SoundBrush: The little startup that could

When high-tech entrepreneur Ted Livingston saw Basil Al-Dajane walk on stage to make a pitch to win $25,000 at the VeloCity Venture Fund finals he couldn’t believe it.

Al-Dajane had already failed twice at previous finals. Failed miserably, in fact.

“People just wrote him off,” explained Livingston after the event.

“He was always giving bad pitches. He always had bad ideas. It was getting to the point that I felt I should have a talk with him,” said Livingston, the founder of Kik Interactive Inc. “I was going to take him aside and say, ‘Basil. You gotta get a job’.”

Then something incredible happened.

Al-Dajane got up on stage and nailed it.

“He did it,” said Livingston. “This is amazing.”

Al-Dajane and Jayson Rhynas, founders of SoundBrush and recent Waterloo computer science grads, were one of four startups that received $25,000 on Thursday. The venture fund grants are made possible by Livingston’s $1 million donation to the VeloCity program. Livingston, also a Waterloo alumnus, went on to become a successful entrepreneur after living in the VeloCity residence on campus.

“The caliber of entrepreneurs coming out of the University of Waterloo and who join VeloCity is nothing short of impressive,” said Mike Kirkup, Director at VeloCity. “Today’s judges were faced with a very hard decision to pick four winners. The field of competitors for these prestigious prizes was stronger than ever.”

The four winning startups were:

• Soundbrush​ - a new app to compose music
• Kite – A simple way to build and launch web apps in the cloud
• Planleaf – Project management via email
• Blacktree Health – A smart way to deal with stress, the ultimate health monitor wristband tracks your exercise, diet and sleep – 

After accepting his cheque, Al-Dajane shared his secret to success: “We’re really crazy and we genuinely believe in what we do. We work all the time and maybe go home to take a shower and sleep for four hours.

“But we found a shower in the VeloCity garage so we’ve started using that,” added Al-Dajane.

During his pitch, Al-Dajane told the judges that SoundBrush allows users who don’t know how to play an instrument, draw music and share their compositions with friends. It’s become the number one music app in the United Kingdom iTunes Store. 

“We’ve done all of this with only $4,000,” said Al-Dajane. “Imagine what we could do with $25,000.”

Missed the main event? You can view all the finalists' pitches online.