Jump to content


Please note: You can easily log in to MPN using your Facebook account!

Roli News


Recommended Posts



  • Replies 15
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

This is a shame. I liked what Roli were doing, and as a British company they had my support on a parochial basis (Sibelius likewise, until the Avid acquisition).

 

But this quote is at the root of the problem imho

We had our eyes set on hypergrowth and that proved to be difficult.

I could have predicted that at the start. It's absurd to aim for hypergrowth in the field of niche MPE controllers, as good as they are. Roli should have aimed to be a boutique supplier - look at an outfit like Crumar, who seem to be making a success of their business without any need for "hypergrowth".

 

Cheers, Mike.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Their keyboard technology was innovative and expressive, but IMHO, difficult to master. New controllers that require a change in technique, even a relatively small one, are an inherently tough sell.

 

<>

 

$299 is high for a beginner's market, although then again, that's what the entry-level Fretlight guitar costs. $79 a year is a good deal compared to a year's worth of piano lessons, but I think some parents will do the math and balk ("$300 bucks, and if we do lessons for 3 years, that's another $240...hmmm...maybe we should just get a Casio piano, and they can learn stuff from YouTube").

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The words 'venture trajectory" and 'hypergrowth" in the statement from the 'founder" tell a story to me.

 

Venture Capital goes after high-risk / high-reward opportunities.

 

The original $10k alternative controllers were high-risk / low-rewards. Even a great implementation of the product idea was bound to be as popular as an alternative keyboard for your computer. Great, but for very very few 'ultimate player" customers. Whoops.

 

The next gen Roli (and I"m guessing this was when they brought in the venture capital with promises of hypergrowth) aimed at a completely different but much larger market (non-player beat-makers) with completely different technologies. This is a damn hard transition to pull off. And they didn"t. For every dollar of revenue they brought in last year (when demand for musical instruments skyrocketed) they lost three. This is a very competitive arena.

 

Round three. Greenfoot beginners. New market. New technology. This is a Hail Mary pass for the founder and the owners.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The market they were in was tight enough...their main product was niche, and expensive. How on earth did they imagine that the "trajectory" they were on would go anywhere profitable?

 

I feel sorry for the workers, based on reviews at Glassdoor, the CEO and executive team were nightmares to work with. Two reviews that stand out:

 

Terrible management structure, HR are overzealous and ineffective at the same time. The CEO has some severe personality quirks that make working at the company and working on the products very mentally draining. My years in the industry prior to ROLI were fun and I learnt a lot. My years at ROLI were increasingly depressing with no career development, no budgets to do anything meaningful in my segment, and no acknowledgment or reward for how hard I worked considering all of the restraints placed on us. Half of my team found other jobs because they were very unhappy.

 

Endless and pointless discussions on the culture and values of the company, which always came before any discussion about product development and how to fund future projects. None of the executive team understand music technology or the customer base.

 

Marketing would often hog budgets, and then wouldn't budge on those budgets, meaning product development wasn't funded the way it should have been. This is partly because they feel they are a "design led company".

 

My mental health is completely different since I left.

 

Advice to Management

 

When staff come to you with problems don't tell them to "write your own narrative" - that isn't a solution. That's responsibility dodging.

 

Don't have weekly standups where you talk about whatever sociology theory of the month HR is interested in. You should be talking about music technology and what customers are telling you and what people actually WANT from their products.

 

When you've got people with 6, 8, 10+ years experience in the music technology sector, don't treat them like juniors.

 

The CEO is a distrusting leader who lacks skills either in leadership or management. His neuroticism bleeds into every level of the business, leaving the executive team entirely ineffectual, and the company without direction.

 

ROLI is an environment of uncoordinated efforts, constant chaos, and clashes where the 'non-hierarchical" organisational structure throws everyone into the fray with conflicting goals and nobody present with authority to take ownership.

 

Essential improvements go without investment for years, staff battle against improper tools without any support, issues that are destroying the company"s sales and brand are ignored because no-one is permitted to make a decision on anything above themselves â the CEO"s ego wouldn"t allow such power

 

The office is a converted railway arch with one glass sliding door, no windows, over half of the bulbs are dead, the ceiling paint peels onto the desks (and into your coffee), the floor has wide cracks in the concrete that catch your chair wheels, the chairs themselves are almost all broken, the coffee machine is permanently on the fritz, the wifi is frequently down, and there are ants everywhere.

