Mighty friends,
Welcome to the inaugural edition of Mighty Open House. We created this newsletter to give our community insight into all of the crazy stuff that we’re working on. We’re a small team of entrepreneurs and engineers with a big dream to change the way people listen to music. We’ve heard that some of you would like to learn more about that journey, so we’re going to test out this newsletter and see what you think.
Much love,
Anthony M.
Founder & CEO
WE CROWDSOURCED THE NEXT MIGHTY COLOR
Thousands voted and the winner is…Shamrock!
Last month, we announced that we’re making a new green color Mighty and we asked our community to decide which shade of green we should go with. Thousands of you provided feedback and the majority preferred Shamrock with a green keypad, which barely edged out the Shamrock with a black keypad.
Congratulations to Jamie Sparks for winning our Mighty green giveaway! You’ll be getting the first two Shamrock Greens straight off the production line — one for you and one for someone who you really want to impress.
We’re in the final stages of perfecting the look
Right now, we’re hard at work perfecting the final shade of green that will be used in production. This is a process that includes sending pantone chips and plastic samples to our manufacturing partner, reviewing a ton of prototypes, and, if necessary, getting on a plane to China to ensure that the final product is exactly how everyone wants it. Here’s a photo of how the front housing is looking right now. We think it’s pretty sweet!
We plan to release Shamrock Green in a few months as a limited edition colorway. We’ll let you all know ahead of time so you’ll have first dibs to grab one.
MIGHTY GOES SWIMMING
The waterproof Mighty is a real thing and it’s coming soon
You may have heard us mention that a fully waterproof version of Mighty is coming soon. It’s taken a while to perfect everything, but we promise that the waterproof Mighty is a real thing and it will be available later this year. We’ve partnered with Audioflood, a leader in waterproofing technology, to make sure that the waterproof Mighty can withstand daily swims, surfs, and family trips to the beach. Here’s a behind the scenes view of Audioflood working on the assembly of the waterproof units. The housings in the second photo are very early prototypes — the final version will look similar to the current Mighty Vibe. We’ll let you know as soon as the waterproof Mighty is available.
NOT AN IPOD SHUFFLE
People ask us how Mighty differs from an iPod Shuffle. Here’s the answer.
iPod Shuffles and other MP3 players are just that, MP3 players. That means that they can only play MP3 files that you have purchased from a store like iTunes (Rest In Peace) for $0.99 per song and downloaded to your computer. Once you’ve purchased the MP3, you then “own” it forever and can use it however you’d like and for as long as you’d like. To be clear, iPod Shuffles and every other MP3 player on the market cannot play Spotify music. Mighty, on the other hand, can’t play MP3s but it can play Spotify music.
When you subscribe to a streaming music service like Spotify Premium, you are paying to “rent” access to their vast music library. If you stop paying for your subscription, then you lose access to that library. So — unlike MP3s that you’ve purchased from iTunes (Rest In Peace) and can use however you’d like — the Spotify music that you listen to has a bunch of usage restrictions. For example, you can only take Spotify music offline on certain types of devices and for thirty days at a time. You also can only take music offline on up to give devices per Spotify account. It’s Mighty’s ability to adhere to these restrictions that make it so different than the iPod Shuffle.
Mighty adheres to these restrictions through software that constantly checks for the status of your Spotify Premium subscription. If you cancel your subscription, Mighty will detect that the next time you connect it to WiFi and playback will be blocked. So what happens if you never reconnect Mighty to WiFi? Mighty has a clock that keeps track of how long it’s been offline; if it stays offline for 30 days, playback will be blocked playback and the user will be asked to reconnect to WiFi. The 30 day clock is reset once Mighty is reconnected to WiFi. Mighty also runs encryption software to ensure that a hacker can’t steal the Spotify music that you’ve synced, since the music is rented not owned. All of this technology is purposefully hidden from the user, but it has a huge impact on how we build the product and the software that runs inside it.
MEET OUR FRIEND: GIMME RADIO
Note: We are not paid for including our friends in the newsletter. We just appreciate other music start-ups and think you will too.
Our friends at Gimme Radio are doing something equally cool in the music industry. They launched in 2017 with the first worldwide radio streaming platform for metal called Gimme Radio and just a few months ago, launched their next product Gimme Country. On these two stations, you can hear choice picks and stories from artists like the legendary Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, Grammy winner Lee Ann Womack, the one and only Randy Blythe of Lamb of God, and many more. They recently launched a “share to Spotify” feature that allows you to share your favorite Gimme tracks directly to Spotify, which you can read more about here. We are excited to see how they continual to engage underserved music fans worldwide.