Rila, but even the project itself came out of SparkSC, because they are an organization that tries to expand entrepreneurship. And one of the initiatives they ran was called "Break to Make," and it's an all women's hardware hackathon.

And then in that project, it was a 24-hour hackathon. I just wanted to make something fun, and I was like, "Let's make it so people can play music easier and have these design inspirations. Let's just make something fun." And by the end of it, we actually won and the judges said that it was actually solving a problem in music education. And that's when the gears kind of clicked for me, and I was like, "Wait All right this could be a really good project." But if it had not been for that hackathon, which I was so nervous to enter because I had no experience in hardware.

I was at the door, and I was like, "Should I just turn around? I can just turn around. I don't have to go to this." And I was a brand new Spark member at the time, but participating in this hackathon was separate from that. And also aside from the fact that I wouldn't have been in that space due to the hackathon I also wouldn't have seen the magic a hardware a real physical product brings to people.

A lot of people ask us, "Why don't you just make this a digital thing? Why don't you just make it a software or an extension or an add-on or a plugin?" But we were like, "No, it has to be hardware." And we can't explain it other than it's just really magical. It's fun. That's why it's called Project Play because we're trying to expand not just the music opportunity, but the playfulness of playing music.

It's so boring to go on YouTube and watch tutorials for music learning and playing. Yeah. It's such a different experience when you have it in front of you. You can make real things in real time. It's really just like magic. And after that, I posted in our Slack channel. I just said, "Does anyone want to work on this with me? I kind of want to pitch this in the spring semester." And then Rila reached out to me with a really heartfelt message, and then that's when we became co-founders.

So not only did it change my life with the startup, but also in the values that Rila talked earlier about having genuine friendship with the people that you build with. Because the closer you are I don't know, it's just better. You're not just coworkers, but you're in this together. You're basically like a marriage. We're married. So, yeah. Oh. That's it.

When you were looking for your co-founders at the beginning, I'm sure Rila wasn't the only person that reached out to you, right? How did you decide that Rila was the person to marry, to work on this together? Yeah. Actually, not a lot of people were available to give advice, so it started with a lot of chats with the designers in Spark or the people that thought it was a really cool idea.

But the thing with Rila, she was just instantly passionate about it. She sent me a message that said it was really inspiring for her. And also I don't know, Rila has such genuine authenticity in everything she does, so it was kind of a no-brainer. I don't think we even had a chat. I can't even remember if we did. I think we had a brief chat, and also as we mentioned before, Kayla and I was in a GE class in our first year.

Right. So we kind of see each other's work ethics and the way that we deal with problem, or we deal with difficulties, so we kind of already trust each other in some sense. How do you guys split up the work? Do you guys have a specific portion within a team, like one's a more technical person, the other person's a more communication external relationship person?

Or is it kind of blended in since you guys have mixed interests? I think in the beginning it's kind of mixed because we were both focusing on working on a product first and then participating in these competitions. So we brainstorm what features we want, and we work on the pitch decks together. And in the later stages, we tended to work on different areas.

Kayla did a lot of design work discussion with our designers. I think Kayla is more like a PM and the leader of the team, where she's coordinating between different sectors, like the engineers the designers, and all the kind of other work. And I spent more of my time sourcing manufacturers, looking into the materials we need to use for Project Play, how to achieve these features, and what parts that we need to buy for the project. So I think I was mainly responsible for the business side and the manufacturing side later on.

I think even though we have really similar interests and values, our team's actively growing, but what we work on, we never actually said, "Oh, Ray, you do manufacturing and then I'll do." We've never said that. It just kind of happened because I think, for me, I'm a really big visionary. So both me and Rila brainstorm product features and all that stuff, but I really enjoy talking to people and being able to make the engineers, the designers, everyone on our team's lives easier by undoing roadblocks for them makes me feel happy. And then with more emotional logic, emotional side.

And then with Rila, she's like a master executor. She's super logistical oriented, and I was so glad that she just took the... We didn't even talk about it, but she just took the initiative on doing manufacturing and contacting these people and going back and forth with them on product features. And I was so glad because that's the least thing that I want to do.

But she makes it look so effortless. That's a great combination of a team. And I think you already touched a little bit on the original story of starting from the hackathons, and I think you have already kind of moved forward to develop several more versions of that as your own version 2. How's that experience after the hackathon goes? How you go to competitions, also go to incubators.

What's that journey look like? I guess I can start. I think at first we were really ambitious, and we actually participated in four competitions in total in the spring semester. But as we progressed as we started moving on these competitions, we actually felt more and more confused about who is our target audience, why are we building this, what is our final goal of this product.

So I think in April and May, we spent more time in user surveys, in collecting data, and we also showcased our products at Trojan Marketplace, which is an event of Spark, and also at IYA's Venture Showcase, where we got a lot more feedback on our products, and it also led us to take the time to rethink about some of our previous assumptions. So I would say these journeys are more important than the competitions that we participated in because the competitions are just for money, and we are losing to a lot of these software companies which make us feel really, really frustrated. But the real people that we talked to later on during these showcases or the professors that continuously gave us their time to support us are the ones who make us push through and gradually realize what we really want to build. Plus one to that.

