MusicSpoke pitches at Prosper Women Entrepreneurs Demo Day in STL

On November 9th Prosper Women Entrepreneurs Startup Accelerator held their Demo Day in St. Louis. Lincoln’s MusicSpoke co-founder Jennifer Rosenblatt joined this year’s cohort after reading an article in SPN. MusicSpoke is an online marketplace for artist-owned sheet music. SPN caught up with Rosenblatt to see how it went. “It’s been a busy few days,” she said. “It was…

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MusicSpoke’s Jennifer Rosenblatt and Kurt Knecht. Photo courtesy of Prosper Women Entrepreneurs.

On November 9th Prosper Women Entrepreneurs Startup Accelerator held their Demo Day in St. Louis. Lincoln’s MusicSpoke co-founder Jennifer Rosenblatt joined this year’s cohort after reading an article in SPN.

MusicSpoke is an online marketplace for artist-owned sheet music. SPN caught up with Rosenblatt to see how it went.

“It’s been a busy few days,” she said. “It was really great, but I’m exhausted.”

The intensive, three-month program included a diverse group of six women entrepreneurs. Each had a chance to pitch during Demo Day.

“I went first,” Rosenblatt said. “It kind of carries the responsibility of setting the tone and excitement.”

Rosenblatt said that honing her new pitch was one of the biggest things to come out of Prosper Women for her.

“I completely changed my pitch and telling the story of my business,” she said. “That’s been huge for me. People on the street can understand it now without understanding a lot about composers.”

Demo Day concluded with a reception where each business had a table and a chance to talk with other business leaders and investors from the St. Louis area.

“Kurt [Knecht, composer and MusicSpoke co-founder] was there in his best startup chic,” Rosenblatt said. “He got to meet all the people I’ve been working with.”

Double time

What’s next for MusicSpoke?

“Now we sleep,” Rosenblatt joked. “Day 90 is not the end. Day 91 is the beginning. Now we get back to work, and work twice as hard.”

There is no shortage of things to do.

“Yesterday, I drove back and did a Pipeline interview to see if we make it to the next round,” Rosenblatt said. “I’m working on term sheets and other applications.”

MusicSpoke 2.0

A capital raise is also on the horizon.

“We’re officially opening a round of funding,” Rosenblatt said. “I’m armed with all these new tools to tell the story. It’s time to raise a round, hire a team and scale this even further.”

Scaling up will be helped by an upgrade to the company’s software platform.

“We should be launching version 2.0 by the end of the year,” Rosenblatt said. “We’ve grown so much that our process isn’t sustainable anymore. This version automates a lot.”

What not to do

Besides advice on refining her pitch, the Prosper Women experience gave Rosenblatt perspective on what not to do.

“Mentors, investors and other speakers came in and said, ‘Here’s the biggest mistake I ever made,’” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s about making more right decisions than wrong decisions.”

Rosenblatt recommends the Prosper Women Entrepreneurs program.

“I cannot speak highly enough of the program Prosper Women put on,” Rosenblatt said. “It was worth every penny of travel, every second of time.”

Rod Armstrong is Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for AIM in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is a regular contributor to Silicon Prairie News.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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One response to “MusicSpoke pitches at Prosper Women Entrepreneurs Demo Day in STL”

  1. Cat Leverett Avatar
    Cat Leverett

    Thanks for sharing this story, Jenn is one of Lincoln’s finest and most dedicated entrepreneurs.