Why A Company’s Only as Strong as its Culture

In 2016, three young professional touring musicians in Music City, TN, found themselves frustrated with the traditional music industry and its few opportunities to make a consistent living.

While video content was exploding with social media and the only options for stock music were either complicated, expensive, or both, they envisioned a way to make great music accessible and affordable for all digital content creators. 

To answer the market's demand, the co-founders leveraged their deep roots in the music industry, bringing Grammy award-winning talent to create a diverse catalog of music available to all for a simple, low-cost subscription.

Now, 7 years later, Soundstripe has become one of the fastest growing music licensing companies in the world (we’ve been on the Inc. 5000 list twice!), serving hundreds of thousands of customers in 160 countries, and winning multiple awards in the music, media, and technology industries.

Soundstripe’s team has grown to nearly 70 employees and we’ve been rated one of the top workplaces in the southeast multiple times. Our team—our people—has lived out the founders’ vision in unique, extraordinary ways. Our accelerated growth and successes are made possible by the folks who work behind the scenes at Soundstripe!

We firmly believe we are where we are because of the premium we place on our culture—namely, our employees, who we’re celebrating all week long.

A fundamental belief in culture

In order to serve our mission and vision, we believe our culture must work to bring us closer to achieving them:

• Culture is not a fancy office, the famous start-up ping pong table, or iced coffee on tap
• Culture is created by our people, so we focus on hiring the right people
• Culture is the values, mission, and vision of the organization
• Culture is the tiny everyday actions inside the company that we do without thinking about
• Culture is the values and standards we strive to work and live by at Soundstripe
• Culture is ever evolving as the market and world evolves

Further . . .

We love to learn & grow

We are continuously developing new ways to invest in our people’s progress. We customize our approach because learning and growth look different for every person in every role. Sometimes our team learns through company stretch goals, innovation, and failure. Sometimes it's through coaching, mentorship, or hearing from different company leaders. Sometimes learning is more formal, such as through certification or conference.

We value community-based communication

We believe there is something very special about being able to communicate with teams in real-time. Higher productivity, deeper relationships, and infectious enthusiasm for our shared mission all happen due to community. 

Our folks reflect on their ability to connect and communicate in a schedule agreed upon by their teams and managers. We actively seek creative solutions to remain connected as a workplace community while being a remote-first company in a post Covid world.

We prioritize freedom & responsibility

As a high growth startup, we prioritize giving freedom to employees to operate and execute without the micro management overlords getting in the way. We give our team members a lot of autonomy to make decisions quickly and act. In return for that freedom, we ask our team to take responsibility for the things they own and be a good teammate. We believe in giving our team the freedom they need, and we pair that with personal and workplace responsibility.

In short, it’s our people who make the work at Soundstripe possible. This Employee Appreciation Week, our founders and leaders are pausing to reflect on all the victories—big and small—our team has accomplished together.

Interested in joining the Soundstripe team? Find the perfect role today.