The pitch competitions itself it really doesn't mean anything because you're just speculating the whole time. You're just like, "Oh, I think this is our users. I think this." And we did so much research beforehand. We're not actually speculating. We did surveys, we did interviews, we did user testing so many different things, but we were getting so much mixed feedback.

There was so much chefs in the kitchen. Yeah. People would say We would go to one pitch competition, they would say, "Have you explored B2B?" And we're like, "Yes." Then we go to the next one, they said "Have you explored doing an app?" We're like, "Yes." And then because they only have five minutes to know your entire story, they're not going to be a professional advisor on what's best for our startup. Yeah.

And then we go to the next one, and they're giving us, "Oh where's your differentiation?" It was so frustrating for us. Yeah. And we only started working on this in January and then the pitch competition Or maybe more like February. But the pitch competitions were throughout the spring semester, and by the end of it, we were so burnt out and tired from everyone's opinions.

By the end of it, we're like, "We're just going to build it. We don't even care. We're just going to build it." So we spent the summer, Rila was talking to manufacturers, I was working with another designer for getting the CAD model and the professional design. But what really changed our trajectory was when we started building publicly. We got a little taste of that at the Venture Showcase, like Rila mentioned, and Trojan Marketplace.

But posting on LinkedIn and then seeing other people's real-time responses to our work was probably the thing that changed the most because we got real validation from people. People could always like a LinkedIn post or scroll past it, but it means something else when they offer to help, when they connect you with another person, when they really try to forward your product and mission. And when they show, like when we connected with you guys, and you guys showed us the other products similar, we were like, "Wait, this is totally valid." Yeah. When we were being gaslit in spring semester by these pitch competitions.

Like, "Oh, this is not You guys made this." A professor literally said, "Oh, if you guys made it in one week, that means anyone can make it. So what makes you guys different?" He knows nothing about music, but when these music professionals and other people really started to band together to support us publicly when we were posting on LinkedIn, that's what changed the most. Yeah, definitely. And I think that's a great, I would not say lessons to learn, but good shares for other students who are building right now.

Just put yourself out there. Build in public. You get inbounds or helps from maybe people you never thought of. I think that's definitely a great strategy or so to do that. And you've been mentioning about, I think building a hardware has been typically difficult than building a software nowadays. I think you do mention a little bit about that part, but can you talk a little bit more about why does it have to be a hardware instead of, as you said, like a software plug-in or something like that?

Yeah. So I think we have two main reasons. First is when we're asking other users or even strangers to try our product they show genuine enthusiasm, and they learn really, really quickly For example, there's a professor we met at Venture Showcase, and he was singing "Freak" with Kayla. Oh, Creep. "I'm a creep." You know that song? Yeah. By Radiohead.

Yeah, we still have a video of that. He was just so happy with our product, so we wanted to see more happiness from people and redefine the meaning of play, bring back the meaning of play. That's why we want to make it a hardware. And secondly, hardware is also our differentiability. Whenever we talk to anyone about our product saying it's a hardware, people's eyes instantly light up because.

it's finally not a software anymore, and it takes much more research and development and much more time to make a hardware. So we think that is what makes our product unique. For sure. With hardware versus software, I was literally talking to one of our users about it which they were really excited because they were like, "I was trying to learn 'City of Stars' for so long but I couldn't play it on piano, so I gave up." And then when they tried our product, they were able to play it in 15 minutes of learning and onboarding.

But they are a very software person. They really like software. They're like, with software, in a startup sense, you can fail faster, develop faster, and just have more tangible efforts faster. And with hardware, there's so much more buffer with the engineering, with the manufacturing, with the physical product. But yeah, I don't know. It's just we one, bringing back the play, and two we want to make it a longer lifespan than something you just might use a couple times with software.

Yes. Like an investment people make. So on the topic of play broadening out the scope that we are looking at to the people that you've talked to, the problem of the market, what would you say is currently the broken aspect about how people make music today, and who's getting left out, and how Project Play is helping to say, bridge the gap, fix it? Yes.

I would say that's a perfect way to describe it. It's like filling the gap for creatives that want to make music but might not have the music theory background or resources to make it happen. So typically let's say you're an experienced musician. That means you would've had to take years of either private lessons which could cost $3,000 to $5,000 a year, plus the cost of the instrument itself, like piano or the guitar.

Or you could self-teach which the process is really boring. You could go on YouTube and watch YouTube tutorials, like those guitar tutorials, piano tutorials, but those are really disengaging and not fun. Also, you lack direction, and all of that could accumulate to just maybe three months to learn your first song, and the first song is like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or something. really easy.

Yeah. Or I guess those are the couple ways someone would want to learn music. But let's say you're a singer, and you don't want to sing to karaoke on YouTube, but also, like I said, you don't have the resources or the time to make learning an instrument happen, and the learning barrier is just so high, too. All of that just for one song, like a really easy beginner level song.

