[untitled]: José Chayet & Dan Lilienthal, Co-Founders

Speaker A: This is hitting the mark.

Speaker B: Conversations with founders about the intersection of brand clarity and startup success with your host, brand strategist and author Fabian Geierhalter.

Speaker A: I see branding as a vocabulary. You know, not just the vocabulary that has to do with like literal words, but a vocabulary in terms of everything that involves, you know, for, in our case, for, for the organization. You know, from, you know, the place that you work out of, right, and the furniture in the place that you work out of, to the colors on the walls, you know, to the way that you communicate with, you know, in my case with Jose, to the way we communicate with our team, to the way we communicate with, with artists that come through the office, the way we communicate with our users. Like all of that, you know, all of that voc, you know, call it aesthetic, call it whatever you want, is part of the brand.

Speaker C: Dan Lilienthal and Jose Shayet, who co founded Untitled, A uh, sacred place for work in progress music that is being used by hundreds of thousands of artists and producers including Justin Bieber, Hayley Williams and Geese. The brand was recently awarded one of Fast Company's 10 Most Innovative Music Companies of 2026. In our conversation we discussed the founders background in art history, their goal of allowing artists to stay in a flow state, why they started a series of text interviews on Instagram, and how they see branding as a vocabulary. A, uh, super creative conversation, one you should not miss. And if you want to keep this show advertising free while pushing your creative business forward, head on over to hittingthemarkcircle.com to see how you can do both at once. And now without further ado, over to my inspiring conversation with Dan and Jose.

Speaker B: Welcome to the show, Dan and Jose.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having us. We're honored to be here.

Speaker B: Uh, it's really, really great to have you here. Uh, my frequent listeners know that I'm a big music enthusiast. I run a startup, a chase into the music space where we create innovative design driven record stor, um, called Toneoptic. Um, we might have to hook you up. Um, but uh, what they might not know is that I also release music, uh, under the moniker Happiness1. Uh, and if only two of you out there right now listening, um, are going to listen to Happiness One today, we will immediately double our monthly listener count. So, um, okay, enough of this blatant self promotion. Dan and Jose, you, um, co, founded um, Untitled, which is in brackets and that's very important.

Speaker A: Um, thank you.

Speaker B: Yeah, of course, of course, you know, from, from a brand person, you know, that's what you expect? Um, it's a project that is a little bit more, uh, successful than my musical endeavor. Uh, you recently were awarded one of Fast Company's 10 most innovative music companies in 2026. That's huge. That's how I found out about you. Um, it's super impressive. And you describe Untitled as a sacred place for work in progress. Music that is used by hundreds of thousands of artists and producers, which includes Justin Bieber and Hayley Williams and Geese. This journey of yours started about six years ago. After then, uh, you graduated from Duke and you, uh, Jose, you just finished a two year stint at Meda. How did the idea come about? Um, and why did you decide that this idea was the one to go after? This was good enough to actually invest your time and money into?

Speaker A: Thank you so much for the awesome background. You did amazing research. Um, yeah. In general, before we get too deep into Untitled, it's really important for Hossein Dai to share a little bit about our background and how we know each other, because that's essential part of the story and what brought us here today. So, um, to get into it, Hossein die, we joke that we've known each other since before birth. You know, that sounds a bit ridiculous, but, you know, the reason we say that is because our families were actually friends in Mexico City before we were even born. So we found out actually semi recently that our great grandparents used to hang out in Mexico City back in the day. Um, and our families were one of the small communities that immigrated from Mexico City to San Diego, California in the late 80s and 90s. So we were destined to be friends no matter what, just simply because of the fact that our parents were friends. Um, but we bonded at a very young age because we're both also the youngest of three siblings, and we both have two older brothers with significant age differences. Um, and growing up in the early 2000s in San Diego. For those who don't know, San Diego was the Mecca for pop punk in the early 2000s. Blink182 obviously was from San Diego. Band's Warped Tour was in San Diego. San Diego really was the epicenter for all of this. And, and our older brothers, they were all musicians and they were all obsessed with pop punk, and they were actually in bands together. And, you know, I was five. I was five, and so I was seven. We'd be going on the same bus together to school because we also went to the same elementary school, um, and we'd be talking about all these amazing pop punk bands that our brothers were into. So we became very close because of that. Um, and then, you know, fast forward throughout the time they were both in, like, middle school and high school. You know, we became obsessed with technology. You know, we became Apple fanboys. We'd be, you know, scouring YouTube, trying to find out about all the new stuff that Apple was releasing, watching the Steve Jobs keynotes, and we would be talking a lot about that. And then we kept talking about startups. We actually ended up building an app together in high school. Um, the app was called Squeezed. We don't need to get too deep into that, but that was our first experience building software together. And after that experience, we just knew that we wanted to build a company together one day and build technology together one day. Um, and then fast forward to around the time that we, you know, we went to college, as you said. I went to Duke, Jose went to Penn. And what happened in college was that, you know, this was around, you know, 2014, 2015, 2016, and this was around the time that startups had really gone from, you know, the fringe to the mainstream. And now everyone was talking about doing startups. So as kids who grew up obsessed with startups, naturally we just didn't want to be talking about that all the time at that point, even though that's what we knew we wanted to do. And. And so, you know, when Jose got to school, this was, you know, 2014, you know, the startup thing was again starting to get into the mainstream. And that's when he got really into art history. You know, he can talk a little bit more about that if he wants, um, and started to get deep into our history. And so by the time I got to college, because Jose and I are such close friends, I had already got, you know, call it art history pilled by him. And so when I got to school, I wanted to take art history classes, so I started taking our history class, and now we start talking about our history. And then we ended up getting re. Obsessed with music. Jose started making music on his iPhone and started sending it to me. I actually started managing my older brother's hip hop collective. And music, art and creativity was just everything we could talk about. And so, you know, by the time I was about to graduate college, you know, Jose was wrapping up two years as I met, as you said. And music was just the thing that we were talking about all the time. And we knew we wanted to build a music company. And, you know, Jose, if you want. Share, share a little bit more about Untitled specifically in this idea and whatnot.

