Grow Music

• 

  Dr Julia Jones

  Founder, Holidity
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  Dr Julia Jones

The challenge

The company’s main challenge before joining Grow Music was marketing. “We were struggling to effectively communicate the health innovation we had created because the message was too complex. This was hampering progress with sales and investors,” said Dr Julia Jones, founder and CEO of Holidity.

How Grow Music helped

The programme helped Holidity mark a breakthrough in its strategy and growth trajectory. Some achievements include: 

• A new partnership with a Universal Production Music producer to expand the MusicHacks stress tool.
• A new marketing collaboration with a leading music company to provide music rewards for habit change incentives. 
• Hiring a new chief operating officer.
• Increasing the number of major corporate partners that offer Holidity’s Habit Reset to their employees and customers. 
• A new partnership with a healthy beer brand. 
• Hiring a new tech developer. 
• Optimising spending on its website by taking a user-focused approach. Data revealed that users were better served through a Shopify website instead of a more expensive, company-owned site. 
• Developing and strengthening its marketing messaging and creating a stronger pitch deck.

Participating in the Grow Music programme “has greatly improved our business, and the ongoing group support from the other companies in the cohort has also been fantastic,” Julia said. 

Our impact

Participation in the programme significantly changed Holidity’s business model. 

The company launched with a seven-day free trial for consumers offering it to employers with just a small setup fee (with a discount code for employees and customers) to quickly build user numbers through its existing large databases. The company also dramatically simplified both the product technology and marketing messaging.

Holidity was ready to scale up quickly from January 2025 through partnerships and aims to secure another investment round in 2025 to expand the team and increase the level of tech sophistication to extract more details from the user data the Habit Reset generates.

These achievements were greatly supported by Grow Music’s mentoring and masterclasses. 

Hawkr

Hawkr is a a digital, on-demand merchandising platform that uses innovative tools and is built on data. Hawkr has launched a digital version of physical merch stands for artists, with a print-on-demand solution plugged in removing all risk. 

Benefits for the artists include: 

• No upfront costs. 
• Rich sales data shared.
• Limited waste and no dead stock. 
• Unlimited choice of designs for fans.
• Innovative tools and features.

• 

  Les Seddon-Brown

  Cofounder, Hawkr
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  Les Seddon-Brown

The challenge

Before joining Grow Music, Hawkr was at a critical stage of its journey and needed funding to scale and become profitable. 

The company already had product-market fit, but the challenge was to find the financial support needed to grow. 

How Grow Music helped

By joining the programme, Hawkr cofounder Les Seddon-Brown was able to learn new skills and insights. Les highlighted the “one-to-one support both virtually and in person throughout the programme from mentors from the industry and beyond”.

One unique aspect of the programme that stood out for Les was the ability to pick and choose those mentors, which made the experience feel more efficient and targeted. 

Another valuable aspect of the programme was the real sense of community with the other startups taking part, which led to continued conversations and new partnerships. 

Our impact

Since being in the programme, Hawkr has implemented the learnings to its strategy. 

First, the company is working on a B2B strategy. Even though the company’s roots are in a B2B2C marketplace model, the B2B approach looks at third-party integrations.

Second, the company reformatted its funding proposal to simplify the narrative and create a more streamlined approach, which aims to be more successful when raising funds. Les added that his team is now “actively fundraising and following up on all new leads that we made throughout the programme”.