The barrier to entry is super high with music. Even as a musician of 12 years, I even struggle with chord progressions and making songs, and it's like you lack ideas or you're doing the same things over and over again. So that's where Project Play comes in, where if you're a singer, you can sing your favorite songs in 15 minutes. If you're a songwriter, you have all the chords right in front of you.

You don't have to know the theory behind or where to exactly put your fingers or all that training. And if you're an existing musician, maybe you're switching from bass, which is not a chord instrument, but you want to make songs. Well, you have all the chords in front of you to make it happen. Kind of like being able to introduce a new product into your workflow that might get your creativity going again.

You've mentioned high barrier to entry, and I definitely agree with it because I've went through a couple of musical lessons throughout my life, right? I learned piano and guitar, and both were pretty extended period, right? And then I forgot them now. But my point being, you're right. There's an extended amount of time, months, maybe for years to get to an expert level before you're able to feel the power, the emotional power of being an expert musician.

What would you say and as someone that's from Thornton, what would you say is the cost of that weight, the length, the barrier? So much time, motivation energy, and also money, because time is money. And even if you do get private lessons, like let's say you have the money to afford private lessons, the private lessons aren't going to do anything for you. You have to practice at home outside of the private lessons.

You have to make progress by yourself. The teacher's just there to guide you. And then the private lesson, if you don't like your teacher, or their teaching style, or they're mean, it can become really traumatizing, too. Yeah, I'm sure you guys are shaking your head. Like you guys know. But we want to be able to spread that kind of joy and fun of music making without that turmoil, especially for people that just want to either casually play casually sing, or get into that barrier.

Obviously, if you're going to be at the professional level, you will have to do the 10 years of expertise, and it says you need 10,000 hours to master a skill or whatever, but for someone that just wants to explore and have fun with it, we want to lower that barrier for them. And Project Play does it in 15 minutes, right? Is it an average time that you observed between all the beta testers, or is it some research done behind it, like an average time you need for a person to retain knowledge through this device? Actually, after this, you guys can try it, and we'll see if you guys can get it in 15 minutes.

All right. But honestly, with a quick explanation from me and your favorite song you knowing your favorite song, how it goes. Rila tested it. She has no background in music. We had, I think, about average of everyone that we tested it with could get it very quickly. And it's not even like you sit down and you're like, "Oh, I can play it right away." It still requires a little bit of hand-eye coordination, which makes it even more fun.

So it's not like, oh, you're just producing this and not even doing anything. But it requires some hand-eye coordination, and you still get to practice it. But the barrier and the speed of learning is so much easier. It's way more fun. I think it brings you back to the hardware aspects of it, right? There's a special feeling of having something to play with with your hands as opposed to a digital product where there's less to play with your hands to touch, to feel, right?

Exactly. When you press down the buttons, you're making that sound. It's not like a YouTube where you technically press the play button but you're not doing anything. And I also like that it's way easier compared to a typical instrument, but I would say, Rila, you can speak to this too, when you first used our prototype, how did you feel? It did require a little bit of practicing or like, "Oh, I want to try again." Yeah, it's not frustrating at all because there is enough space between each chord for me to think about what to press next, and also because there's no pressure in this learning environment.

There's not a teacher scolding me or telling me, "You need to learn within this one hour." So I feel really relaxed and just a really fun experience for me. And it's still a brain. It's like a physical brain to hand Coordination? Yes, coordination. It's like a brain exercise. That's why I think it's so fun, too. So you're thinking about it, "Oh, I need to press this one next.

I need to press this one next." Almost like a sport or like a dance or something where you use your brain and your body. We've been talking about usage for newer people the past few minutes, but we've also talked about more experienced people. So the audience who might not be familiar with the product might be being confused right now. So could you, maybe we should've done this earlier, but could you walk us through what Project Play is and what would happen to, say, a first-time user in the first five minutes?

They have their hardware right in front of them. What happens? What is it? I would say, wait, really quickly, I feel like with experienced musicians, they could use it as a way to bring back new workflow ideas because we're trying to price the product at a very affordable price. But there are products in the higher-end market ranging at $600 to $1,000 that will probably suit experienced musicians a little better because they have way more complexity in the product and the instrument.

But back to your question, the first five minutes. Would you like to. Oh, okay, I got you. So when you open it you have the product in front of you, and let's just say do you like to play, to sing, or I like to sing country songs. I love that. Okay, no, that's fine. That's beautiful. Country songs are actually one of the best examples Oh because there's only a few chords that go into country songs, usually like four.

Okay. So you have the thing in front of you, then you'll go on your laptop, or we're exploring what an app might look like. But for now, you'll go on your laptop, and you'll search, what's your favorite song, your country song? What's your favorite country song? Man, "Fast Car." Okay. "Fast Car." Is that what, "Fast Car"? "Fast Car," like fast. Like vroom vroom.

