As a teenage saxophonist, Seth Radman used a product that wired a microphone to a computer to give a musician feedback. The product was called SmartMusic by the music technology company MakeMusic.
About 15 years later, that company acquired Radman’s startup Upbeat Music App, a platform that allows musicians to play with each other remotely. Colorado-based MakeMusic plans to integrate that technology into that same product.
“At first, I viewed them as competitors, because I was so focused on me and my success,” said Radman. “Sometimes people who might be your biggest competitor could be your best allies in the future, because you're passionate about solving the same problem.”
With Upbeat’s exit, Radman is now focused on Infinite Giving with his co-founder and former Atlanta Tech Village Vice President Karen Houghton. The platform allows nonprofits to invest reserve funds, receive stock gifts and manage endowments. Infinite Giving's clients including charities, schools and religious organizations. It aims to quadruple its customers by the end of the year. The company was featured in Atlanta Inno’s Startups to Watch in 2022.
“To me, building something from an idea to a product that people use is almost a religious experience,” said Radman. “There's something so satisfying of one day having an idea that doesn't exist, then weeks or months later, it physically exists and impacts human’s lives.”
Radman launched Upbeat Music App with one of his best friends Sudarshan Muralidhar during the pandemic. Muralidhar, another former teenage musician who used SmartMusic to fine tune his skills, had designed and built the product architecture for Upbeat. He is now a lead engineer at New York-based application data platform MongoDB. That platform grew to 200,000 users and was used by 5,000 paying schools before the acquisition by MakeMusic.
“Almost all of my career and best friends in life have come from music,” said Radman. “That's why I keep coming back to music and why I think music is so powerful and special because of the connections you make with people.”
The acquisition is the latest milestone in the Georgia Institute of Technology alum's busy career. In less than a decade, Radman has been the CEO and founder of four startups — two of which were bought by other companies.
Radman’s first pursued entrepreneurship when he realized he wasn’t finding fulfillment at his stressful engineering job at an aircraft company.
He learned to code in his free time and — spun from a failed app idea of his own — created an agency that helped other people create apps. The company, Plutonium Apps, grew to a team of more than 30 project managers, UX designers and engineers. Over five years, the company helped create over 40 mobile apps for corporate clients including the Atlanta Hawks, the University of Georgia and Ultimate Guitar.
“Each phone app was like a little mini startup,” said Radman. “Although I wasn't one of the founders, I experienced what made business models work and not work, what made successful winning teams and what made products good.”
As a musician, Radman then created the product he wished his younger self had. Launched in 2016, Crescendo is an interactive music platform that provides real-time assessment feedback for musicians.
“I wanted something that could just listen to me and tell me how I'm doing without the social dynamics of being judged,” said Radman. “We found out that an iPhone app listening to you play, giving you feedback could do just that and help musicians become confident.”
In 2019, Radman sold Crescendo to Ultimate Guitar. For two years after the acquisition, he stayed with Ultimate Guitar as its lead product designer in addition to helping with product strategies.
Two of Radman’s startups, Upbeat and Plutonium Apps, had no outside funding, preferring to grow the customer base to get more revenue.
“With customers, you get feedback and validation to figure out if you're building the right product,” said Radman. “The thing that keeps me going is the emails I get from people saying, ‘I use your product and you're making a difference in my life’ … I realize my customers are relying on me, and it's a lot easier to have that as motivation if you know them personally.”
Radman says that following Upbeat, he is now completely focused on growing Infinite Giving — aside from a side career in film and TV.
He appears as a high school student in Season 4 Episode 1 of Stranger Things. Initially cast as a saxophonist extra, the set ran out of uniforms when he arrived. He was then placed alongside the main characters in many scenes and can plainly be seen throughout the episode.
“I have no new things on the horizon, which is exciting to me because for so much of life, the question people ask is what's next rather than living in the moment,” said Radman. “I'm not thinking about what happens after Infinite Giving.”
