Coppertino (VOX Player): High-res audio player and unlimited cloud music storage for the true music lover

What does your company do?

Lossless files are to audio what 4K resolution is to video: crisp, high-quality recordings that make you feel like you're there in real life. Spotify and iTunes can't play these high-quality files, which forces users to listen to low-quality MP3s. As music lovers ourselves, the Coppertino team launched VOX Player to fill that void.

Where will your company be in 5 years?

Last year, people spent $7.8 billion on digital music streams and downloads, most of which were compressed, low-quality MP3s. In an informal survey, we found that 75% of people could notice how much better a song sounds in a lossless format compared to an MP3. VOX will be the go-to platform to listen and store high-quality audio.

What is Coppertino?

Coppertino Inc. is a software company that creates applications for desktop and mobile devices. Our current product is VOX Music Player for Mac and iPhone. In November 2017, we rolled our other product, LOOP Cloud Storage, into a VOX Premium subscription. Our ultimate goal is to design a lightweight, yet fully-featured audio player that can play most popular audio file formats.

What’s wrong with all of the music apps available now?

The main problem is that music streaming services sacrifice audio quality in favor of convenience. But music isn’t about convenience; it’s about emotions. Music helps us get over a bad break up. The right tune can make your day from the earliest hours. It’s not a service, but an art. The latest advancements in audio engineering make it possible for everyone to listen to high-quality music. But current music streaming apps focus on the quantity, not the quality. For example, Spotify streams in the frequency range between 96 and 320 kbps in OGG Vorbis and AAC for the Web Player. The same frequency range is common for most music streaming services. The drawback is that such quality has little to do with what musicians, sound producers, and audio engineers were striving to create. To compare with visual experiences, when there’s a new video technology, like 4K, everybody wants it immediately. It’s because people can clearly see the difference, while with music, it takes time to realize that everything you’ve been previously listening to has too many missing details. That makes it difficult to show the broader audience that there's much more to hear. To solve this problem, we must improve the quality of two vital components: software and audio files. Coppertino's contribution is software, as our VOX Music Player accents high-quality playback. Regarding high-quality audio files, we would love to promote this knowledge through different channels. However, it’s not our area of expertise.

What are your next steps?

VOX works on two platforms – macOS and iOS (except iPad). Our plan for 2018 is to design a stable and well-performing app for Android, Windows, and iPad. Another side of our business development is a possible collaboration with hardware-producing enterprises, but only in marketing inquiries. Distant plans include direct cooperation with record labels and sound producers. This will help deliver Hi-Res music to a larger number of listeners and make poor-quality audio a thing of the past.

Who should care about the quality of their music streaming, and why?

Those who value the work of musicians and people who are related to sound engineering care about the quality of their music streaming. If providing music is more than some background noise, then welcome to the VOX community. The challenge we are facing is that people may not know that it’s not about the audio file, software, or hardware taken separately, but rather how they all come together. People are always telling me that better hardware is the only way to improve the sound quality. If you have an MP3 collection and listen to it through poor headphones or built-in iPhone speakers, there’s no chance you will comprehend the whole beauty of a piece of music, whatever the file format is. High-quality music is pointless unless both components are of high quality. Ten years ago, you could buy any pair of headphones for $10. Now, according to new industry research, the average price for regular headphones is $42.70. This means that people care more about the quality of the devices that play music than they care about the quality of audio files. When you’re buying a car, you're more likely to prefer the one with a better sound system. The desire to listen to high-quality audio is a distinctly human trait.

How are you able to provide a better listening experience?

Right now, we are working with music that our users already own in their personal libraries. Listeners want the best quality, so they buy or download high-resolution files and then need software to play it. VOX Music Player allows users to listen to Hi-Res audio files that other software cannot play. We’re not the only player that can play Hi-Res audio, but the only one that comprises the following features: Support for most popular audio formats Advanced audio settings – BS2B, Hog Mode, SSR, Gap/Overlap, Onward Track Buffer Equalizer with 38 presets and 22 Apple Audio Units Integration with iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, Last.fm, and Youtube (only macOS) Unlimited music cloud to store as much music as users have 35,000 radio stations Aesthetic and user-friendly design

What kind of responses have you gotten so far?