Okay. So you go on Google or whatever, Chrome, whatever. You click "Fast Car by blank chords." Okay. Then the first link that pops up, you'll click it and they'll have the chord sheet, the lyrics, and the chords that you're supposed to play. And then you'll be able to be like, okay, it literally says there if it's G major, E minor D major, C major, and then you'll correlate what that says with the buttons here.

So you can click you'll sing. I don't know how the song goes, but the only country song I know is "Sweet Caroline," maybe. So you'll be like "Sweet Caroline," boom. Okay. Boom, boom, boom. And then you're able to correlate. It's really easy. You just see the letter. You click the letter, the quality, like major, minor, whatever. You click that at the same time, and then it'll make sound for you to sing along.

Is the primary purpose of the display for new people to learn how to play, or is there any additional functions that you guys are trying to use the display for, like deciphering, decoding? Yes, we just talked about it this past Friday. Oh. Would you? Yeah, because we think that a lot of the people, although they know how to learn how to play chords, they don't know which notes make up the chord.

Right. So it would display the picture and the name of the notes on the LED screen while you're pressing each chord. That allows you to understand what each chord is doing. Yeah. And we have other parameters on there on our newer prototype that Rila's working with the manufacturer with. Things like changing the base note or arpeggiating or all these other musical things.

When you hear these music things, what does it mean? But the purpose of the product is for you to experiment with it and be like, "I like that sound," or, "I don't." But all the LED screen will reflect those changes of like, "Oh, when I press C major, but then when I press this button, it turns into this, and I like that sound. What is that?" And you'll see it on the screen. I see.

And I think we are just touching about the features of your product. I would like to ask a little bit more about some of the maybe more technical challenges you've been facing. Because I know building up hardware products, you need to deal with circuit design or something else. How was the, for example, the most challenging part in either manufacturing or finishing up that design?

So when we were doing the design, we didn't think too technically. We would just think about aesthetic-wise what we want it to look like. When it comes to manufacturing, it becomes hard because none of us know embedded system, none of us are electrical engineers, so we cannot design the schematics, and we don't know which PCB board to choose. And that LinkedIn post really helped us because a high school friend of mine contacted me, and he referred me to a studio back in China.

And that studio was mainly focused on helping early-stage builders turn their idea into a hardware. So they know a lot about research development and we negotiated for a really good deal for them to do the research development and produce the first 10 prototypes for us. So they would deal with designing the circuit board and all these hardware stuff for us. That's amazing.

And I think as you mentioned, both of you are probably not from a technical backgrounds receiving this systematic trainings in that sense. And I see your post about recruiting founding engineers. What part of that I think the prototype you managed to build today is already kind of quite impressive. Did you do that with the help of, I don't know, maybe AIs or other stuffs, 3D printings?

What part of that can you do it by yourselves, and what part you still need other people to help? Yes, that's a really good question. Our team has evolved a lot over this Wow, we're six, seven months in. That's crazy because we just started this in the spring semester. But we have a lot of people that aren't actually on the team, but are willing to help.

So that's why the entrepreneurship community is so bustling because it's not like, "Oh, I really like your product, but I can't be a founding engineer, so I'm not going to do anything." But they're like "Oh, let me help with this one thing," and then opt in. Or like, "Oh, let me help with this other thing," and then opt in. Or they're like, "Oh, I can do mentorship, and I can do engineering advising." We have quite a few people that we know that are really passionate about audio and also in the Spark Mate that are our advisors. But most notably in our team that has helped us and then peaced out.

But it's really them just being passionate about the project and wanting to help other founders out. Clarence designed the 3D model for that because we built that in a week. Wow. So yeah. He's actually one of my best friends. So he was like, "I can't fully be a team member because I'm working on my startup, Nalana, but I'm happy to help you with the 3D printing design." He did that in less than a week for us.

And then we had another teammate that is from IYA. Okay. And he helped us with the electrical engineering. And we had the code from the hackathon, so he modified the code. Basically worked with Clarence and designed it and soldered it with the Arduino and everything to make it work. And then we had another person from IYA, too, that's also in SEP, I think.

He helped us with the CAD model of the professional design and professional renders. We also had another person that was helping us here and there for our pitch competitions. Did a big part of our research. They took a surveying research class, so they were able to make really good conclusions of our research and format it in a way that is actually scientific.

So we had a lot of people on our team from the bustling USC community that just wanted to help us, and I think that was really amazing. Yeah. And we also had really amazing mentors who gave advice on our pitch deck, who had introduced us to the incubator that we're going to start soon and gave us a lot of support along the way. But fall back to your question about what we cannot achieve.

It's about achieving these more complicated features like inversion, arpeggio. I think these are the features that we need a bunch of engineers for. So we cannot only include one engineer and expect him or she to do the whole thing because it would take forever. But we want our first prototype so that we can iterate we can do more user testing. That's why we connect with this studio who can give us our first 10 models in six weeks, which is China speed.

