Interview with Francesco Fraioli, creator of Thounds

December 1, 2009 • 1:43 pm • POSTED BY Margherita Urbani

I am sure some of you have heard or read about Thounds before. It is a social network where users can share music ideas by recording their inspiration and intuitions. I interviewed Francesco Fraioli, the creator and product manager. For those of you who need a refresh about Thounds, check out the video below.

To begin, would you like to introduce yourself: who are you, what do you do?
Ciao, my name is Francesco, I am from Venice, and I’m an interaction designer. Currently I feel very lucky to be working on Thounds, a startup born from my passion for music.

Can you tell us more about Thounds? What is it?
Thounds was born while I was in school: it was my thesis project at Iuav University for a masters degree in interaction design. Back then it was called Riffle. It is a social network, and it’s the ideal place for those who want to express their creativity in music without feeling embarrassed. The main feature is to capture your musical thoughts by recording it directly from your browser, and sharing it with your friends.  This collaboration can lead to a real music track. Actually, “thoughts” is the origin of the name: Thounds is the combination of the words ‘thoughts’ and ‘sounds’.

How long did you work on it? What was the process to get this project done as a thesis?
For my thesis I worked on Thounds for six months, following a really tight deadline. I started from the concept, and went through interviews, discovery, design, prototypes, and user testing.

What happened then?
I got the chance to present my thesis to H-Farm, who really liked it and offered to create a startup to help make my project become real.

What is H-farm? How are you working on Thounds there?
H-Farm is a venture company located in Treviso Italy [yes, where De'Longhi is from too!]. Its aim is to invest in ideas and develop them, and then try to sell them according to the position they have on the market. There are about 200 employees and besides the Italian headquarters, H-Farm has offices in Seattle, London, and is coming soon to Mumbai. The “incubator” process of an idea requires that for the first 3 months the project is refined and defined with the help of a venture partner, an experienced manager. It then goes on to follow an operative roadmap. For one year I’ve been working with the great support of Davide Bartolucci. Besides being the CEO of Shado, a company specialized in TV formats, he’s a manager with a lot of experience in business models focused on monetizing content and internet entertainment.

So it took 18 months from the concept to the beta version. Do you feel Thounds is different now from how you originally envisioned it?
Well, after one year of working with developers, and re-concepting it, for sure the product is different from my original sketches. However the spirit didn’t change. I am extremely happy to have been able to maintain the core concept of this project which was to create something simple that could help people spontaneously collaborate through music.

I read on your twitter that just after a few days there was already a sort of user-made-orchestra on Thounds. Are users participating? I have to say it felt like Christmas when I saw and listened to the first reply to my thound!
Some users are still shy, but those who started to experiment are recording really interesting tracks, and have started to collaborate with people that they didn’t know until a few days ago.

What will be the next steps?
Our task now is to stimulate the users community, perhaps by inviting some famous musicians… we’re working on it.

I know that you were really busy to make the final steps of the beta version, and I know that going online with it was crazy. Is the storm gone by or are you in the eye of it?
For sure in the next moths I’ll still be very busy with Thounds. I am also presenting it around with lectures and demos at festivals and events. So right now I am not thinking about new projects, but for sure I want to play… maybe I’ll build an instrument then.

Is there any chance to meet you or Thounds in the States? And, while we wait, can you make us a thound?
I really hope to come to the States, it would be great. Go to thounds.com and add me (ID: francescofraioli) as a band mate. I uploaded a thound for you, named 160over90. And if you want to be updated on the latest developments of the network, follow it on Twitter or on the blog.