Sudhin Shahani
Musicane
www.musicane.com
Los Angeles
Age: 23
Sudhin Shahani was born in India, grew up in London, and earned his entrepreneurship degree at Babson College. Not surprisingly, Shahani's ventures reflect his worldliness. At 23, he's already founded two companies—RTG Animate, a Kolkata, India-based business that trains traditional and 3-D computer animators, and MyMPO, a digital media company.
Shahani is particularly excited about Musicane, MyMPO's flagship service, through which any artist can sell his work—audio, video, or ringtone—online. Artists create storefronts for themselves for $20 a month, price their content, and post it for anyone to buy. Musicane processes the transactions through PayPal, taking 20% of each sale. Shahani says he knew he was on to something when R&B singer John Legend signed on to sell individual tracks on Musicane for $.99 each.
Besides 30 employees based in New Delhi and Los Angeles, Musicane's staff roster includes Will.i.am from rap group the Black Eyed Peas, who is serving as head of marketing as well as Bob Jamieson, the head of BMG Canada, who is an advisory board member. Shahani launched the service in beta at the beginning of this year, and it has grown by 45% per month, with 3,500 separate digital stores now up and running on the site. He estimates bringing in more than $600,000 in revenues over the next year.
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