I love that. So I'm glad we are connected to that studio. Yeah. Great. And I think talking about the product itself, I remember Kayla, you post a LinkedIn post saying that there's no AI features in the products. You're worried a little bit, or you're missing out the hype there. Can you talk a little bit more about your thought process behind that, and also what are the feedbacks maybe others are commenting and yeah?

Yeah. That post got so much attraction. I'm going to check it right now. to remember what people commented. But it got even more impressions than when I posted about my internship which was actually already crazy because, I don't know LinkedIn is a really weird place, honestly. Use it as you will. Okay. I'm looking at the comments and we actually received a lot of support.

Yeah, I think all we got is support and then curiosity. People from across Adobe, Microsoft, even music producers. I got a message from Germany. Random people that I have never talked to in my life were like, "Oh, what is this? Is this a synth product, or is this a chord synth? What is it? Oh, I'd love to connect and hear more and pick your brain." But the no AI part, I was like man.

Honestly, with IYA they usually have a bias towards AI products. And with non-AI products don't really receive that much support, I would say. And I would say there honestly might be some bias in the entrepreneurship community when it comes to gender and race again. So I was like, "Everyone's building an AI product." And that line I thought about it for a long time.

It was such a clickbait line. My music startup has no AI in it. Have I missed the jackpot? And it was kind of clickbaiting. But it was kind of my hard launch for Project Play. I was like, "I want to start building publicly. Let me launch this." And I also think the reason why people were so curious about it and wanted to know more is because of that controversial AI in music/art, AI art, AI music discussion right now.

I also went to this music conference called NAMM. It's one of the biggest music conferences. And all the panels were like AI and music, ethical AI. And it was so strange. And there's Suno that can make AI music. Yeah, but I think the bubble's already popping. I really do think it's already popping because there's so much influx in AI products. All of them become similar and wrappers of the same thing, unless I feel like they're really solving a problem.

But we also applied to pitch for Yamaha's student pitch competition, and we also got rejected, even though I feel like it's right up their alley in physical products. But all the products, every single product was an AI music. And I told you the music industry's behind, so they're just catching up on AI right now when it's popping. Man. The bubble's popping.

Yeah. I'm going to enjoy conversation about this. But Yeah let's talk about the sales first. So what's the first cohort or population of customers you guys are targeting for? And how are you guys planning to sell it to them? Door-to-door sales or friends and family or something else? I would say first our target audience are teenage to adults. Okay.

So they're at least in high school and have some interest in music. For example, someone likes singing but has no music background. And these are our target audience. And our plan is that we'll start from our local community because we are priced not really high. We're thinking about 50 to $59. And we have a space in the incubator, so we plan to host several workshops at the space at the incubator and invite the local community to come in for testing the product, to understanding it, and trying to use it.

So we hope to get some people on our waiting list from these workshops. And we were also thinking about introducing these to our friends because our friends have showed genuine interest in buying. And we also had a landing page previously, so we had some people on our email list. We'll also do cold emails to try to get their attention. I've got to ask since now that you've mentioned a wait list, I saw it on the website, and there's a $1 refundable deposit.

So I've got to ask why a dollar? Why not just make it a pre order or something? Oh, it was our crash outs about the pitch competitions. They're like, "You guys need traction." So we were like, "Okay." Because honestly, RSVPing to pre-order versus actually taking out your credit card and putting down a dollar Oh is a really big difference. So people are actually willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Not just clicking a button and being like, "Ah, pre-order," but actually taking out their credit card and putting their information in, and putting down a dollar. And that was also kind of a soft launch to our crowdfunding campaign, which we are starting to warm up and trying to launch maybe at the end of the semester. Yeah, and I have another thing to mention for how we're getting the product to our audience. There are also two things that we're doing right now.

First, we're participating in a build in public competition or event in China. Sorry, I have a little cold. partnering with our manufacturer. So we are preparing media and videos about the research development process and our marketing materials from our side. So the studio back in China will help us edit and also release them, working with several Chinese social media.

So that's one way for us to be more present and start building our brand image. Also, after we have our first 10 prototypes, there will be a round of 10,000 cold emails that the studios will send out to their audience in the entrepreneurship space, in the music space, and in the hardware space. Okay. Yeah, so that is a way for us to test users' willingness to buy and also to reach more audience.

So we would expect to know more details and have more data about what is the accurate audience profile after that round of research. Since you've mentioned studio, I would like to talk about the unit economic side of it, right? It's a hardware product. I did a merchandise sale for a talent agency before, and it's very small margin to profit from there, at least for a goods merchandise for a talent agency, for example is 20% to 25%, 30% if it's a lot.

So I was wondering, how is it for Project Play? And as somebody who's new to this hardware stuff, what surprised you about the cost or the process of manufacturing, et cetera? Yes, to be honest, the manufacturing cost was a little bit lower than I expected if we're not looking for a fully professional version of a product. So we are able to have about 30% to 35% of profit margin using the current materials that we select.