We conducted an experiment during the MacWorld Conference 2014. We wanted to find out if people could hear which songs were Hi-Res and which were MP3 using VOX Music Player. We’d use the same hardware, external audio card (DAC - AudioQuest DragonFly), and Audio-Technica ATH M40X headphones. It turned out that 75% of people can tell the difference between Hi-Res audio and MP3. Macrumors, Head-Fi, and iDownloadBlog have written brief reviews about VOX Music Player, but they all are outdated. Since the release of VOX Premium, there have been no major reviews by a third-party publishes or e-zines.

When did you launch and how are you measuring progress?

There are two stories to tell here: one for VOX Player and another for Coppertino as a company. Coppertino was established to make various utility software for macOS when Apple announced Mac App Store. Coppertino developed a few software applications featured in the App Store. All of them were a commercial success because they got the attention of big software enterprise. Our former products were: · Focus – A photo editing app that adds depth of view to your photos. Acquired by MacPhun. · Wallpaper Wizard – A catalog of unique wallpapers for Mac. Acquired by MacPaw Inc. · Forismatic – An app that put inspirational quotes in the background of your desktop. Discontinued. We were striving to enter a new market, and I thought about the music industry. I’m a music lover, and I always keep my eyes peeled for new technologies in the industry. I learned about a music player called VOX. Back then, it was a small music player developed by an Italian guy named Alessio Nonni. It was only a project for school, so after graduating, Alessio stopped supporting it. I talked to him and asked if it would be possible for me to relaunch the player in exchange for shares of our company. In 2013, the technologies Alessio used to design VOX were outdated. We decided to start over using modern approaches. After we spent a half year redeveloping, we launched VOX Player for Mac in August 2013. When we launched, our main metrics were the number of downloads and active user. We got great feedback from our users in the Mac App Store and the iOS store. For VOX for iOS metrics are the same. When we launched LOOP Music Cloud, its metrics were: number of active users, trial users, paid users, conversion rate, and customer lifetime value.

What is your plan for drawing in customers already comfortable with another music app?

According to the IFPI reports, download revenues make up approximately 40% of the total digital revenue. Despite a 20.5% decrease in download revenues in from 2015 to 2016, there are a still lot of people who prefer buying music rather than streaming. For us, there are enough people to keep focusing on those who prefer high-quality downloads. These audiophiles are our target audience. They understand the importance of software and hardware for the best listening experience. To make them use VOX instead of other music apps, we’re planning to: 1. Ease the migration process, i.e., make it possible for users to quickly transfer their music library to VOX Music Player from another music app. 2. Increase the number of supported third-party hardware. Currently, VOX supports Sonos, AirPlay, CarPlay, and DACs. Our nearest plans include Chromecast and DNLA devices. 3. Implement more advanced audio settings – ReplayGain, Integer Mode, Integer Mode, and Tempo/Pitch for macOS (already present in VOX for iOS). 4. Add more third-party music services for users to be able to access all of them using VOX Music Player. Currently, these services include SoundCloud and Spotify.

What will it take to educate people about their music behavior?

We first have to work with the artists themselves. The artists will be our advocates for a higher quality sound. When artists create their music, they try to incorporate all of their emotions and struggles. It's natural that they would want listeners to hear their creation in the highest possible quality. Once we have support from three well-known artists who admit the importance of Hi-Res sound, consumers will be encouraged to give it a shot. You can see the power of a celebrity endorsement with Dr. Dre's endorsement of Beats and Jay-Z's endorsement of Tidal. These products are successful because they are supported by famous artists who promote high-quality devices and audio files correspondingly. We are also interested in cooperating with Sony. They produce lots of high-quality player hardware. I believe that the combination of our software and their hardware can have positive results.

