Hello Everyone!
Do you play drum?
As an amateur drum player, drum practice comes with several pain points that can make it challenging for beginners and even experienced drummers. Acoustic drum kits are extremely loud, making it difficult to practice in apartments, shared spaces, or late at night. Electronic drums, drum mutes, or silent practice pads help, but they may lack the feel of real drums. A full drum kit takes up a lot of room, making it impractical for small living spaces. Compact electronic kits or foldable options exist, but they often sacrifice playability. In HK, it is costly to book a drum practice room and you need to travel for quite a distance as most drum studios have to be located in non-residential area. Quality acoustic or electronic drum kits can be expensive, along with cymbals, hardware, and maintenance. Beginners often start with cheaper kits, but poor-quality gear can hinder progress when level goes up. Without a teacher, beginners may develop bad habits or struggle with timing and technique. Online lessons and apps (like Drumeo, Melodics) help, but they cannot provide real-time feedback…
In Kickstarter, I found Freedrum 2.0 which is a virtual drumming application that allows users to play drums using their fingers or by tapping on any surface, leveraging motion sensors or touch inputs. The project raised over 500% funding vs target. However, I do not recall this product on the market or not available in HK. Freedrum 2.0 came out in 2020 but then disappeared. My husband is a professional drummer and he enjoyed the luck to try this new gadget out back then and provided me feedback.
Freedrum remains a niche but innovative tool for drummers who want a portable, silent practice solution. The company continues to refine its software and hardware, with potential future integrations in VR/AR drumming.
For freedrum 2.0, pls refer to the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freedrum/freedrum-2-our-next-virtual-drum-kit?ref=discovery&term=freedrum&total_hits=182&category_id=339
If I were part of the team, I would suggest several areas to improve.
Pls see my elevator pitch and deeper analysis for Freedrum 3.0!
Elevator pitch:
https://ai.invideo.io/watch/oa4ndp0s-Yt
Deeper analysis：
FEEDBACK:
I loved your elevator pitch. As someone who has always wanted to learn how to play the drums — but feels like he’s too old of a dog for any new tricks — I immediately saw value in the venture as a customer seeking it out for personal use. As an investor (with a teacher’s background), I see value in reducing the acoustics for shared learning spaces in schools. 🙂
That said, to get me more excited as an investor, I do have some feedback on how you pitch your product to access as many potential investors as possible.
As an educator and investor, I place great value on what I read when gleaning information. I value succinct information that is visually organized as well, with headings and colours to draw and focus my attention — without overwhelming me. When I spot grammar errors that make me reread something, I immediately begin questioning things. Your opening question: “Do you play drum?” made me pause and consider how focused this venture might be. I then had to read quite a bit of text that is also need of some editing and revision, before I got to your elevator pitch. I think this text could have been cleaned up a bit — and perhaps placed to follow the elevator pitch on the launchpad — to pull me in quickly and keep my attention as a potential investor.
Feedback
Hey Jiange, as someone who misses playing an instrument loudly and proudly (I used to play electric bass), I enjoy this venture idea. The idea of a VR drum set with minimal and soundless equipment piques my interest as an investor as I can see this be used not just for people wanting to learn drums, but also people such as digital nomads as well as the groups that you have mentioned.
The SWOT analysis is also sound, as you’ve mentioned, the niche market can meet the demand of sizeable amount of people that would be happy with a very portable device.
For me to fully fund this venture, I have a few suggestions. One is being a bit clearer on the subscription model and what someone gets for the price point. I’d like to know the features as we choose a higher subscription. The other feature I was also curious about was gamification and social learning aspect of Freedrum. It was alluded to it, but I’d also love more clarity on this as I see this as an opportunity to become strategies to bring people in.
At this time, I would not invest in the venture, but pending changes and a bit more clarity, I can be swayed. Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you for engaging and clear presentation, Jiange. Your venture addresses relatable challenges for drummers around the world, including cost, noise, and accessibility. I especially appreciate the VR integration which makes your product stand out from the rest, along with your control over the product’s software and hardware production. As the only product that combines VR and potability while closely replicating the feel of real-word drums, at a fraction of the price, it definitely has strong appeal to both beginners and experienced drummers. The main risk I can notice are the niche market size, hardware development cost, and the potential difficulty schools may face with monthly subscription model, as subscription sooner or later goes up and that’s when school can’t afford it any longer. I would invest in this venture.
Feedback:
As a drummer with a young family and a house with limited space, I was immediately intrigued by this venture idea. I also have a set of Roland V-Drums and your point that they really don’t emulate real drums well is an accurate one, so an alternative product like this is a really exciting idea.
The price point seems extremely enticing so I wonder what hardware and physical materials (sticks? Pads? Gloves?) would be included in this package? And would a user need to have a VR Headset (ie Oculus) already in order to take advantage of the features?
I do see a massive opportunity when it comes to VR drum lessons with the subscription model but I think that could almost be a separate product and I think there are some other ventures in this space, like Paradiddle, that you would be competing with.
I love the ambition of this idea and I think there is a real opportunity to leverage VR and wearable tech in the musical instrument space. But given the significant technical lift required to get this off the ground and the very low per-unit price point I would probably pass on this venture if I were an investor.
FEEDBACK:
Thanks for sharing your pitch Jiange. As a mostly self-taught player of musical instruments, I loved this idea of a VR drumset with adaptive lessons. I thought the focus on drums was logical given that they are loud and take up a lot of space. I share some of the questions around hardware that have already been mentioned here, but with a little more specificity around what is being developed and highlighting more of a strategy for growing, this has a lot of potential!
FEEDBACK,
Hi Elaine,
I’m not a drummer at all, but you did well to communicate the appeal of, and market for, a product like this, especially for parents of young aspiring drummers! For your venture pitch, I think you picked an aesthetically pleasing design for the presentation, though I suggest editing out the elements that weren’t customized to show even further attention to detail. I think the first-to-market advantage is huge, so I would be interested in investing in this venture.