However, if we want to go into a more advanced version using better, like you have better feeling. a better touch feeling of the button. The finish. Yes. Yeah. That would be requiring a lot of the upfront investment cost for the molding, but after that upfront investment cost, the profit margin will be really high. But the problem for us is that now we don't have the upfront investment cost, because it would be around $20,000.

And so we're looking for ways to gradually get there, and that upfront investment will get our cost of production to a quite low place. But right now, it's still affordable for us, like you said, a 20% to 30% profit margin is what we are thinking is acceptable right now. I see. And I think we can also talk a little bit about the competitive landscape thing.

We've been mentioning a few companies that we talked last time. I think they're kind of building in a similar space, like the one you mentioned that's more high-end, and there's also one that's more like a guitar thing that also aims for helping beginners to get easily started playing and performing. Just a little bit about how do you position yourself a little differently from these guys? Yeah.

Yeah. I would say there's a lot of, like I mentioned higher-end music products that are really impressive and at a super high standard. One of them is Orchid, another one I saw was Nopia, and another one is maybe Teenage Engineering OP-1. But all of these are in really high price range, anywhere from $600 to over $1,000 for one unit that's 12 inches.

And where Project Play stands is kind of like the Southwest Airlines of like I mentioned before Okay. Yeah of music tech. That's a good analogy. Something that's affordable fun, and still captures a different audience than what these products go for. Honestly, this is not a new technology that we're bringing to the table but why hasn't anyone done it before at an affordable price?

I think it's just because the music industry just doesn't really value. It's kind of a prideful industry. It's like, "Oh, you didn't get the 10,000 hours, so that means you don't get to have that fun." But we really want to bridge that gap, and it is a completely different market. Oh, man. I'm going to have so much fun with this. I'm excited. Okay. Because I work with and talk with a lot of illustrators, graphic designers, animators, and other creative professionals right?

And there's a very different reception of usage of AI in creative space, and this question is specifically for you Kayla. So you've been in TikTok for the past several months, and you've seen how engagements get drawn into all these popular music videos and just all in general. So how do you say how TikTok is positioned regarding usage of AI in creative space and distribution of these products? Right.

I obviously don't speak for the company Yeah. Okay I'm not an ambassador. I just work there, guys. I'm just an intern. Yeah. But TikTok is very authentic in AI usage. I feel like especially with the projects that I've been on which is social content and also content with celebrities. We're very conscious of AI usage, and a lot of it is genuine creativity that goes into video editing scripting.

Yeah. I would say we use AI for internal speeding up of processes, but yeah, I've never been unhappy with the way TikTok, in my work, uses AI. Yeah. Okay. I'll let you off the leash. Sorry. Thank you. No, it's true, though. Okay. I learned a lot from my coworker who does all of the social editing for TikTok Live. And actually, in my first couple of months, he went on paternity leave, so I had to take over all the video editing, which both of us do completely by hand.

Everything is completely authentic. When I look at the footage, I'm like, "Okay, how do I." Yeah, so we don't really use AI in creative processes, I would say. Okay. On the topic of authenticity, I have a very current, contemporary example. So the past three to four days, have you guys heard of this song called "GG EZ"? Yes. Yes. It became really popular.

It's an AI-generated song, right? The beats, the lyrics, the singer even, and it became really popular in Korea and a lot of people danced to it. Yeah. You know, dance covers are a very popular thing, and it became viral again the past few days on X and TikTok with these two esports guys covering the song, right? And there's this discourse that I'm seeing right now, the past few days, and back then too and with any AI-generated creative products.

So in this particular "GG EZ" cover example there's two sides that I'm seeing enlarged. So one is saying the origin of the song is AI, right? It was created, everything is AI, so it is taking away in more crude way, jobs from professionals, whereas other people are saying, "It's been covered, the lyrics been rewritten by humans, so there's more human component to it, so it's authentic human-generated rewritten song." So what's you guys' take on AI usage in this space? I think because the beats, the lyrics, like AI can really do it shifted people's consumption of music to being more invested in the artist and their story.

With every development of technology has shifted the way we consume music, and I think now when we consume music, even though the sound can be replicated by AI, but the person's story cannot. Like someone's working of 10 years, and that's why people are really invested in these artists because before I feel like you just like the music, you don't know the artist. Now we're like, "I love this artist. I love her story." The whole embodiment of the artistry becomes it.

If you even think back to when music listening turned from physical, like vinyls and CDs to digital, it shifted the way we consume music. Before we had to be in a record player in a living room. You can't listen to music by yourself. Then with development of technology like CDs, now you can listen to music in your headphones on a walk. So people started running to music.

Yep. People started being able to consume music that way. And I would say with this shift of AI music, like I said, will shift people's consumption again because people are diehard fans of like, "I love your story," and you see these artists working 10 years only to just recently blow up because people are invested in the artistry, and artists are involved in every part of the creative experience, like the music video, the producing, the writing Right the branding, everything. I do see there's some shift on having more weight on the narrative side of Yes, for sure these products.