Speaker D: Yeah, So I think like, there's just this moment in college, um, where, um, all these ideas from the art world, from the music world and from the tech world, they were just colliding into each other. And Dan and I couldn't stop talking about music and creativity, uh, together. It was just this very natural sort of thing. Um, and then I went off to Facebook. I was a product manager there. And the obsession continued. Right. Dan was finishing his last half of college. I was at Facebook for a couple of years and it got to a point where we just both couldn't stop thinking about music and we both couldn't stop talking to each other. You know, we've been lifelong friends, but it was reaching this like, insane, um, ah, like, pressure point of like, we need to just stop everything and, and, and start a company together. Dan calls me and he's like, I don't want a job after college. And you know, um, he says he wants to start a music company. And I'm like, perfect, because you're the only person I want to work with if I'm going to quit Facebook and I can't stop thinking about music. So, um, we quit and, or I quit and he graduated and we started Untitled. And I think like, generally speaking it's a little unorthodox, uh, compared to maybe some other kind of founding stories. Like there wasn't like an aha moment or like ah, a light bulb around an idea. It was more so like we're obsessed with music, we can't stop talking about it. How do we figure out how to build the company of our dreams, this like, amazing music company? Because, you know, rewinding back a couple years, Dan visits me in Philly right before I graduate Penn, because he wanted to see what Penn was like before I graduated. And we were sort of dreaming up this idea of like buying a piece of land and having like a concert venue and like a place for artists to record and dream up, you know, merch and sell it to their fans and like, do eclectic experimental experiences. And then we'll build technology there and it'll all start with this like, physical location and then we'll build a bunch of things on top of that. Um, we were already dreaming about ideas like that and we wanted to get to that point. And the funny thing is, like, we're just starting to have this like, physical presence right now with our new headquarters here in Brooklyn where we have this amazing recording studio and event space. And we can talk about that later. But when we were seriously thinking about actually starting a company it's like, okay, if we want to build this company of our dreams with the land and all these different, this kind of umbrella, Walt Disney type kind of like strategy, um, you know, it's got to start with a product that really resonates with the music world. Because we had, we're not music insiders, we don't know anyone in music. And you know, we would need to build something that's valuable to kind of earn our way into the industry. So we're like, let's start with software. Um, let's build software and we'll go from there. And so it's like, okay, what are we going to build? So, kind of in art history, fashion, um, there's this professor in college that she would just like, say, like, you know, art can be divided into its methods of production, circulation and reception. You know, and it's like, you know, these avant garde artists, you know, will kind of like bend those methods into, you know, something new, something provocative, something blah, blah, blah. Um, so basically we started discussing this by saying music can be divided into creation, distribution and consumption. Consumption has been innovated on and optimized, um, pretty extensively from vinyl to the CD to the iPod to Spotify, um, distribution. At the time 2020, there was a lot of talk around the labels and what if there was a Y combinator for labels? Or what if crypto or blockchain could figure out the music industry and all these things. Dan and I were definitely thinking about interesting ideas there, but we didn't really feel like there was a product or a software that was really going to make an elegant solution where we could add a lot of value and there's a lot of gatekeepers and distribution, you know, the record labels and things like that. So like, we didn't want to sort of like get into a, uh, a part of the business that we felt, you know, that, you know, we weren't going to have enough tailwinds. And then there's creation. And creation has no gatekeepers. And unlike consumption, stayed largely similar, um, over the last 30 years. You know, like artists were largely using the same tools that they'd been using since the late early to even late 90s. Um, up until now. Ableton and Logic were both started before 2000, and those are two of the most popular DAWs in the world right now. So we're like, okay, we're going to build something in creation. We're going to solve a problem there and then use that as a wedge and entry point into music. And so from there we started Jotting down what are all the problems that go on in the creative process? Dan was managing his older brother so he was kind of getting music sent to him at the demo to mix to kind of mastering stage. I was making a bunch of music on my phone, very rough ideas. Um, I'm extremely unlike talented, um, when it comes to musical instruments and anything like that. So everything that I make is extremely rough. And um, I was exporting things very quickly and sending them to people for feedback. Dan was one of those people. I would send it to him on WhatsApp or iMessage or SoundCloud. And then Dan, um, we were chatting and he's like, what can I do to sort of get started here? And I'm like, just do research before you graduate. Talk to anyone that you know that makes music. Just sit down with them and just ask them about their process and you know they'll tell you some compelling things. And you know, Dan comes to me one day and he's like, dude, did you know that people are using the Apple Notes app for storing their work in progress music? And I'm like, there's no way. And then I, I open my phone and I try to drag an audio file into notes and I'm like, wow, that, that worked. Like that actually works. And it's crazy that people are doing that. So all of these little stories, these problems, they started converging onto the fact that the creative process for musicians was broken. You have figma for design, GitHub for engineering notion and Google Drive for the workplace. And the same just couldn't be said for musicians. Their creative process was broken. They were using 8 to 10 tools to manage their creative process. And we wanted to build software that artists deserved. We wanted to be the first company to build craft software for music artists. Craft being, you know, simple, well designed, intuitive thinking about all the details so that you don't have to worry about them. And you can be in flow state as you're making your music. And that was sort of the um, crystallization of that entry point into what we were building. And that's kind of where we, the starting off point obviously as a, as a small little crumb into where we felt we were going. But that's sort of the best way to describe how we got started.

