These NYC techies have landed in Miami to transform industries.
First up: Video soundtracks
Sunset Harbor is best known as a haunt for the likes of paddle boarders, foodies, and yoga flexers. But such is Miami’s tech boom that a new group can now be found there, quietly toiling away inside a squat blue matchbox of a building, a holdover from the tony Miami Beach enclave’s less glittering era. Inside, a half-dozen accomplished software engineers recently transplanted from New York are working to disrupt one industry that they can talk about — and some more that they cannot right now.
Leading them is Howard Lerman, the 41-yearold CEO of Yext, a publicly traded search engine platform company worth nearly $2 billion. Lerman has just enough time before his earnings call on a recent weekday to talk about what exactly his “moonlighting” band is up to here.
Lerman, a Duke grad, has lived in Miami-Dade since 2018. He says he came to South Florida because his wife is from Pinecrest; he stayed, as so many do, for the lifestyle.
“Engineers love warm weather,” he says — though a glance around shows that the traditional tech uniform of black T-shirts and hoodies is hard to shake.
While Sunset Harbor wasn’t the first place Lerman thought of to house the group — Yext’s Miami headquarters sits in Brickell — the current rush for prime space in Miami made Sunset Harbor the most viable option.
“All the good office space has been taken. It’s insane,” Lerman said.
But he now appreciates the secret-headquarterslike
effect of passersby walking past his door and not knowing what might be getting cooked up there.
The project is a new business Lerman has called Wonder Inventions, and he refers to it as an inventions “factory.” On this day, he wants to discuss its first rollout: Dynascore. Yes, it is a play on the extinct reptilian giants: That’s because Lerman and his engineers are hoping to put the stock-music industry out of business forever. The web address for the launch event for the company is StockMusic Extinction.com.
Stock music is the audio-visual equivalent of elevator music. Vast libraries now exist of both human- and computergenerated compositions designed to lend ambiance to films, television
shows and videos. Yet most current applications for adding this music aren’t up to the task for 21st century scene editing, Lerman said.
“[Stock music] usually doesn’t fit,” he said. “It’s expensive; it’s static.” Dynascore, on the other hand, is music composed by real composers. When combined with Dynascore’s proprietary artificial intelligence algorithm, users are able to create music that’s perfectly synced to their videos.
CALLING CARDS
By one estimate, nearly 1 million hours of new video are now uploaded to platforms like YouTube and TikTok in a single day. Therein lies Dynascore’s business opportunity.
“Video is everywhere now — it’s like oxygen,” said Jesse Katz, 34 and Wonder Inventions’ chief
revenue officer. “But unless you’re keenly aware of it, you almost miss it.”
Over the last 12 years, he said, these platforms have evolved from simple videos of someone falling down to complex stories from the the biggest brands viewed by tens of millions.
And almost all that content uses musical elements — sending creators to the likes of Dynascore.
How does it work? A user can select moods, subgenres and even specific instruments from Dynascore’s “magic” search bar. They can then use the Dynascore interface to manipulate their track to match a given scene. To make it all work, Dynascore’s AI software breaks the music down into individual blocs called morphones. It then arranges them using a
“coherence” score that takes into account the creator’s desired length, transitions, pauses and endings.
The software’s easy-touse toggling instantly turns newbies into composers who can create their own swelling crescendos or down-beat tempos to pair with images ranging from a house tour to the guy finally getting the girl. Lerman likes to think of Dynascore as a user’s own personal John Williams.
“Steven Spielberg gets to call him up directly,” he said. Until Williams clones himself, Dynascore is designed to be his replacement.
Like many digital-service providers, Dynascore, whose startup capital was privately financed, plans to make money by selling subscriptions. Each track is either in the public domain or created by composers hired specifically by Lerman and his team.
The company represents the latest addition to a slew of burgeoning artificial intelligence software service providers and initiatives happening in Miami.
A new brand-building business, 100.co, that plans to use AI to create the next viral, digitally native consumer product is being launched in Miami. Meanwhile, global venture capital giant SoftBank continues to focus on Miami-based companies that incorporate artificial intelligence into their products.
The latest, announced Wednesday, is Eight
Sleep, whose technology incorporates AI to control the temperature of its
DYNASCORE, A
NEW WAY TO APPLY STOCK MUSIC TO VIDEO, IS PART OF WONDER INVENTIONS, A
NEW TECH COMPANY FROM NEW YORKERS NOW BASED IN MIAMI.
REAL MUSIC
Artificial intelligence is just one of Dynascore’s unique features. The other: The music that it uses not already in the public domain is entirely new. When COVID put composers on Broadway out of business, many were recruited by Dynascore to create compositions.
These composers were tapped by one of their own, Peter Lerman — a music director for programs on HGTV and Howard’s younger brother. Peter, 34, previously served as music director for Miami’s Young Arts program and was long familiar with Miami’s arts scene.
As someone who has spent hours in an editing bay trying to tailor music to a given scene, Peter said, the pitch for Dynascore resonated personally. The sell to peers in the industry was just as easy.
“I started calling my friends and said, ‘Let’s write music that can be broken down to the molecular level, and an engine can regenerate it in super smart ways,” he said.
Because the music is either original or in the public domain, all Dynascore tracks are completely unrestricted and royalty free — a key element for an everyman audience.
One of Dynascore’s first clients is Biteable, a relatively new video platform specializing in commercial-use videos (think internal training and company branding clips). CEO Brent Chudoba, a friend of Howard Lerman’s, said adding music to videos remains a pain point that Dynascore virtually eliminates completely. Because the music was composed for Dynascore, the company maintains all rights. And Dynascore’s AI allows users to completely control the tempo and mood.
“We can customize a song exactly the length we need, and also give it a signature finish or specify when it needs to pop or
change beats to get the message across,” Chudoba said. “And you will never bump into this song in the wild.”
MIAMI LANDING
For now, about onethird of Wonder’s employees are based in Sunset Harbor, with more likely coming soon — the total company is 20 strong. It is hiring engineers and offering competitive compensation.
Katz, the CRO and a lifelong New Yorker, moved south in an earlyadopter play. When the pandemic made it clear staying in New York City was untenable, he opted to stay.
“There is every piece of the puzzle here,” he said. “And now you have individuals, and (venture capital) money pouring in, and it’s starting to build. We at Wonder are fans of remote work, but we want to create a tech hub in Miami and bring in great talent.”
If there was any worry that new Miamians like Wonder’s employees would decamp as soon as the pandemic lifted, those fears are now getting consistently dispelled. Among those who plan to stay for at least another year is Alex Taub, founder and CEO of Upstream professional networking app and another New
York City transplant. In an email, Taub said he and his young family will now be in Miami until at least July 22. While family
considerations will play the largest role in their ultimate decision, the growth of the local tech scene helped sway their extended residency.
Others putting down roots include the founders of Pipe, a tech startup whose software helps companies optimize the monetization of their customers; and executives with Founders Fund, including general partner Keith Rabois, who has purchased a home on Venetian Island.
What began as a temporary stay just prior to the pandemic in February for Peter has turned into an indefinite residence.
“It’s the same thing I felt when I was 18 and went to study music in New York,” the younger Lerman said of the current Miami buzz. “I felt a lot of that feeling in February, there’s something happening here, it’s an awesome brew for music stuff and for tech stuff, it’s all coming together in a really cool way.”
Howard Lerman says the pandemic will prove a turning point in his and the city’s history.
“We’ve got this invention garage now,” Lerman said. “We’re excited to be moonlighting here and make the Miami tech scene incredible. We’re not just showing up here. We’re going to be changing and disrupting industries.”