Music made accessible to target audiences
recognised that the opportunity lies in giving casual music fans a service built with their specific tastes in mind. This was the birth of her idea to build a scalable music-streaming platform that can support multiple streams, each branded, curated and promoted to a specific niche audience.
Comprising an A-grade team, an international advisory panel and prominent local angel investors, NicheStreem was established in February 2015. During her sabbatical in 2013, Lückhoff travelled to the UK, US, Costa Rica and Nigeria to meet music label executives, founders of streaming services and start-ups, and representatives from social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. She became keenly aware of the wealth of information that is out there, but more importantly how crucial it is that this knowledge is adapted and applied to an African context.
A firm believer that start-ups should guard against being seduced by their own story, Lückhoff set about appointing an advisory board of experienced music and mobile industry professionals. “We are tackling something that has been done before, challenging the status quo of music streaming and daring to do it differently. When we get it right, it will be a globally scalable business,” says Lückhoff.
In September 2014 a detailed request for proposals was sent to the four biggest global streaming backend providers, including MediaNet, 7 D i g i t a l , 2 4 / 7 E n t e r t a i n me n t and Omnifone. After an extensive three-month due diligence process, MediaNet was selected as NicheStreem’s official back-end provider. With both its talent and its capacity to deliver a streaming service in place, the company raised $250 000 in seed capital. Its post money valuation was $1-million.
“As a start-up, simply trying to survive from day to day is a challenge, but it is one that keeps us focused and motivated,” says Lückhoff.
She believes that this is even harder to pull off locally. “As a start-up in South Africa we face our own set of challenges, whether it is raising money in a nascent start-up funding ecosystem or navigating the [Reserve Bank] waters [concerning] foreign investment into a local entity.”
NicheStreem is Lückhoff’s third business venture. She started her first one, MANGO-OMC, in her fourth year at university in 2003. The company was one of the early pioneers of online PR campaigns in South Africa and worked extensively with major clients. In 2011 Catherine joined Bozza, a start-up that built an app for talent discovery in Africa. The company was funded by Google Ventures and Omidyar.
After a two-year tenure at Bozza she embarked on a four-month sabbatical, returning to start business development and strategy firm HQAfrica in 2013. The company’s clients included PriceCheck and 24.com, both Naspers Group companies, as well as Mozilla FireFox, WeChat (TenCent Holdings) and The Dating Lab, which contracted the firm to assist them with launching and expanding operations in East and West Africa.
In 2013/2014 Catherine served on the board of The Silicon Cape Initiative — a community of tech entrepreneurs, developers, creatives, angel investors and venture capitalists who are passionate about entrepreneurship and the roles they can play in the future of South Africa.
In her career so far, Catherine has been named one of the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans, was recognised in the Topco Top Women in Business and Government and was included in the first Old Mutual Do Great Things start-up guide. Even in her own time, she takes advantage of the power of online audio, claiming “I’m a huge fan of podcasts.”
She is passionate about mentoring and does so for programmes such as Sw7, Launch Weekend, Innotech and Spark-Up. Lückhoff is a nominated member of the African Leadership Network and a judge for the GSMA Glomo Awards 2015 and 2016.
Find out more about NicheStreem at nichestreem.com and Liedjie at liedjie.com