This story was originally published on Passionfruit.
We’re sitting down with leaders on the business side of the creator economy to get their best advice for creators looking to launch and develop their careers. This week, we spoke with Stefán Heinrich Henriquez, the co-founder and CEO of Mayk.
Mayk describes itself as a song-creation “virtual studio” offering voice filters, song-writing prompts, lyric generators, royalty free beats, and editing tools to ease users along the music creation process. It is geared towards creators who have little background in music production but would like to customize royalty free music for their videos, podcasts and other content. It also offers social elements, allowing users to scroll through a short-form music feed and discuss songs with others on the app.
Henriquez told Passionfruit about the lessons he’s gleaned from working at major companies like YouTube, TikTok, and Cameo; Mayk’s music-first vision and its appeal to creators; his advice for creators using the platform; and what trends he’s paying attention to.
Stefán Heinrich Henriquez has led an impressive career, working at some of the largest creator-oriented tech companies in the game. He studied media in college and worked as a marketing manager at Google early in his career.
However, Henriquez said he always wanted to move to working with YouTube, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet. Luckily, he said he landed on the “new products” team, and went on to spearhead the launch of YouTube’s paid subscription product YouTube Red (now known as YouTube Premium).
Previously, YouTube was one of the primary platforms for musicians who wanted to use social media to market their music.