Definitely, and that's a space where I'm worried too because to a certain extent you can also produce a virtual identity, right? An AI-generated celebrity per se, and they can have a lore too, right? I've seen some discourse on internet saying what's it different from an animated character like a Disney character? If it's AI-generated, it's still a fictional character with its own backstory.

So I was wondering, would you say AI can have a taste in art creative space, and what would you say are the things that AI can replicate in this creative space and what are the things that AI cannot and only human can add genuine, produce genuine, sincere contributions to this space? Yeah. I see also a lot of AI-generated art on short-form media too like replicated the Disney style Yeah super well, and I was so shocked. But in terms of what AI can replicate and can't I don't know.

Do you have any thoughts? I think AI is really hard for them to curate a community, a fan community, as Kayla mentioned before. For example, I watched a music show back in China before and there was an AI animated singer. His name is Hertz And he advanced to the quarterfinals, which caused a backlash on the show. People were so angry because they saw their favorite singer was losing because this animated character was advancing, and it was because in the back end, there are people from the show, the people who are working on the show, want that animated character to advance.

So I think that although they can have a certain style or they can have a very well-looking appearance, but they cannot have the genuine interaction with the audience. For example, if I go to see my favorite singers, I can see him sweating, I can see him smiling and dancing, all these things. But when I see a virtual character, it just doesn't feel genuine for me. So it's really hard for me to become a fan of that AI character, even if he has a great narrative as well.

But a real human is the one who can curate a community by showing up to events, writing letters to their fan, and doing all kind of interactive stuff. Yeah. Thinking about it more, I would also add on to say that AIs cannot create anything new. It's an algorithm at the end of the day. It's an amalgamation of what's already existed. So although an AI singer can replicate the same sound as Olivia Dean which I saw.

I think the name is Rose something. And a lot of people listen to the singer not knowing she's AI. Oh. But I feel in the world of artistry you don't create something to just have it. You create it to have a message to the world and stuff. So in terms of genuine feeling and creating something new, genre blending live experiences, it's something really special I feel like AI can't replicate.

And even if it does, I feel like that will never diminish the stories of real humans, too. I definitely as a person who've worked in this industry for a long time, I definitely resonate your point on a community and emotional aspect that a human can carry as compared to an artificially generated personality. Yes, and I think that's why it was important for Project Play to not have an AI-assisted algorithm because you're still creating something on your own as everything you make is from you. Yeah.

I think there was an argument saying that handcrafted things will be what's it called? More like a luxury brand in the future. There will be AI-generated products, will be another set that's hand-generated which will be on the higher end, but it's a choice people make. Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. If there's a product, like a sweater that's knitted, there could be a lot of manufactured products, and a lot of people consume that, but also people still consume handmade items because of the art and someone's effort that went into it.

Yeah. And I think, especially because we are talking about AIs, and we've been few other episodes the other day with another professor who's doing AI research here we talk about the topic about what at the end of the day, if everybody just don't have their job anymore where should they go? Hopefully, that never happens. But, I think what the professor said is, there definitely will be a decrease in demand of employees in a sense.

And I think what you are building was actually hitting to a point what makes a human a human. Especially for example, you think of that scenario, if all of us are, let's say living in a space where we have enough I don't know salaries to make a living, for example, by this universal income or whatever, because of the abundance created by AI. If that's going to happen, I think people need to find something to do. One way, I think, at the essence of the human is the joy from creativity.

And I think what you're building is definitely contributing to make that happen, and I would appreciate that if that day was to come. Right? I think people will have they don't need to work to make a living, and they can do whatever they want. I think a lot of people might just go into creativity, either art or music. Right which makes me think about doing Project Play, in general is such an intrinsic thing, but the passion has never died for us because the process of creating, for us this product is human essence.

So even though this is we can talk about margin, we can talk about profitability, but this is a project that has been fueled by so many people's just love for creating. Yeah, that's very amazing. And we want to move a little bit more to the personal side of each of you. So besides being a founder, we typically ask what would you describe yourselves with one or few words?

One or few words. That's hard. One or few. I would say I'm a really consistent but creative person. By consistent is that I really love keep doing these things I like. For example, I'll keep going to one restaurant if I really like the food there. And I will keep working on one habit until I become good at it. So I really like hip hop dancing, and I feel like I wouldn't want to spend much more time into another habit until I become really, really good in this area.

So although I have other habits like snowboarding, I still put most of my time into just dancing. I spend about 10 plus hours dancing every week because it's really important for me. And that's also an important part of my creative identity because I'm surrounded by so many professional dancers, and we freestyle, we go to different classes together, and we create our own choreography. That's a really important process, and I think that makes me who I am right now.

That was so good. I think for me, I'm really curious and compassionate. I think those two are a big makeup of my identity. With curiosity, I love seeking out new experiences, even if I fail or anything. I really feel that there's no losing if your goal was to experience. So I'm really interdisciplinary, not just in music and a wide range of instruments I play, and I take comfort in that to be able to express my emotions when I'm feeling sad or I'm feeling happy or stress-relieving.

