20 in their 20s: Sudhin Shahani & Vikramaditya Jain

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Sudhin Shahani and his partner Vikramaditya Jain set out three years ago to create a digital media business called myMPO, designed to put an artists’ spin on music downloading.

They believed that artists who wanted to bypass traditional record companies and sell their music directly to consumers online needed a tool to do so. That tool, or embedded music player as it’s called, is the foundation of the company’s core product Musicane.

The duo had an idea of where they wanted to go, but didn’t know enough about Internet technology to get there.

Shahani, having been trained at Babson College in Massachusetts, and Jain at the University of Boston, gathered a gang of recent college grads from several disciplines, enlisting Kale McNaney, a 20-something graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as the company’s chief technology officer.

But having an experienced guide can make all the difference, Shahani said.

In fact, it was myMPO’s elder advisers, Robert Jamieson, former chairman of RCA Music Group, and David E. Leibowitz, former executive vice president and general counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America, who opened doors for the company.

“We were lucky to get access to key players in the industry through strong guidance from our advisers who had a great deal of experience and connections in the music business,” Shahani said.

Shahani and company teamed up with William Adams, better known as Will.i.am of the musical group Black Eyed Peas fame, to create Musicane.

Musicane allows musical artists to sell their songs directly to consumers through Amway-type distributorships.

An artist signs up for the free Musicane service and all sales are split on a 70-30 percent basis, with the artist receiving the lion’s share of the revenue. In turn, the artist can then pass the music playing technology on to fans and have them embed it into their MySpace page or any other personal pages.

The company has recently opened an office in India where they pay their software developers $15,000 to $20,000 a year, opposed to about $100,000 a year they would have to pay similar workers in the United States.

“We have an advantage because we are both bilingual, with deep roots in India while having been immersed in American culture,” Jain said.


Brett Sporich


Sudhin Shahani

, 25, and

Vikramaditya Jain

, 26, Chief Executive and President, MyMPO, Santa Monica

Business: Creator and distributor of music media player

technology called Musicane – Employees: 21

Fact: MyMPO received 50 million music player views in its first quarter in the online market.

Quote: “We were lucky to get access to key players in the industry through strong guidance from our advisers.” (Shahani)

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