Speaker B: Absolutely mesmerizing. I mean it's so incredible that you start with this Walt Disney esque vision of where you want to end up and then, okay, well how do we get started? And you're starting with a problem, a problem you didn't even know existed. But, um, you know, in order to end up where you wanted to go, it's such a, it's such a great way of starting. And like you said, one that is very, um, you know, it's rare, it's rare to see that usually, uh, you come up with a solution first, but you came up with the dream that you want to build. Um, and what's so remarkable is you have, you have a space now. I believe you have a building that, uh, you're the first, you're the first tenants there. So you really create your own kind of like Dreamscape already. You, um, just started distribution now too, right? I mean, you added a new feature last year, um, that allows, uh, subscribers or paying subscribers to convert the projects to vinyl, for instance. Right? I mean, that of course caught my attention. M. I brought up Hayley Williams before, whose work I absolutely love. Um, she released an EP with her new project, powersnatch, and that was exclusively on your new paid project feature. I mean, this is literally you going already, um, into a place that you didn't even think you would be going. Um, so you're, you're ahead of the curve. I mean, this is, this is, this is pretty amazing.

Speaker D: Thank you.

Speaker A: I mean, it means a lot, you know, hearing from someone like you who've, you know, spent a lot of time with so many incredible brands. So, you know, thank you for saying that. And in general, you know, to kind of touch on the point that you just said around not knowing where this was going, I think in general, since the very, very beginning, as Jose was mentioning, we really wanted to build amazing craft artist tools and really focus on just building amazing, amazing, amazing tooling for artists and producers. Offer it for one simple subscription and have all this value that comes with the subscription. Similar to how, you know, when you think about, you know, Amazon getting an Amazon prime subscription, you know, you think about all the value, think about all the value that you get with that, you know. You know, and obviously every, every day, every week, it feels like they add more and more to it. Um, you know, that it just becomes a no brainer to get an Amazon prime subscription. You know, we think very similarly, you know, about how we, you know, how we build tools and how we build out our subscription. So since the beginning, you know, even though we started first by building the best place to store, listen, share and organize your work in progress music, we always knew that was going to just be one of the many, many, many tools, you know, we offer to artists and producers. You know, even Back in the day when we were first starting the company, Jose and I would talk a lot about, you know, this concept of, you know, a private release, right? We would talk a lot about this idea that, you know, once your, you know, your album or your single is finished, you know, and maybe it's not ready for streaming services, or maybe you don't really even care to, you know, to put it on streaming services, but you want to release it to a few people, maybe to your friends, to your family. Um, you know, then there should be this concept of a private release. And in a sense, you can think about, you know, this, this D2C feature where you can now sell your music with Untitled as, you know, something that, you know, stems from that, you know, from that original, original idea. Um, and so, you know, all the, everything that we're doing now, which is what's most bizarre, even though we're almost six years into it, has a lot of seeds in Jose and I's early conversations when we were just starting the company and conversations that we had even before starting the company, which is what's wild. A lot of our roadmap is defined from stuff that we spoke about six plus years ago.

