Career-focused network for the music industry
Tags: webdev, softwaredevelopment, showdev, startup
Published: 2024-03-20 16:08:20

_[Social networking and job posting platform for the touring community](https://www.abtosoftware.com/portfolio/career-focused-network-for-the-music-industry), a project for the entertainment industry._

## A quick project overview

Our company has brought the concept of an **employment-focused network for the music & touring industry** into reality, bringing sensible business benefits, in particular user engagement and retention, as well as greater market differentiation and competitiveness.

Abto Software has joined the partnership to design an unmatched social networking and job posting platform for artists and bands to connect with other music and touring insiders and display domain-specific expertise. Our team has focused on providing multiple fields for end-users to display their experience and education, confirmed references, and even availability calendars to discover gig offerings.

**In essence, our product is similar to LinkedIn, but works for professionals in the music & touring industry.**

In scope of the recent project, we delivered:

- Business analysis and discovery, solution design
- UI/UX design and prototyping (user flows, dynamic prototypes, and more)
- Backend development
- Frontend development
- Third-party integration
- Manual and automation testing

## The idea that’s behind 

The clients’ key objective was building a platform that meets the needs of the music and touring community. The platform is designed to establish a space for musicians, artist and band management, agents, promoters, and even service providers handling videography and other critical aspects.

To meet these objectives, we delivered:

- A network, which allows music and touring professionals to highlight their personal career history, talking not only experience and education, but endorsements from colleagues, and more 
- A selective, members-only platform, strictly moderated to disqualify irrelevant applications

## The solution in detail

This network is meant to empower accomplished artists and bands to communicate with verified talent agents and other music and touring insiders to apply for interesting gig opportunities and showcase their qualification. And that guaranteed without scrolling through fake accounts and already out-of-date proposals.

The offerings can be filtered by:

- Venue type (stadium, arena, and other venue types)
- Touring schedule (regular, international, one-off tour, weekend tour)
- Required experience
- Pay type
- Music genre
- Event location

To register an account, the user must provide personal information on experience and education, and other. The membership is granted only after careful moderation.

Such user access management is implemented to eliminate:

- Fake accounts
- And malicious, fraudulent activities, in particular financial cybercrime

## Key features worth mentioning

### Home menu

Within this website section, a professional can select a category to browse currently vacant job opportunities. These include job offerings for artists and bands, as well as photographers, security, drivers, and catering.

### Profile menu

This section is a comprehensive resume with information on relevant work experience, education, references. What’s more, it allows for providing external links to demonstrate specific skills.

### Job postings

This particular website section is meant:

- For companies to post job offerings by specifying various details, for example job title and category, date locations, and even smaller details (lodging, transportation, and more)
- For seekers to review job offerings and search for managers and other industry professionals 

### Network section

This section is created to provide a sense of exclusivity and community by connecting with friends and insiders. It includes live chats, likes, comments, and notifications.

## Main challenges we faced

The project’s main challenge was the absent vision of the to-be-built product and its underlying functionality. The client’s primary concept was building a platform to simplify job searching and applications, but generally, the features were undefined.
Using LinkedIn for reference and surveying a large focus group, we defined the end-user’s main concerns:

- Little control over access, which spawns fake accounts
- Lacking moderation, which enables fraudulent schemes
- No categories to showcase domain-specific experience 
- No sense of exclusivity and community to connect different people in the music and touring industry

**Tech stack:** NestJS, React, Postgres, Prisma, and TypeScript.

**Tools & third-party integrations:** Cloudinary, Retool, Twilio, Stripe, and Git.

## Business benefit we delivered

We delivered an unprecedented, employment-focused network that serves music and touring professionals – **forget generalized format templates in LinkedIn!**

By bringing this platform to market, the client can leverage:

- User engagement and retention by fostering meaningful connections between professionals
- Market differentiation and competitiveness by establishing a selective, premier destination that serves music and touring professionals, thereby differentiating the platform from others

## Summing up

Abto Software delivers solutions to leaders across industries, from healthcare and finance to entertainment. Our engineers cover everything from discovery and design to deployment and ongoing technical support, ensuring expected business performance.

Explore our website’s blog to learn more about our projects.