Hi everyone,
I'm really excited to share some great news with you all!
Our community has reached an amazing threshold - you are now more than a million composers on the platform 🍾 🎉
When we launched Flat in early 2015, aiming to radically transform sheet music writing, we didn't expect to find so much active engagement and support from the worldwide community of music enthusiasts. For us as developers, it was more about the thrill of a technical challenge that could solve a personal pain we had as musicians.
Still! In less than a month you were more than 10,000 new users, supporting us and sending so much feedback in the hopes of seeing the platform improved.
There is nothing more powerful than a community that expresses love to a product.
With that massive amount of feedback, we clearly understood that it wasn't just a personal pain point but a big global one. We have been literally (ok, figuratively) buried under supportive messages signaling your hope that something new and radical will truly happen this time, instead of just another, umpteenth false promise.
3 years full of work and discoveries
With our community growing quickly we understood that it wasn't just about creating a music notation software. Instead, we could transform an entire industry that still relies on old companies that have taken advantage of their dominant position for too long.
2015: Flat For Education
We released the most affordable music education platform ($1.50 per user per year) to support music teachers from all around the world.
2016: Social interactions
We introduced social interactions to empower the community and provide the ability to meet and create together, sharing even more easily.
2017: iOS app, Google Docs Add-on & digital worksheets
We decided to tackle the mobile world after we noticed that there were three kinds of applications in the stores:
- Great and expensive apps
- Basic and free apps that push tons of ads...
- Web apps hidden in a mobile app.
That's why we introduced our very first mobile application for iOS devices.
Digital worksheets
We also started to test our Flat for Education learning modules with many teachers, since we want to give them access to a true digital worksheet that can save them so much time.
Google Docs & Slides Add-on
Finally, we introduced our free Google Docs & Slides add-on to quickly embed music notation snippets.
2018: Massive updates incoming
Since January, we've been working really hard on our entire platform and music editor. We always knew that we could do things even better and the time has finally come!
This update will radically improve all our products, and therefore your overall experience.
So far we've announced:
- A much better way to showcase your creations
- The ability to create and customize any plucked string instrument
- A brand new library to store and organize your creations in directories.
The best is yet to come and I can't hide how excited we are to release it!
A million thanks - you made Flat real!
Looking back at everything we did so far made me realize how much we've accomplished and overcome during the course of now nearly three years. I am very proud of everyone that works or used to work with us on this crazy journey. But most of all I would like to thank every single one of you for being part of the community and supporting us. That support was what gave us the strength to persevere through the hard times we lived as a company and team! At the end of 2017, the hardest we ever faced, we wrote this line:
We're super excited to still be around to celebrate Christmas once again with you!
To be honest, I now deeply understand why there is nothing more powerful than a community that expresses love to a product.
But we're only at the beginning - we're here to stay and make things change!
Have an amazing day!
LOVE,
Pierre, Vincent, Corentin, Cyril, Romain, Junior