Speaker B: And you know what I think is, uh, so fascinating? Um, you mentioned that you both don't necessarily come from the tech space or the music space, right? Like, it was a new space to you, yet you flirted with the space because, you know, like Jose, you made music then you were managing, uh, you know, like your brother. You understand a lot of that. But instead of very often the ones that are already in the space, they can't fix the space. Like, it takes someone who comes from outside the space and really rethinks everything completely different, right? Um, and just says, well, why hasn't this been done right? And question all of that. Where others would say, I'm never going to go against Ableton, I'm never going to go against Dropbox. I'm never going to go against. Right? Like, that's usually the attitude where they would never even touch it. But you come from the outside and you're like, hey, um, there is no solution. I don't care who's in the market. Let's just start with interviewing artists and figuring out, how do they go about this. One thing that we see needs to be fixed to start things off really, really, really cool. And then, um, you said in a recent interview, um, and I'm going to phrase you here, nothing feels better than an artist sharing something unreleased with you. It feels amazing, right? Um, my last guest on my other podcast, which I do with Tonoptic called uh, Sound Habit, um, he's like a Berlin based minimal techno, um, artist called the Pike. And he shared with me how he self releases all of his music. As in he literally presses one record at a time in his small little apartment studio while cutting the COVID while printing the sleeves. And sometimes he only releases a track on film. 5 vinyl records and that's it. Like there's, there's literally those five vinyl records are the only place you can ever listen that one, Listen to that one song. And I think that goes back to that fascination of, you know, it used to be test pressings and it used to be mispressings and like you just said then, you know, it could be a private, you know, like, like a private pressing or something that just goes out to a couple of people in the beginning that's maybe a rougher demo of what's uh, out, you know, in the future. But I feel like that's what, that's what people seek, right? People seek experiences today. Right? And that's what that is. It feels unique. And a lot of people that own um, a lot of uh, Gen Z owns records of their favorite artists, but they don't even have a record player. Right? And it's unbelievable. But that's what that is. And I love how you're, how you're slowly, you know, tapping into that. Um, how else, how do you keep your audience engaged? Um, let's talk a little bit about like the marketing that you do. I know one way, um, is your texting interviews Instagram channel. Um, tell us a little bit about that. That looks really cool.

Speaker A: So funnily enough, going back to literally what I just said around how, before Untitled even started texting interviews is a fantastic example of that. Um, because basically, you know, I think I was a senior in college, um, and Jose was obviously at Meta. And part of our many, many conversations that we've had about ideas and the future of music, um, and all that was centered around media, um, and centered around what music media looks like. And in 2019, when I was a senior, um, in college, this was, you know, around the time that, you know, certain artists, um, I'll say the name, but I know this is a very controversial person right now, but Kanye west at the time was posting a lot of screenshots of his like conversations he was having with like record label executives. Um, this was like, at a time that he was like trying to like get out of his deal and whatever, whatever. And he was posting a lot of screenshots that he was having. And what was really interesting about seeing those screenshots, um, was that you would see how, like, an artist, like Kanye would be having conversations over text message. And it was such an interesting way to see another side of an artist's personality and another side of a human's personality. Because the way we text can be so different to how we are, um, in real life, right? How we are in conversation. Some people who are incredibly extroverted in reality, maybe over text, they're very dry. There's so many different ways to see someone's personality through how they communicate on that medium. Um, and so we were really, really fascinated by that. So, Hossein, I had a conversation back then around, like, oh, what if we start a whole interview series interviewing people over text message? Not only one, it would probably get easier to interview people and get people to actually do these, because it's very lightweight. Uh, it's very easy to do. So scheduling and all that stuff becomes much easier. That's one. And then two, you get to see a whole other side of the artist because you get to see, you know, how they text, which you wouldn't get to see unless you were their friend. So, um, you thought that was really interesting, too. Um, and so that was something we were going to do, you know, my senior year of college. We didn't end up doing it. And so then fast forward to, you know, when was this? Let's say, like, 2023.

Speaker D: Winter. Winter of 2022.

Speaker A: Okay. Winter of 2022. Hossein. I, that point, had moved to New York. So that's a whole nother story. But we rebased the company out of New York in fall of 2022, and we decided to rebuild the entire company in New York. We had no engineers. It was just me, Jose, and our founding product designer. Um, and we were essentially spending all of our time recruiting new engineers, um, and redesigning the app. And in the winter of 2022, you know, we. We hadn't yet recruited any engineers. Um, and so we were, like, kind of down, you know, and we. We felt like we needed some. Some energy. And it felt like a time that, you know, maybe it's a good time to actually do something in the artist community. Do something, you know, for producers. Do something that actually, you know, one, you know, gets us excited about, you know, work, and then two, also allows us to, you know, start getting some, you know, some relationships going in in the artist world. So we decided that that was A good time to start off texting interviews. And at that point we had become quite close with, uh, the amazing artist Zach Villery. Um, and he decided that he was excited to be the first one. So that kicked it off so good.

