How DISCO Became the Music File Sharing Platform the Industry Couldn't Live Without

Karl Richter lost his iTunes library two or three times. As Australia's largest music supervisor, that wasn't just annoying -- it meant losing years of creative IP embedded in playlist curation, brief responses, and song selections. He looked for a tool that solved this. Everything he found was expensive, ugly, and built by people who didn't understand supervisor workflows.

So he built his own.

That internal tool became DISCO -- now the industry standard music file sharing platform for managing and sharing music. Used by most music supervisors worldwide, every major rights holder, and increasingly by A&R, radio pluggers, and managers. Fifty-five employees. Over 100 million files.

Solve Your Own Problem First

Richter didn't set out to build a startup. He set out to fix his own daily frustration. The startup framework came later, when he discovered Y Combinator years after already building the product.

"A lot of the common themes I've heard is a problem to be solved. But I think creativity in the DNA of product is much more interesting and more sustainable than a rush to a financial transaction."

DISCO bootstrapped to a million dollars ARR with 19 people before raising a seed round. The decisions along the way were, by Richter's own admission, "completely illogical" -- but they worked because the team intuitively understood their users' workflows.

Built From Workflow, Not From a Pitch Deck

DISCO's origin story inverts the typical startup narrative. No pitch deck before the product. No market analysis before the MVP. Richter built a tool his team needed, tried it with local partners, saw people loved it, then went to LA -- the engine room of the sync industry -- and scaled from there.

The platform's moat is workflow depth. DISCO stands for Discovery, Intuitive Search, Creative Organization. It captures the breadcrumb trail of creative decisions -- which songs were shortlisted, pitched, placed. That institutional memory is what makes it sticky and impossible to replicate without living inside the workflow.

"If you can create something that is incredibly productive and empowering for your users, and you find the one shared problem -- managing and sharing music -- that's where the platform becomes essential."

The Democratization Play

DISCO now offers an artist plan at $12/month, giving independent musicians the same platform that major rights holders use. In sync, the best song wins -- it's not about the artist's profile but the right song for the right moment. Giving independent artists access to the same discovery tools means more of their songs get heard.

His deeper motivation: as a music supervisor, Richter put money directly into independent artists' hands through sync placements. "Once you get a little taste of that, it becomes a driver, an important part of your life. And you miss it if it's not there."

Key Takeaways

• Build for your own workflow first. DISCO wasn't designed as a startup. It was a tool that solved Richter's daily frustration. The market validated it after the product existed.
• Bootstrap until you have proof. A million ARR and 19 employees before a seed round gives you the leverage to raise on your terms.
• Longevity beats speed. Twenty-two years across two companies. The founders who endure are the ones who find something they can't stop doing.