Do you have plans to build a music library for VOX?

No. Our users listen to the digital music they own. They can also stream from SoundCloud and their personal Spotify library. We don't plan to enter the streaming market because doing so is expensive and cumbersome.

How does your service affect artists and the money they are able to make from their music?

According to the IFPI 2017 report on the state of the music industry, digital share of global revenues accounted for 50% of total revenues, compared to 34% for physical sales. Although streaming makes up 60.4% of the total digital revenues, artists get low royalties, and still make most of their money from live performances. Selling music directly to customers isn’t an option for us. I believe that building a platform where artists can get a direct response from their audience, or have access to their fan base, will be great for both listeners and artists. Our main goal is to create opportunities for artists. I want to make music affordable, but not completely free. Say the MP3 file is free, and if users like some song, they can purchase it in High-Quality and support the artist directly.

Why are you raising money now?

We are trying to build up the community. The big music labels still exist, and they will always try to fight over content with even small companies like ours. That's why we are trying to build on our current product and not on future products. Our current products are a stable source of cash flow and stable channels to acquire more users. They are also a good place to educate music fans about high-resolution audio and music quality. We are already doing some of this. We have a small budget for this that allows us to do some outreach quickly and efficiently. We are raising money to open up more marketing resources and reach additional people.

How are you measuring your growth?

We are measuring growth using two different metrics. The first one is the revenue for paid service – VOX Premium. The second one is the growth of our audience. Our paid customers grow at 7-10% a month. Our active users grow at about 2-3% per month. All downloads and users come from organic channels, Google search, reviews, word of mouth, and promotions on social media. We also use paid channels – Google AdWords and Facebook ads.

What is your dream for VOX?

I dream big. I want people to associate listening to music with VOX. I want every device to have the VOX app. I want to see our logo in every music shop. VOX should be synonymous with high-quality music. When people see something with a VOX logo – a music app, a vinyl record, a new set of headphones, or a magazine – I want them to believe that it means a high-quality product or content. Creating a platform that can unite music lovers, artists, record labels, and music distributors isn’t too far-fetched. Add some high-quality software, and you get a perfect ecosystem for a music listening experience.

What could get in the way of your dream that worries you the most?

Our main concerns are: 1. People may get satisfied with low-quality streaming services. If that happens, the audio player as a kind of app will become extinct. But, I believe this is a very unrealistic scenario. 2. If streaming becomes more popular than physical media and digital download, we can lose our target audience. Therefore, VOX would be irrelevant. 3. A lack of financial support may lead to the slow implementation of our goals and therefore, disgruntled customers.

Who is on your team?

Our team consists of eleven people. I embody two functions – CEO and CTO. Apart from technical and managing tasks, I make sure everyone is comfortable with their job. Although all major decisions are up to me, I always take advice from each member of the team as I highly value their point of view and take into account their proficiency in their areas. The team lead is literally the technical father of VOX. He implements new features and improves the player to bring our users the best listening experience. He has 12 years of experience, four of which we have worked together side-by-side. When we get feedbacks that ‘VOX works great’ – all credit goes to him. The backend engineer is our web leader. Thanks to him, our customers can easily interact with everything that’s happening on the web outside our website – payment systems, VOX Music Cloud and everything on the server side. He has eight years web development experience, which makes him extremely valuable. His knowledge and approaches to finding solutions help us save time to solve any issue. The frontend engineer deals with the visible part of the web. He is the one who made our website a whole system, and well as everything behind the vox.rocks domain. He has two years of experience, and his performance is growing exponentially. All interactions between users and the web are smooth thanks to him. The QA engineer makes sure VOX works great, and web interactions aren’t interrupted by any kind of bugs. With four years of experience, he can predict all possible problems that may occur and prevent them in advance. Also, he picks what we are listening to every day in the office! The head of marketing does all the work promoting VOX. With six years of experience, she nails all advertising campaigns, gathers analytics and draws conclusions to understand our further steps. The business developer comes with all bright ideas regarding the expansion of VOX. Ten years of experience in advertising & marketing allow him to know everything that’s happening in the business world and how to utilize this knowledge best. He is the principal person when it comes to establishing new business relationships or dealing with customers. The product manager -- a.k.a. the project manager -- is the gear of our team. Seven years of experience made him a cross-disciplinary professional. He sets the communication within the team, knows everything about VOX as a product, and performs all design-related tasks. The copywriter writes everything that users see in the app, the website, and social media. With four years of experience, he can deliver any message to our users and investors so they have no questions afterward. His skills help us improve communication and make sure there’s only relevant information out there. The support engineer knows how to deal with any kind of users, both happy and not. Thanks to him, all user’s problems are solved within a short period. Five years of experience let him clearly see what users want and how to tackle their issues. The finance/business analyst assures that our finances are used properly and with no redundant expenses. She has three years of experience and she is the financial monster of VOX. She provides financial analytics as well as predictions regarding our future incomes and cost. Our team is more than a group of professionals. All of us are passionate music lovers, so each of us believes in what we do.

