Building Sollos: Product Ideation
4 min read
Product Ideation, Innovation, Research, Music, Wellness, Venture Building, Startups, Sollos
A flawed pitch about healing frequencies became the starting point for a serious question: could sound meaningfully influence brain state, and could it be proven properly?
Exploring a risky idea that needs proper validation?
Back in late 2017, my boss at Universal Music Group (Ross Foster) was having breakfast with someone who claimed they could help treat sleep apnoea using music tuned to the “healing power” of 432Hz, enhanced with added tones.
I read through their deck, did my homework, blew up an office speaker experimenting (true story, my bad), and quickly concluded that most of it was pseudoscience.
But the question stayed with me: could certain frequencies truly shift our brain state, and could we prove it scientifically?
I began digging through published papers, neuroscience talks at SXSW, and anything credible I could find. There was enough promising evidence to convince Ross and myself this was worth properly exploring.
From the outset, we were both clear on one thing. If Universal Music Group were going to get behind music and wellness, it had to be rooted in real science. No shortcuts. No pseudoscience. Non-negotiable.
Sometimes the value of an idea isn’t the idea itself. It’s the permission it gives you to explore something bigger.