Academy of Sound Engineering's (ASE) Social Media Coordinator, Stephan McCabe interviewed the Co-Founder of SoundDex.co.za, Grant Harris to find out what this website is all about.
Stephan McCabe (SM): Give us an in-depth profile of the website, like features, who is on there, etc?
Grant Harris (GH): SoundDex.co.za is an indexing website that was built to help audio engineers from all audio fields find work. The site is targeted towards potential clients, enabling them to search for the engineer that best suits their project, budget and location. We are working towards this being the go-to site for clients when looking for audio engineers and, in the long run, helping engineers build solid client bases to build a consistent income.
The site launches with the search engine so that clients can start looking for their audio engineer right away. There is a menu section where the audio engineers can read up on some articles, ranging from tech to emotional help. I am working towards the site being a go-to resource for local engineers to find relevant articles and reviews, as well as a central place for clients to see what and who is new in the market. We are getting a lot of interest from local suppliers and I have been approached by some interesting international companies as well.
SM: What was your motivation behind creating the website?
GH: My motivation is very simple: community, support and growth. But the audio industry was hurting before the pandemic: budgets had been falling for a while, agencies were going in-house and costs were going up, the market was getting flooded with engineers and people were battling to find work. Then hits the biggest pandemic we have seen in our lifetime and the industry got knocked back even further. Yes, all industries took a hit, but my focus is on my world.
I had been toying with the idea of starting this site for some time but had not yet pulled the trigger. Chris van Zyl contacted me through my engineers Facebook community (South African Sound Engineers), asking for some help on a project he was working on. After a brief discussion I realised that Chris and I were on the same page and that working on two separate projects that were doing the same thing was not going to benefit anyone. We sat down and I started working on the build right near the end of the hard lockdown and a month later launched the first version of the site.
What needs to be clear is that myself and Chris are both doing this from our heart with the interest of helping. It is not about making money ̶ we both want to assist the engineers and help kick-start an aching industry.
SM: What purpose does it serve for you and for the public?
GH: The purpose for me? I am literally here to help engineers out. I am listed to the site myself so I will potentially get work out of it, but in all honesty Chris and myself get a warm fuzzy feeling when we hear about people getting work out of the site. We do not take any money out of the bookings being made like other sites do because that has never been our focus.
The purpose for the public is twofold. Firstly, we are working to get the engineers, students, colleges and stores listed to the site; this is our first target market. Our second target market will be the potential clients for these engineers. We are working with an ad agency and social media specialist to market the site to the potential clients, and we use the monthly registration fees coming from the listed engineers to do this marketing.
So a point we need to mention as well, and this seems to be missed, is that we are offering engineers the opportunity to market their studios locally and internationally with a budget they would not have had. We are going to be advertising each category to the clients that they need to reach. For example, we will take the post-production engineers category and advertise them to advertising agencies; more specifically, when the creatives and producers in agencies do a search, they will be searching specifically for the types of engineers that they are looking for. This comes as part of the service we offer and is not an additional cost. We are working on adding bolt-on packages to allow search results to be even more specific.
SM: What are your goals for this website?
GH: We have a couple of goals and plans set for the future of the site, but the ultimate goal of the site would be to help people get work. If engineers send us an email or speak to us through any of the social platforms to tell us they are getting work, we will be super happy. I would like to see the site really busy with people searching and helping others to find work. We have launched other version of SoundDex (namely MuseDex.co.za and will soon be launching VidDex.co.za) that will focus on musicians and the video world respectively. This will eventually culminate into a digital magazine which will be industry focused. There are other plans which we can’t disclose yet but they will be announced soon.
Visit SoundDex to see how it can help you!
You can also check out Grant's personal website HERE.
