Creating a platform for indie and alternative music is a great way to contribute to the local community. Underdog Station is the indie music platform made in Romania.
Its mission is to help artists to get more exposure and be a meeting point for the community of indie / alternative artists and listeners.
The Team behind the startup
We are a somewhat unlikely mix of people that came together for this project after “bumping into each other” in various aspects and environments, all part of the alternative music scene.
Alexa: Specifically, Victor and I, have had a pretty long-lasting relationship. We met in 2014 when I sent him some songwriting demos, after which we ended up collaborating on a variety of projects, both as musicians and on the business side. I consider him one o my closest friends.
All four of us have very different personalities and temperaments and I find that this kind of emotional diversity is one of our strengths as a team.
The “why” behind this project
This is something that all of us felt was needed in the indie music scene here in Romania and so us coming together for this project happened quite organically. Victor came up with the concept almost a year ago, after noticing this gap in the online music scene and the rest of us joined one by one at the beginning of the year.
Alexa: For me personally, as a singer-songwriter and producer myself, I’ve struggled with not having an unbiased Romanian outlet for my music and music videos aside from my personal channels, which are somewhat limited in the possibility of growing one’s audience.
There’s a lot of gatekeeping and a lack of diversity in what local music gets even a minimal amount of exposure and this is a status quo that needs to and will change. Underdog Station, to me, seemed like the perfect way to begin implementing that much-needed change.
Răzvan: I joined Underdog Station because this is my dream. I wanted to create a common space for the alternative side of the musical community in Romania, where local music can express itself in a visual and auditive way without commercial constraints and mainstream barriers. And I found the perfect crazy bunch to make this dream real!! Not easy because there are all kinds of difficulties (technical, financial, work capacity), but there is plenty of enthusiasm and many people that offer their support.
Good match with the StepFWD program?
Alexa: Victor is the one that found this program and we were all elated when we got the news that Underdog Station was chosen to be a part of the 2021 “batch” of startups that get this pretty amazing opportunity.
The amount of know-how that is offered to us and the level of professionalism in every aspect of this program has been way beyond my expectations and continue to surprise me every week.
Răzvan: StepFWD is such support that we need in order to create a plan that will help us grow and be focused on our goals.