Reply To: Free Sonar Tier

[LinkedMusicians]

Okay, I never wanted to share my bio here or my real name, but consider that my background includes serving as a Fortune 250 business strategist to the CEO and C-level. Beyond the company strategy, I advised on potential acquisitions on pretty large companies like — I’ll name one — Intuit. I wrote on brand and marketing strategies in the publication I ran for around a decade. So I know better than to project my thinking unto others or markets.

Of course, I don’t have a crystal ball, so I  could I be wrong about BandLab and they end up keeping Cakewalk Sonar in the product line for three or more additional years… It’s possible. But I seriously doubt that would happen, unless Meng buys out the current investors. Consider the post I made post yesterday (in another thread in the research forum before I learned about the free Sonar tier) that predicted that BandLab was at a point where they were likely to shift strategy and try something different out of desperation with the Cakewalk-branded lines (Sonar and Next), like a perpetual license. So, why am I so confident that the Cakewalk Sonar brand is likely in the death throes? First, keep in mind that Cakewalk represents a very tiny part of what BandLab does. Most of their focus is on a much younger demographic. BandLab isn’t selling to middle-aged and elderly males, which Cakewalk Sonar aims at. That younger demographic behaves much differently than the demographic that Sonar appeals to. And that demographic (predominantly older males) is very strongly anti-subscription software. Yes, Adobe does stand out as successful with the subscription model, but from a strategy perspective, that is very much apples to oranges. Adobe is the clear market leader in graphic, photo, and illustration software. The DAW market and attitudes in that market are very different. But here’s what you need to keep in mind, a market leader can do what Adobe did. A small player, like BandLab is in the traditional DAW market, cannot easily do the same. And BandLab has really just been about as incompetent at strategy as it gets with Cakewalk products. You can rationalize it and say that they’re being experimental. And yes, the guy running it is the billionaire trust fund son of one of the richest men in Asia, but he also is using private investors, and those investors need to see results, and it’s been quite a while where — although it’s not publicly disclosed — there are enough indicators that make it very clear that Cakewalk is failing. The exodus of influencers is a huge sign. Don’t discount it. If BandLab was still throwing money at them, they’d still be around. But the well clearly has dried up and if you do a search on YouTube, note that recent videos on Cakewalk Sonar are struggling to reach 1,000 views, and there are only a couple of really minor — less than micro influencers — doing videos. That’s not a formula for success. Even the guy’s publication Music Tech writers, will stick in what is probably an obligatory mention of Cakewalk Sonar or Next in an article on the category that still looks like a footnote — yes, this still exists. Then examine Google’s and YouTube’s own data on how many searches per month there are on the product — and it’s anemic. Then use analysis on social media mentions of these products including the big online composer, plugin, and gear realted forums and you won’t find it mentioned much, and when it is it’s not very positive — and when it is brought up, the negative baggage of its history, the view of the product as lagging behind compeitors is there, and the negative views on subscriptions.

What responses have we seen from BandLab that further this? Well, their strategy keeps changing in ways that convey that their failing. The heavy discounting of the subscription and the now free tier. Prediction: Next might stick around for a bit, but Sonar won’t. A traditional DAW is going to overwhelm most of the users of BandLab’s main software, especially one that is, by most estimations a bit behind for the category. It seems obvious — and even more so from my emails with BandLab’s social media manager — that they see the Cakewalk Sonar demographic as legacy users — a much older demographic than their main business. They believed they could bring this demographic into their ecosystem, where they make most of their money, off of services, like

That ecosystem, if you’re not familiar is subscription services like BandLab Pro — that are a signficant source of the company’s income. They have the following key revenue sources:

(1) Marketplace sales of loops, samples, and virtual instruments.
(2) Music distribution fees to release music to the various streaming platforms.
(3) Advertising.
(4) Hardware sales. (This is very low end stuff that, in my estimation, really isn’t a fit for DAW users, so I believe they will need to make modifications if they become serious about the DAW market and the older demographic.)
(5) Partnerships, collaborations and events.

You could call part of the problem is that they don’t understand the older demographic, because they’ve been so focused on the younger demographic. But I think there are an abundance of signs that they’re not learning much about the older demographic — the folks that use DAWs — folks like us.

Now that’s not me with the fallacy of composition. You cannot be a competent business strategist or marketer if you get confused by projecting how you think unto target markets. So when you assumed that I made that mistake, I can assure you, that is not a mistake that I am prone to make. Not even when I started as a strategist. The name of the game is understanding how various groups think, not projecting your thoughts unto others. Again, there is an incredible amount of signs that BandLab is failing in the DAW market. Can the billionaire trust fund kid afford that. Yes, if he was funding this himself, but he’s using investors’ money, so he’s going to need to better manage their money very soon. I stand with my estimate of 1 – 2 years before BandLab gives up on Sonar, with a very high probability that it will be in the next 12 months. Again, I wrote that part predicting that BandLab would soon need to adjust their strategy because they’re failing last night, before I learned about this new free tier. While the free tier isn’t a perpetual license, it is certainly an adjustment to their strategy. And you can say, “Yes, making this free will bring a lot more users into the fold.” Yes, but that strategy only makes sense if they can get them to purchase the various BandLab services. It’s pure instinct, but I don’t think a high percentage of them will purchase BandLab services.

I wrote a blog post on the DAW market last month. It’s estimated to be between $3.1 billion and $4.4 billion in 2024 and its predicted to grow rapidly — between $5.7 billion and $6.7 billion by 2030–2032, with compound annual growth rates (CAGR)  between 7% and 9%. That’s appealing and maybe it will get BandLab’s CEO to have investors give him more time. But let me be clear, I do believe that BandLab can succeed in the DAW market. What I don’t believe is that they will succeed with Cakewalk Sonar. I believe that they need to stay on a path that is more in line with their core product. I think they should be nurturing BandLab platform software and create a DAW based more on that. I don’t think they will ever be successful with Cakewalk Sonar. I think they may end up giving up on the traditional DAW market with the Cakewalk path and abandon it or acquire a successful DAW brand.

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