Meet Anne Dvinge, Founder and CEO at Low-Fi, a community and online marketplace for user-generated concerts created by musicians and music lovers.
Anne Dvinge was a researcher at Copenhagen University for a decade with a Ph.D. in American studies, having attended prestigious schools like Columbia and Rutgers, until she stumbled upon the idea of house concerts. She fell in love with the format of bringing the concerts home. She started Low-Fi in 2015, a community and platform for user-generated concerts. It allows people to stop and pay attention to the music in a way that they can’t in a normal music concert. It is an opportunity for the artists to engage with the audience and get paid in a direct way. The audience can also support the artist through the platform.
Although she started community-building six years ago, it started to grow only in October 2019. The pandemic affected the business, but it is slowly coming back on track. Elaborating on the concept behind the company, Dvinge says, “Low-Fi is on a mission to let people connect with the music and each other in a safe and intimate setting while making sure that musicians get paid.” The artist and hosts create a profile on the platform and connect with each other. The hosts set up the event at their home or garden as they agree on a ticket price. The major part of the ticket income goes to the artist, Low-Fi takes the 15% + the cost of transactions. The community creates the concerts, and Anne Dvinge and her team build the infrastructure for the concert. It allows more people to stop and listen to the music in a different setting and be more present.
Currently, they have around 500 artists and 300 hosts in Denmark, while a couple hundred artists and 150-180 hosts in Sweden. They only recently expanded Low-Fi to Sweden. There are about 50 concerts happening in Denmark and 20 in Sweden this month. She wants to change the practice where artists are asked to play for free for the sake of their passion. Low-Fi ensures that the artists are paid their due amount foremost. The concerts are marketed via word of mouth. Sitting at a concert at a friend’s house and enjoying the music, many people are inspired to host one themselves, and Low-Fi helps them with it.
Raising the money for the company to thrive is one of the biggest challenges Anne faces. Also, as a female founder, she is no stranger to disappointment. She struggled to be taken seriously by the investors as she built the community. Another challenge was to put together the right team. Fortunately, she was able to find an amazing team with her co-founder, employees, and interns, who have accomplished so much over the years.
Dvinge is grateful for the strong support network at home. Even Low-Fi likes to maintain a strong work-life balance. The music and tech industries are heavily male-dominated, but she is not intimidated by the competition. Having started the business in her 40s, she believes it is when you know yourself and do not consider the setbacks as final failures. You get back up and keep going. You have to pace yourself and not run.
Leaving an inspiring message for the readers, she says, “You need to have a bumblebee attitude. It can’t fly, but it tries, anyway. Executing an idea will teach you so much even if it fails. Learnings I have had along the way would not have come if I hadn’t tried. Failure will become a part of that success. Throw yourself out there. Imperfections and failure are going to come anyway, so you might as well embrace them.”