Speaker B: And I love the way that you do it, too. And I encourage, uh, my listeners to go to, uh, that, uh, Instagram channel, because I love the way that you have them sign digitally with their little on their phone. And it's so different and it's so fresh. And, um, everything that you said about why it is interesting is because of that, because it is so different. And of course, for you, it was a strategy to make sure you get more people to actually agree to an interview, which is, by the way, why I don't have my founders here on video. But we do it audio only because it makes it easier, right? It makes it easier for people to relax and like, you know, some people take it on in the car and whatever, which of course I don't like, but they do. But it just allows, you know, more people to go get to get on the show, which is great, for sure. Um, let's talk about the retro CD logo and the name. Uh, who wants to go first? How did the name come about?

Speaker A: Jose, you can go.

Speaker D: I honestly don't remember. Then.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. So what happened was basically when Jose and I first started the company, you know, we had set up a notion of right M. Even, like, right before the company. I think it was just like, let's just set up a notion to start. Like, like, by the way, this was also when, like, Notion was still pretty early, so it was like a cool tool to use, right? Like, it was a time that notion was, like, still very edgy. And it was like, you know, the. The more artsy people call it that in technology were using Notion. So this was that era. Um, and so you're like, oh, let's try out this notion tool. You know, start, you know, maybe set it up just before we start the company. Um, and because. So, because we didn't have a name for the company, we put a notion Untitled hq. Um, you know, because again, there was no name, so it was literally untitled. And, um, I think back then it was spelled Untitled, um, with a capital U, I believe in brackets. Um, and so when we first started, when we started the company, that's what the notion said. And that first week, you know, as we were thinking about the name for the company, like, that actually like, is like the best name for it, you know, because one, you Know, every creative idea starts off Untitled, right? You know, literally everything. Um, two, you know, back then, you know, were just really big fans of, you know, this, um, this playlist on Spotify called Pollen. Um, you know, Pollen, back in. When we started the company was like, the coolest playlist on Spotify, and Pollen really highlighted, you know, artists that were very diy, right? So, like, they were in control of their entire creative process. Two, they were very collaborative, and three, they're very genreless, and so you. So you couldn't really fit them in a box, right? Like, both. Both fit them in a box in terms of, like, what they literally did. Like, they. These people would make music, would design clothing. You know, think about someone like a Tyler, the creator, he, like, does it all. So these people are very much Untitled, you know, and that's who we wanted to build for, you know, this DIY multi half in a collaborative musician. And so we felt Untitled also, you know, um, you know, capture that spirit.

Speaker B: I love how your. Your Instagram account is literally named Untitled in brackets. Untitled in brackets is the actual thing.

