1) How did your upbringing influence your choice to become an entrepreneur?
I think my upbringing made me become an entrepreneur later in life than most people.
I didn’t come from a very wealthy background so entrepreneurship wasn’t really on my radar until later in life — in fact my school even recommended I become a bus driver!
After 12 years of experience in the music industry working for Shazam, Universal, Pandora and BandLab, I felt like starting a company was a calculated risk — one that I could deal with even if it went wrong.
At this point I had a lot of industry experience and it made sense for me financially to give it a go so I applied for EFSG3…and the rest is history.
2) What are the 3 most memorable moments of your EF journey?
1. Walking into Kick-Off Weekend at Kranji Farm. From the first moment I stepped out of the taxi — I was nervous and the first person I met and spoke to was Ulf a fellow cohort member and theoretical quantum expert. I knew instantly I had made the right decision to join.
2. My second coffee with my co-founder, Aron, at Sarnies cafe. I thought we were just hanging out, and he asked me to co-found. He was searching for the right cofounder as he was from EFSG2 where he’d had two failed co-founding partnerships.
3. During a night out at Clarke Quay, I remember walking along the front with the so-called ‘fr00t gang’ Vibhas, Ant, Copple, Rors, Meraj and a few others and feeling so happy, like I had met a new group of best friends who were all smart as hell.
3) How did you meet your co-founder on the program?
He pursued me!
My Co-Founder Aron had two failed founding relationships in EFSG2 so knew what unsuccessful co-founding partnerships looked like.
This made him prescriptive in what he wanted — someone honest, communicative, open and data driven.
After a couple of coffees it was clear we really clicked and he asked me to co-found.
So in the end it all worked out very well for me — even though I was taking a very laid back approach at the start of the program!
4) What’s your favourite place in Singapore and why?
My favourite restaurant is level 33 — I like the view and the fine dining.
Also my house – I have a rocking horse and a Marshall mini stack, as well as my collection of guitars (see the video!)
5) What drives you and how is your business an expression of that?
I’m a musician at heart — I’ve been working in the music industry my whole life and have always been excited by opportunities for innovation.
At Universal I started producing video content for the Internet before that was even a thing, so I’ve always enjoyed trying stuff and being at the cutting edge.
Now the cutting edge is tech and I have a music tech business, which feels like a pretty seamless fit for me!
More on the Team
CEO Hazel Savage is a music-tech expert and co-founder of Musiio. Originally from the UK and having spent 5 years working in Australia she now resides in Singapore.
With 12 years experience in the music industry, predominantly in tech companies with a focus on mobile applications, she boasts, Shazam, Universal, Pandora and BandLab as previous experience.
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CTO Aron Pettersson is a full-stack developer and co-founder of Musiio. Originally from Sweden he is now based in Singapore.
With a degree in Physics, specialising in Machine Learning and Neural Networks, Aron has been coding for 17 years and has worked extensively in Python, Java, C#, HTML5, C++, JavaScript, CSS, HTML and more.