Who are your competitors?

Our direct competitors are Audirvana and JRiver. Both players work with macOS and offer support for Hi-Res audio formats. But, Audirvana and JRiver are designed for people who are proficient in technical nuances of audio processing. Unless a user has such knowledge, it can be complicated to understand what is what. VOX excels because it features audio settings that are easy to use for average music lovers who simply want to improve the overall sound quality but don’t have in-depth knowledge of sound processing. VOX suits a broader audience. Apart from these apps, people tend to compare VOX to streaming services – Spotify, Apple Music, and TIDAL – which is incorrect. We are a player, and those are online streamers. It’s like comparing cinemas to Netflix.

1	$27,000 in average monthly revenue.
2	1.2M downloads of VOX for Mac.
3	600K downloads of VOX for iPhone.
4	Founder Ivan Ablamskyi named to Forbes 30 under 30 Ukraine.
5	Nearly 3,000 VOX Premium subscribers.
6	174k monthly Mac app users; 60k monthly iOS app users.

1	There is a risk that the Company may fail to increase the number of paid customers as there are indirect competitors such as Apple Music and Spotify. This risk is dependent of the ability to acquire user by educating him of what is hi-res audio and why VOX is a unique service.
2	We are using a SAFE agreement for this offering. The Company may never receive a future equity financing or elect to convert the Securities upon such future financing. In addition, the Company may never undergo a liquidity event such as a sale of the Company or an IPO. If neither the conversion of the Securities nor a liquidity event occurs, the Purchasers could be left holding the Securities in perpetuity. The Securities have numerous transfer restrictions and will likely be highly illiquid, with no secondary market on which to sell them. The Securities are not equity interests, have no ownership rights, have no rights to the Company’s assets or profits and have no voting rights or ability to direct the Company or its actions.
3	Company's assumption is that money raised would mostly be invested in marketing to increase volume of users and, as a result, sales. There is a risk that marketing wouldn't be as much effective as we assume.
4	One of VOX's features is the ability to upload any audio file to their personal cloud storage - there potentially may be a risk of having issues with Music Labels. Legally there is no violation of Intellectual Property rights from the Company's side, however, uploaded music will be streamed and this could cause issues regarding legal rights on music compositions.
5	There is a risk that Apple may revoke VOX app from the Apple Store because of music streaming issues.
6	The company is reliant on a small management team, which we must retain to ensure continued growth and productivity.
7	We have numerous Convertible Notes which we are planning to convert during this Offering. This could affect an investor's investment in this campaign.
8	Previously we had two separate products - VOX player and LOOP cloud storage. Now we are on the way to launch new product VOX Premium (combination of two previous products in one). There is a risk that there will be huge % of current customers who will be unsatisfied with this innovation.
9	We rely on various intellectual property rights in order to operate our business. Our intellectual property rights, including registered trademarks, may not be sufficiently broad or otherwise may not provide us a significant competitive advantage. In addition, the steps that we have taken to maintain and protect our intellectual property may not prevent it from being challenged, invalidated, circumvented or designed-around, particularly in countries where intellectual property rights are not highly developed or protected. In some circumstances, enforcement may not be available to us because an infringer has a dominant intellectual property position or for other business reasons. Any failure by the Company to obtain or maintain intellectual property rights that convey competitive advantage, adequately protect our intellectual property or detect or prevent circumvention or unauthorized use of such property, could adversely impact our competitive position and results of