Speaker D: It's great. Yeah. Because so I actually remember. So we, Dan and I, we would frequent the beach a lot when we started the company, and we were about to get. We were about to get in the ocean. Um, and as we were about to get in the ocean, Dan's like, dude, I've been thinking, like, what if we actually, like, I, like, the notion had Untitled written on there. Like, what if we actually call it that? And at first, I was. I was extremely allergic to it because, like, immediately my immediate gut reaction, because Untitled as a word is a very ugly word. Um, just like. Just like, as a word, you know, like, if you see the word untitled, it's a very ugly word. And especially in capital letters, it's. It's like, really ugly. And, um, and there's also, like, you know, if you're creative, if you, you know, like creativity, like music, whatever, like, the word untitled, it can sound like kind of like, um. Like you're trying to, like, like, um. It's like. It's like two. It's. I wouldn't say the word basic, but, like, like, you're kind of like, why are you trying to, like, use this word that like, is so commonplace for everyone in creativity. Like, it's not a unique thing that you're doing. So I think that those were, like, the original and. And just saying the word untitled out loud now, it's. You know, you say something so many times and it's repeated so many Times that after so much repetition, I mean, that's another thing in an art history thing is like, you know, like Walter Benjamin, you know, like just like repetition and by the way, repetition in music, right? Like that's. We see so many analogies between music and art and repetition, uh, is such a crazy thing, right? Actually. And even in startups, you know, like, you know, some of the big best, like, you know, you know, startup advice is for founders is like just, even if it sounds super redundant to just repeat the same mission principles to your team, to your investors, to people you pitch, like, just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Um, obviously with repetition, the word untitled feels a little bit more, uh, fitting. But at the time, saying it out loud actually felt like, like strange, you know, like it just didn't. It don't roll off the tongue. Like we were just talking before this. It's like, you know, both, both, uh, both products start with a U, but just the phonemes are completely different with Uber and Untitled, like Uber rolls off the tongues like it's, it's very like normal, soothing flow state to say that word untitled. There's friction in saying that word unless you're very, very used to saying it, which obviously now we have been. And I think, um, the, you know, going back to the name, like there was a very, very, very specific conversation where it's like, it can only be Untitled if it's all lowercase and inside of brackets. Like it. Because it only looks good that way, it will not look good any other way. And actually Untitled inside two brackets looks beautiful. It's actually a crazy contrast how beautiful Untitled can look inside of two brackets when it's lowercase. And how like, like so ugly Untitled looks any other way. Which actually gets to like conversations around trademarking and things like that. Like we only care about Untitled inside of brackets. Like Untitled without brackets, uppercase, whatever. Like it's so ugly. Like it literally doesn't matter. Like it's, it's, it's completely like out of the question for us. So that was a non negotiable. Like it had to be untitled lowercase inside of two brackets. That's number one, number two. The meaning behind it had to be something very profound. It could not be sort of this surface level, um, thing around. Like, you know, all files start off Untitled, you know, or all artworks start off untitled or whatever. So like what Dan's getting at, you know, I think that's one sort of like deeper layer which is, you know, our favorite artists are unable to be you know, put in a box or labeled, you know, they are Untitled in nature. And then going even deeper, right, going back to our art history sort of passion and the foundations of this company. Um, you know, part of the reason why, you know, we landed on. On what we landed on was because we felt like music was going to be democratized one day the way that art was democratized. With the birth of conceptual art, we felt like there was going to be an even bigger market of people making music, which arguably right now with AI is now, you know, becoming basically a reality. But we said this, like, what, six years ago before, you know, we knew what. What was going to happen, you know, in the future. And we're just like, if it happened with art, it happened. It's going to happen with music. And the way it happened with art was with a simple question, you know, from Marcel Duchamp, what is art? You know, through a very, like, you know, kind of like, you know, like, convoluted exercise of him submitting what would then be known as Fountain, um, to his own exhibition and seeing the other people, you know, rejected. And then he takes out a newspaper article with a different name, kind of questioning his peers for rejecting the art piece and saying, like, how do you. Why are you the judge of what is art and what is not art? And sort of the culmination of all that is what is art? You know, and for us, like, really, like, Untitled, generally speaking, is us saying we are asking a question two and we're asking, what is music? You know, and generally speaking, um, you know, with the birth of conceptual art, art was brought off of the canvas into the world. And it became. The possibilities became endless, and it really became about the sort of the. The artist, their idea, their intention, you know, what are they challenging? What, what, what. What new thing are they innovating on? And Dan and I, at the end of the day, we're obsessed with innovation. You know, like, we hear a breakthrough new album, and it makes us feel the same as when we first saw the first, you know, the iPhone being announced. Like, we get the same feeling from that, which is why we love music just as much as technology and just as much as art is. We just want to be pushed, want our brains to be expanded, um, um, past where it currently is in terms of how we think. So, you know, the same way that, you know, art, you know, is. Is, you know, what is art? It's, you know, it's. Can't really put a. Put a name on it. You know, the same probably goes for music. And that's kind of the adventure that we're on right now. And, um, that's the mission of the company. So, like, generally speaking,

Speaker C: um,

Speaker D: I would say that there's a bit of two extremes with the name. One is that it was totally unintentional, and number two, it's. Once we made the decision for it to happen, it had to be so deeply us that it was unavoidable because we really didn't want to name it Untitled unless it, like, made sense at the deepest, deepest, deepest, deepest levels. And now we get to enjoy. Someone just texted us yesterday. They're like, you guys are so smart for calling it Untitled. Like, literally, people on Reddit are saying, like, guys, the Untitled app is so cool. And they're like, what app is it, dude? Like, like, write the actual name. They're like, it's the. It's like, why are you saying Untitled? Like, tell us. And. And, like, that's the thing. Those are, like, sort of the superficial reasons someone would call it Untitled. And Dan and I, that. That was not at all, uh, a part of the plan. It's truly two extremes. The super intent, the super unintentional, and the super deep philosophical aspects. And then everything else in between is just tailwinds that we got to enjoy by calling it Untitled.

Speaker A: It's almost like, the way I see it, it's almost like, you know, God gave us this name without a reason. And then over the last six years, it's almost been, like, a journey as to, like, all the why God, why they gave us this name, you know, all the deep reasons behind it, you know, for, you know, for. For, like, you know, literally just in the last few minutes, you know, literally, we've. We gave you, like, three different reasons why it's called Untitled, you know, and these are all things that we. We kept. We've kept. We constantly discovered.

