A novel name — Volumo — has been increasingly mentioned among pro-DJs and sound producers in recent months. Volumo is a new online electronic music store that may soon compete with Beatport. The platform attracts top producers by allowing them to set release prices and DJs like monetized charts. Volumo offers new solutions, and its creators have studied the electronic music industry well: they are aware of all its problems and the desires of artists, and they see the prospects for development in the field.
The site launched last year, gathering constructive feedback and attracting attention from artists, labels, and distributors throughout 2022. Any artist or DJ can register on Volumo, get their firsthand experience and impressions, and check out innovations other stores do not offer. Aside from that, a couple of reviews of Volumo were published online. But more information still needs to be provided on who is behind this ambitious project. We decided to look into this matter.
The first potentially surprising thing here is that Volumo is a Ukrainian-Estonian project. Could Ukrainian IT specialists create a complex product like an electronic music store with thousands of accounts and a vast catalog of tracks? And upon closer examination, they perfectly could do it. By the number of outsourcing IT companies, Ukraine ranks 1st in Europe and 4th globally. And we are not talking about hubs, where thousands of programmers write simple code for a modest fee. Ukrainian companies make complex, high-tech advanced projects for many global corporations on a complete cycle basis.
Volumo CEO Oleksandr Dzyubenko had a long-running career with one of these companies called GlobalLogic. The company’s largest client is the US tech giant Avid Technology. You will be even more surprised to learn that Avid Technology’s flagship product Pro Tools, has been made for over 15 years by an entirely Ukrainian team of GlobalLogic employees.
Such a working environment provides an excellent experience for creating your product. Oleksandr implemented this idea with his friends Anton Severynenko and Denys Borysov, who enjoyed popularity in Ukraine as an electronic duet Outstrip. Under this moniker, they released their music, toured as DJs, and ran digital and vinyl labels.
«At some point, we realized that we had already changed many roles within the club industry, and we know it well enough to try to create something massive,» recalls Denis. Volumo became this big thing.
«There are millions of house, techno, or trance tracks available. And hundreds of thousands of producers who write dance music. But only a few sites sell it. Of course, you will first remember Beatport, Juno, and Traxsource. Looking at it from the side, we thought: it seems there is a place for the fourth store to appear here,» adds Anton.
Last October, when the site was still in beta, and there were few entries in its catalog, the Volumo team went to ADE, showing their product to many experienced industry managers and leading publishers.
«At first, everyone was saying, okay, another store… But they got interested when we said we were using a curated model, manually verifying each release uploaded to the site. I remember how the bosses of famous labels said: oh, well, this is a completely different matter! As it turned out, the main problem for DJs today is that they spend too much time looking for music, listening to thousands of low-quality records,» recalls Oleksandr.
A curated platform is just one of the other unique features of Volumo. The founders say they are inclined to test-drive many new ideas and innovations, which is a difficult feat for their big competitors with multi-million audiences and large staffs.
«Over the years of work in IT, I have become convinced that very often five people can make a product no worse than a company with a hundred employees,» Oleksandr assures. In the team he manages, there is a spirit of romanticism and passion inherent in all legendary startups at the beginning of their journey. Everyone at Volumo is passionate about music and believes they can improve the electronic scene by helping talented artists make more money and supporting non-commercial music genres.
Perhaps someday, Volumo will also become a big company that thinks pragmatically and focuses only on profit. Today these guys have the same energy that continues to fuel the electronic scene, keeping it interesting for all of us, whether we are killing it on the dance floor, working in the office, or creating in the studio.