operations. We also rely on nondisclosure and noncompetition agreements with vendors, consultants and other parties to protect, in part, trade secrets and other proprietary rights. There can be no assurance that these agreements will adequately protect our trade secrets and other proprietary rights and will not be breached, that we will have adequate remedies for any breach, that others will not independently develop substantially equivalent proprietary information or that third parties will not otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or other proprietary rights. As we expand our business, protecting our intellectual property will become increasingly important. The protective steps we have taken may be inadequate to deter our competitors from using our proprietary information. In order to protect or enforce our intellectual property rights, we may be required to initiate litigation against third parties, such as infringement lawsuits. Also, these third parties may assert claims against us with or without provocation. These lawsuits could be expensive, take significant time and could divert management’s attention from other business concerns. The law relating to the scope and validity of claims in the technology field in which we operate is still evolving and, consequently, intellectual property positions in our industry are generally uncertain. We cannot assure you that we will prevail in any of these potential suits or that the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, would be commercially valuable.
10	The Company may never receive a future equity financing or elect to convert the Securities upon such future financing. In addition, the Company may never undergo a liquidity event such as a sale of the Company or an IPO. If neither the conversion of the Securities nor a liquidity event occurs, the Purchasers could be left holding the Securities in perpetuity. The Securities have numerous transfer restrictions and will likely be highly illiquid, with no secondary market on which to sell them. The Securities are not equity interests, have no ownership rights, have no rights to the Company’s assets or profits and have no voting rights or ability to direct the Company or its actions.
11	Our future success depends on the efforts of a small management team. The loss of services of the members of the management team may have an adverse effect on the company. There can be no assurance that we will be successful in attracting and retaining other personnel we require to successfully grow our business.

Director	Occupation	Joined
Ivan Ablamskyi	CEO @ Coppertino Inc	2011
Andrey Kolodyuk	Founder and Managing partner @ AVentures Capital Investments Limited	2013

Date	Amount	Security
	$100	SAFE
12/2016	$15,000	Convertible Note
08/2016	$15,000	Convertible Note
07/2015	$50,100	Convertible Note
03/2015	$240,000	Convertible Note
02/2015	$25,000	Convertible Note
01/2015	$100,000	Convertible Note
11/2014	$150,000	Convertible Note
04/2014	$100,000	Convertible Note
04/2014	$50,000	Convertible Note
04/2014	$100,000	Convertible Note
08/2013	$200,000	Priced Round

$50,000	65% will go towards online marketing to expand our user base. 30% will go towards improving our social network pages to create community of hi-res music lovers. 5% Wefunder intermediary fee.
$107,000	40% will go to towards online marketing to expand our user base 15% will go towards improving our social network pages to create community of hi-res music lovers. 40% will go towards the patent on our unique audio engine and the idea of VOX music player. 5% Wefunder Intermediary fee

Class of Security	Securities (or Amount) Authorized	Securities (or Amount) Outstanding	Voting Rights
Series Seed 2 Preferred	2,139	2,139	No
Series Seed Preferred Stock	1,473	400	No
Common Stock	3,100	1,520	Yes

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we've raised $1,103,269 from 123+ investors since our founding

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VOX Player Lets You Hear Music the Way It Was Meant to Be Heard

Our Innovation: Store and Listen to High-Quality, Lossless Audio in the Cloud

VOX Premium Unlocks Unlimited Cloud Storage for the True Audiophile

VOX Premium Launched Only Three Months Ago

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