Should I Build It Should I Build It
19 Apr 2025
Music Spotify

A free cross platform music app with synchronized lyrics, autoshuffle ...

...prioritizing liked songs, cross-platform music discovery and download, playlist, import/export and tagging

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

The idea of a free, cross-platform music app with synchronized lyrics and features like auto-shuffle and playlist management lands in a crowded space. We found 10 similar products, indicating high competition. Given the 'Swamp' category, it suggests previous solutions have struggled to gain traction or offer a truly unique value proposition. The engagement on similar products is low, with an average of only 1 comment per product, indicating the difficulty in making this type of product stand out. Without strong signals for use or purchase, it's crucial to identify a novel angle or underserved niche. Jumping into this space requires a differentiated approach to avoid the pitfalls of mediocrity experienced by others. The main criticism of these similar products are broken links, record companies not sharing lyrics, outdated interfaces.

Recommendations

  1. Start by thoroughly researching why existing music apps haven't achieved widespread success or user love. Analyze their weaknesses in terms of user experience, feature set, or content availability to identify gaps you can exploit.
  2. Instead of targeting the entire music listening audience, identify a specific niche or group with unmet needs. For example, focus on a specific genre, demographic, or use case to tailor your app's features and content.
  3. Explore the possibility of building tools or services for existing music platforms rather than directly competing with them. For instance, develop plugins, extensions, or APIs that enhance the functionality of popular apps like Spotify or Apple Music. Focus on the 'synchronized lyrics database' angle, where existing products have been criticized for being outdated or randomly removing lyrics.
  4. Consider pivoting to adjacent problems that might be more promising, such as music discovery or artist promotion. Think about how to leverage your knowledge of the music industry to solve related challenges.
  5. Since obtaining and distributing synchronized lyrics can be challenging due to copyright issues, explore alternative approaches such as using AI-powered lyric generation or partnering directly with artists and labels.
  6. Given the difficulty of direct competition, focus on a minimal viable product (MVP) that delivers core value. For example, start with synchronized lyrics and auto-shuffle, then gradually add features based on user feedback.
  7. Tunes app was praised for its clean interface. Prioritize user experience and a clean, intuitive interface to stand out from competitors. Ensure the app is easy to navigate and use, with a focus on simplicity.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs or pain points of music listeners will your app address that existing solutions fail to solve?
  2. How will you differentiate your app's user experience, content offering, or feature set to stand out from the crowded music app market?
  3. What is your plan to address potential copyright issues related to synchronized lyrics, and how will you ensure a sustainable and ethical source of lyrics for your app?

Your are here

The idea of a free, cross-platform music app with synchronized lyrics and features like auto-shuffle and playlist management lands in a crowded space. We found 10 similar products, indicating high competition. Given the 'Swamp' category, it suggests previous solutions have struggled to gain traction or offer a truly unique value proposition. The engagement on similar products is low, with an average of only 1 comment per product, indicating the difficulty in making this type of product stand out. Without strong signals for use or purchase, it's crucial to identify a novel angle or underserved niche. Jumping into this space requires a differentiated approach to avoid the pitfalls of mediocrity experienced by others. The main criticism of these similar products are broken links, record companies not sharing lyrics, outdated interfaces.

Recommendations

  1. Start by thoroughly researching why existing music apps haven't achieved widespread success or user love. Analyze their weaknesses in terms of user experience, feature set, or content availability to identify gaps you can exploit.
  2. Instead of targeting the entire music listening audience, identify a specific niche or group with unmet needs. For example, focus on a specific genre, demographic, or use case to tailor your app's features and content.
  3. Explore the possibility of building tools or services for existing music platforms rather than directly competing with them. For instance, develop plugins, extensions, or APIs that enhance the functionality of popular apps like Spotify or Apple Music. Focus on the 'synchronized lyrics database' angle, where existing products have been criticized for being outdated or randomly removing lyrics.
  4. Consider pivoting to adjacent problems that might be more promising, such as music discovery or artist promotion. Think about how to leverage your knowledge of the music industry to solve related challenges.
  5. Since obtaining and distributing synchronized lyrics can be challenging due to copyright issues, explore alternative approaches such as using AI-powered lyric generation or partnering directly with artists and labels.
  6. Given the difficulty of direct competition, focus on a minimal viable product (MVP) that delivers core value. For example, start with synchronized lyrics and auto-shuffle, then gradually add features based on user feedback.
  7. Tunes app was praised for its clean interface. Prioritize user experience and a clean, intuitive interface to stand out from competitors. Ensure the app is easy to navigate and use, with a focus on simplicity.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs or pain points of music listeners will your app address that existing solutions fail to solve?
  2. How will you differentiate your app's user experience, content offering, or feature set to stand out from the crowded music app market?
  3. What is your plan to address potential copyright issues related to synchronized lyrics, and how will you ensure a sustainable and ethical source of lyrics for your app?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 10
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 1
  • Net use signal: 19.1%
    • Positive use signal: 19.1%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

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