But I also started taking dance classes because I feel like it's so fun. I'm working on a rhythm game because I was like, "I've always wanted to work on a game. Why not?" And our work at Spark is not even for the role of being president or something, because I even forget. It's just, I like to do things, and the compassionate side is to make people happy.

At Spark, we get to eliminate roadblocks for people and allow them to become better entrepreneurs or gain another skill set or gain different values on the world. At the game I'm producing this game, so I get to eliminate the roadblocks again and help people. And with Project Play, it's both of that. Both that curiosity of what could this lead to, and then the compassion of, but it could also help people.

These two words really describe who you are. I really agree with your word choice. Thank you. Yeah. And we are moving to the concluding questions of this episode. Just for a student who may be listening to this episode who might have an initial idea, but he's feeling early and uncertain what advice would you give for them maybe to just get started? I think I can answer this first.

I would give three advice. First is surround yourself with the right people, the people who have the same ambitions of building something, who doesn't just want to work for a company forever, but want to start something and make an impact in the world. Because in my freshman year, I don't know what I want to build. But in Spark, there are so many people with different passions, and they're all building their own projects while also building infrastructures for entrepreneurship at USC.

So I feel like this kind of energy really motivate me to continue exploring what I want to build and eventually find out what I'm passionate about. Secondly use the resources on campus when you're a student. At USC, there are a lot of innovation hub or these kind of offices, such as Tiehub. They have weekly office hour every Tuesday. And we have Greif Center, where we met each other.

There are so many open events where you can meet your potential co-founders and discuss with other people about your passion. Lastly, ask people for help. That's what help us overcome the engineering roadblocks. Because in the summer, we were really slow in our progress because of the engineering side. But once we posted that LinkedIn post, so many people offered to help.

And out of these people, we find the right help that we need. So for new students, you can ask your professor for help. You can go to their office hour, or you can ask the upperclassmen about their startup experience. And these are all valuable help that you can get for free. For sure. Plus one on that. I think everyone wants to help each other out.

But for me, I think Rila covered a lot of the resources side, and I'll cover the uncertain and early side. For me, I would say follow your curiosity. Don't just build for the sake of building, but build something that you feel good about, that resonates with you, that you feel good about. Next, I would say for uncertain I think you should build a community of people that will really support you.

Because there's so many times. This journey of entrepreneurship is not linear. You're going to have so many ups, so many downs. We felt so uncertain even building it at times, and then felt really great at other times. But what we always had as a constant was each other and our community to motivate us and bring us up. I was even taking a class with this Marshall professor, and she knew the amount that we were doing for Project Play, and she told me, she's like, "You know what?

Take a day. Just take a week. Do not work on Project Play for a week." And she's always there as a support system to pick us up again. Yeah, that's amazing. And I think, as you mentioned there's great communities in USC either from professors or clubs, that are willing to help and genuinely would love to see your success in a way So definitely reach out to them and find your own communities that agrees and supports your mission.

I think that's a great way to go. And I think you're still hiring a founding engineer right now. What are you looking at for this type of person? Because I think you mentioned that it's not necessary they need to have a very mature skill set or whatever, but they are willing to learn, they're passionate about that mission, you are going forward. So what specifically are you looking at in this person to be one of your founding members?

I think me and Rila both agree that this person doesn't need to know everything but is willing to take a lot of time and dive into the problems and grow from the project. The people that we've had the most fun working with have been very ambitious in that they are getting what they want out of the project. They could take a step in and really gain a new skill set with this project, or figuring out X roadblocks and have this experience, and we want that rather than someone that will just be like, "Oh, I'm just going to do what I'm told." Someone proactive. Yeah, I really resonate with what Kayla said about proactive because you want people to come in and have their own ideas about what they want to contribute to the team.

Although the onboarding process would be a little bit tough because they might be confused, but after they spend some time in the team, they would know what they can add on. For example, revamping our website or what kind of technical help we need when communicating with the manufacturers. These are all areas that they can potentially see themselves working on but it will be really important for them to show that they are willing to do different things that were not expected or were not told. Yeah.

In our team, me and Rila are not dictators. Yeah. We rarely even tell people what they need to get done that week, but we're really lucky that our team so far has been really proactive and being like "Oh, I want to do this this week." And it's not our project, like me and Rila's project, but it's everyone's project. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. And I think, just for our audience who's listening to this episode definitely feel free to reach out to Kayla and Rila on LinkedIn if you're interested in their product and if you want to join their team.

I think we will attach their contacts and also their recruitment interest forms in our episode's comments as well as the episode descriptions. So if you are interested, definitely reach out. And also, I think if you're looking for a community of founders and entrepreneurs across the campus visit SparkSC and join their events or join their club. Yeah.

I think we kind of wrapped up this episode. Thank you again for joining us today. We had a great conversation and really enjoyed the talk. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. It's been so fun. And we can try out our product Oh, yeah All right. on your favorite song. Should I.? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You can do it.