Speaker B: Totally. And, you know, the interesting thing is, um, I would have most probably not picked up on Untitled as a brand to have on the show if it wasn't for this uniquely unbranded, um, Untitled approach, where, you know, you get it. You get a very distinct, uh, vibe. And that's what branding to a certain extent is, right? You get a vibe of the. Of the company and. And the whole idea of Untitled, you make a statement. And to Jose's point, the statement could easily feel in the beginning, a little bit, uh, meta and a little bit like, okay, well, they called it something sort of did look cool, and it's interesting and whatnot, right? And so People have to repeat it three times, but there's so much depth behind it. And the idea of what your users really come to use it for and the idea of the creative process process and how it always starts like that. And that's where you want to be, right? That's where all the excitement happens. Right. Is at that very beginning. And that's the spot where you're at. And that could in the future be the first. The first song in a live performance that in the future can be the first pressing that they get, whatever it is, right? So I think there's a lot there. And it's interesting because when I. I used to run a brand agency, uh, called Guy Halter Design, moved into Guy Holton Co, moved into Finian, whatever, but I always had a no logo approach to my branding agency because I always felt like we should not have the logo because we're here to make logos for others. We create identities for others. We should be behind the scenes. We should not be the ones with the big identity. And when I first saw Untitled, I kind of felt like it was almost empowering and liberating the artist because, like, we're Untitled. This is your space. So that's how I saw it. Which is not necessarily how you intended it, but it is part of positive, right?

Speaker D: No, it is. It is actually, actually, by the way, like this. This. This. This would also count as like, a superficial reason to call it this, but it's a, uh, It's a really great sort of byproduct as well. It is the fact that, like, we wanted this to feel like, you know, a blank canvas that artists could make their own, like, kind of like, you know, literally like a tools product that could be your own personal toolkit for what you want to, uh, make your creative process for. Right. Like, it's not our sort of opinion what you're going to use Untitled for and you're going to be able to decorate it and make it exactly how you want it.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And now that we're already knee deep in the brand conversation, because the name is obviously the first part, the first step to your branding and that there are so many other pieces that are

Speaker D: part of the tool, by the way, just on the logo thing, like a, uh, little bit different to your. Your whole thing of no logo. What we wanted for our logo, which was very exciting, was like, the fact that anyone can make the logo with whatever sort of, like, material they have. Like if they have a keyboard, if they have a pencil, whatever. Untitled, instead of two brackets, is Accessible to anyone to make. And it looks really pretty. Like, no matter. As long as it's lowercase, like, no matter how you sort of, like, want to do it with. Whether you draw it or you type it or whatever.

Speaker B: I, uh, like that.

Speaker A: And also the brackets. The brackets allows us to brand anything that we do. Right. So, you know, for any future thing that we do, um, you know, we. If we put it in brackets, it becomes ours. You know, it becomes, like, distinguished by. By what we do. So, um, you know, in the future, as we keep doing more things, like, the brackets is definitely something that, you know, we want to continue to lean on, you know, and keep nurturing.

Speaker B: And it's interesting because back in the 90s, which your. Your CD ROM and CD kind of like visuals come from, um, back in the 90s, the brackets were a huge, huge part of the graphic design language. They were used all the time.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Especially for websites, you're saying.

Speaker B: No, no, no. Like, even. Even in the. In music, right? There were a lot of bands. There was a lot of, like, David Carson did a lot of design languages.

Speaker A: Oh, really?

Speaker B: There were a lot of design languages where brackets were really, really important. Um, that's it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And there were some labels. Um, I think the Pixies were on it and Guskas were on it, where that was a big part of it, and it was a language. And I think it's so interesting because you are kind of like, starting that over in a sense, where it is about, hey, we're resetting things. And I love that now you can actually use the brackets and you can own them, because no one owns them now, but they used to. So it's really. It's super, super interesting.

Speaker A: I mean, it's like Virgil Abloh, not to be too cliche, but with the quotations, you know, there was a time, you know, at his peak, um, that literally anything that he put. That you put in quotations, it was immediately identified as something that Virgil did, um, as little as just like literally adding quotations to something. And we're getting to the point now, especially in certain communities that we've saturated, that the brackets have become ours. And as you just said, no one uses them. So we're at an interesting moment that the more we use them, the more we can take ownership over them.

Speaker B: Absolutely. It's extremely meaningful. Um, I know we're running against time, so I've got two more questions which are super important for me to get out of here. The first one, and I let either one of you take this what does branding mean to you? What does that often misunderstood word mean to you now that you've been branding your own company for, for six years?

Speaker D: To me, it's a story and it's, it's, uh, it's, ah, it's a way of communicating, you know, I think it's a way of establishing common ground between two parties. In this case, you know, the creator of something and the consumer of something. And, you know, it's. It's really up to the creator how they want to tell that story.

Speaker B: I like that.