 

Burn out is very common. The standard working hours are 1 hour longer than a normal working day (9 to 6), assuming you don"t work overtime, which you will.

 

ROLI's culture is an Orwellian nightmare. The company attempts to be intensely ethical, and expects you to agree at every step. ROLI"s culture and 'our values" (relating to business and your personal opinion) are mandated from above and dispersed in Keynote presentations. Open discussion is always invited, but never entertained in earnest.

 

The culture is one of double-speak. Many terms are replaced with no functional purpose, and you will be corrected until you comply. We don"t have 'customers', we have 'creators'. We don"t have 'employees', we have 'team members'. Your boss is called your 'PAL'. Your quarterly performance review is a 'Team Member Reflection'. We have a 'flat hierarchy', but we still have an org chart.

 

The CEO so dislikes hearing negative sentiments that they are discouraged at all levels, even in the form of constructive criticism or demonstrable facts. Important metrics have been removed from reports for a long time because nobody wants to explain them.

 

Advice to Management

 

It's too late now since people are being laid off, but you had so many talented voices telling you that these decisions were poor all along, and you ignored all of them. Listen to the talent you hire.

Hammond SKX

Mainstage 3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't regard critical comments as negativity, I regard them as free consulting :)

 

The most successful companies I've encountered are run by people at the top who are strong visionaries with their own way of doing things, but who pay more attention to the complaints they receive than the kudos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Relying on nothing more than my weak and uninformed intuition and a history of reading business plans ...

 

- the lumi keys reads like a very conservative move, (piano?) designed to get a conservative "market size" estimation to please the skittish investors. ("demographic estimates are that X new piano students will emerge over the next ten years")

- the Roli block ecosystem, while more of a blue ocean concept and harder to size, appears to be easier to downscale into smaller, cheaper components.

 

Perhaps the piano is part of a multi-prong effort, but there are only so many development dollars to go around. I wonder if they can license some of their tech into large consumer product markets?

 

I wish them well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As someone who spends a decent amount of time teaching lessons...I am honestly a bit mystified at the Lumikeys decision. I can't even see how it sets you up to transition to regular piano lessons, other than sparking your interest (a legitimate outcome). Anyone can be a chicken pecking at feed on the right notes. To pay all that money for non-transferable skills in the guise of an educational component? I don't see who buys it.

 

This is a very different circumstance from Guitar Hero, which for some reason seems to be their inspiration. Guitar Hero is a game that uses a few of the coincidental surface elements of music making--mostly rhythm-related. It actually did tend to spark interest in legit lessons among its participants...but as a bug, not a feature. If they'd called it "guitar lessons," they'd have been toast. It's decidedly NOT instructional.

 

Very odd. Maybe saving face/bailing investors, as Tusker says. But I'd think you'd need something other than another Hail Mary to get out of the trouble they are in.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. This reminds me of a gentleman who was told by an NED exec, about his suddenly-abandoned Synclavier, "Well, I guess you bought yourself a very expensive boat anchor." New England Digital got bought out by a consortium of dedicated Synclavier users, after a lot of haggling over the IP. I doubt ROLI will come off even that well. "Equity fund investor" is Martian for "Stay prepared to grab your ankles." Its a severely deformed version of Kickstarter.

 

2. With all of the amusement and POTENTIAL offered by MPE, we have yet to see the form reveal its first Steve Vai type hero. I got to demo a ROLI and found it impressive, but it also feels as if someone is trying to create IRCAM in a box. It won't go mainstream until someone finds a way to shred on it in a manner that reimagines 70s/80s stadium guitar. Only then will sales rise, making it more than a Boutique Art Object. Too bad, as that string-to-brass vertical volume slide is demi-god stuff.

 

3. Sometimes a new twist takes root well. Roland has been making Handsonic drums for decades, a near unheard-of run for any consumer electronics doodad. The form & function have stood the test of time. Exhibit A.

 

4. Lumikeys will be blowing in the wind like leaves by October 2022. They proverbially "ain't right."

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...