Speaker A: The way, like, I see branding really as a, you know, as a vocabulary, you know, not just the vocabulary that has to do with like, literal words, but a vocabulary in terms of, you know, everything that involves, you know, for, in our case, for, for the organization. You know, from, you know, the place that you work out of, right. And the furniture in the place that you work out of, to the colors on the walls, you know, to the way that you communicate with, you know, in my case with Jose, the way we communicate with our team, to the way we communicate with, you know, with, with artists that come through the office, the way we communicate with our users, like, all of that, you know, all of that vocabulary, you know, call it aesthetic, call it whatever you want, um, is part, is part of the brand. Which is why, you know, when, when people ask us a lot of times, like, you know, how do we like, go about building the brand and all, all this stuff, and while we could get very like, technical and detailed, you know, at the end of the day, like, the way we've built the brand is just like, by Jose and I being ourselves and doing what we want to do, you know, and that means, you know, getting this amazing office space and designing the space ourselves, you know, to, you know, literally, um, you know, going, going to shows with our workwear shirts that we used to make with our names on them, you know, all of that is part of this vocabulary we've created. And, um, you know, to me, all of that is just branding. You know, it's like, it's what it feels. It's like this feeling that you get when you're, when you, when you're around us.

Speaker B: You know, I've asked this question, um, at least 130 times to, to, to founders, and not one person said it's the vocabulary, and it is the vocabulary. I love that. I love the idea that it's your vocabulary. Um, it's, it's beautiful. Um, talking about vocabulary, I want one more word out of you before we before we finish, uh, this, uh, this show today, what is one word? If you take your entire brand, your entire vocabulary. Vocabulary. And you only get one word out of it. Liquid death is mischief. Coca Cola is happiness. Right. Like what. What is untitled? What is one word that can describe the entire brand? Your entire brand vocabulary?

Speaker A: Like curiosity. What do you think of that one, Jose? I love it.

Speaker B: Curiosity it is. You heard it here first. I love that. I love. Hey, listen, I want to be very conscious of time. Um, where can people, uh, follow your brand on socials or on the website? Um, uh, and what are you excited about for the next six months with your company?

Speaker A: You can go on Instagram and find Untitled in brackets, all spelled out. Yes, it's a long word. It's all spelled out because Instagram doesn't allow actual brackets to be in the username. So that's on Instagram. Our website is Untitled Stream. Um, and then for the same reason. And then actually, funny enough, before we had Untitled Stream, we had untitled in brackets.com, like, all spelled out. We still have it. But that brackets.com used to be the main page and then we changed it because it felt it was a bit of a mouthful. Um, and then on Twitter, because they don't know they have character, uh, limits. We're Untitled. Three U's and three D's at the end.

Speaker B: Amazing. What's happening in the next, uh, six months. What are some things that you're really excited about?

Speaker D: Um, the headquarters is getting crazily activated. We just finished our studio and people are doing, um, amazing recording sessions here. Some of the best artists in the world and, um, some live sessions in the studio. We just shot our first one and posted it, um, with this artist named Rocky Road, who's a really exciting artist, um, from New York. You can check that out on YouTube. Um, just type Untitled and Rocky Road and you'll find it. Um, we're doing a lot of shows on our rooftop, on our terrace, and we're about to activate the retail space at the bottom floor of the building as well. So we've got a lot of stuff going on in the hq and product wise, um, we're working on some really exciting features across the entire creative process, from the actual creation of music to collaboration. We're finally adding commenting to the product, which has been highly requested. We're very excited about that. And, um, yeah, more things to connect music fans and artists.

Speaker B: Dreams. Dreams do come true. Yeah. Kids, listen to.

Speaker A: We're literally this office space that we're building. We're trying to make it, uh, the Willy Wonkas Chocolate factory equivalent for music. So you can find everything from our studio to obviously our team making software to events on the rooftop to maybe some awesome, uh, uh, uh, happenings on the ground floor space where we're selling cool objects, maybe cool music gear. There's a lot going on and we're very grateful to finally be able to embark on this dream that we've had for a while around having our own space where we can do all sorts of experiments.

Speaker B: Absolutely amazing. Um, this journey of yours that you shared with us, um, that started with, with such a huge inspiration, um, and it just made so much sense that you did it all, but it was extremely strategic how you planned it all. And seeing you now doing this and really living the best lives of the brand, um, is absolutely inspiring. So thank you so much. I know we went a couple of minutes over here. Um, thank you so much for spending the time with us and sharing all of your thoughts. Thoughts and your story and your. And your subliminal brand advice, uh, sprinkled throughout. So, um, really appreciate it.

Speaker A: Thank you so much.

Speaker D: Thank you for the time. This is awesome.

Speaker C: Branding is a vocabulary. I love that. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I have the conversation, and if so, please subscribe, rate and share the show. Hitting the Mark is produced by my consultancy, Finion, where we create clarity for brand transformations. You can find out more by going to finian.com this episode was edited by Everett Barton and the Hitting the Mark theme music was written and produced by the one and only happiness one. I'll see you next time when we once again will be hitting the mark.