December 2021

Dear Noteful community,                                      

It’s hard to believe that 2021 is coming to a close.  It has been a whirlwind year and I want to thank each of you for your interest and enthusiasm in the Noteful project.  It was just over one year ago–while isolating due to the COVID-19 pandemic–that I had the idea to create a free and fun “Duolingo-esque” app for learning music theory.  Having music as an integral part of our household during the lockdown meant so much to our family, and it occurred to me that people who were able to enjoy music-making had an easier time with the new normal that we suddenly found ourselves in.  Noteful’s mission remains to bring quality music education and the magic of music to everyone!  We believe that through our free app, in addition to educational outreach programs, we can provide new, fun, and engaging opportunities for a wide array of music enthusiasts and students, as well as great tools for music educators.

My first ideas for the app were sketched out in a green wide-ruled composition notebook which I toted around with me in order to brainstorm on the fly.  A little over a year later, we are now a team of five spread across the US, so paper notebooks don’t quite cut it anymore.  But I’m getting ahead of myself!  

Here’s our year in review:

October 2020

• Lightbulb moment for the Noteful app concept

November 2020

• Name chosen and domain name nailed down: noteful.net

December 2020

• Partnered with Jamie Quishenberry (developer) and with Jonathan Aldrich as a consultant.

February 2021

• Started working with our wonderful mentor Olga Pagoda at Project Olympus (a startup incubator program which is part of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University).

March 2021

• Market research (over 100 interviews with music teachers, students, and adult amateur musicians)

April to June  2021

• Fine-tuned the structure of the app content and concept
• Created our trusty mascot, Ed the Zebra!  Meet Ed here (25-second video)

July 2021

• Noteful Retreat at Mount Baker: working, hiking, eating lots of blueberries!

August 2021          

• Paul Billock (my brother!) came on board to design, build, and manage our database.

September 2021 

• Created a clickable prototype for the app, started sharing and getting feedback
• Launched company website at www.noteful.net
• Launched our social media suite (@benoteful on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
• Coined the acronym FRESH Theory to organize content in the app.

            

October 2021

• Jonathan Aldrich (software engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who also happens to be my husband) was added officially to the team as our Chief Technical Officer (he will have a supported leave from CMU during spring semester 2022 in order to work on Noteful full time!) 
• Launched the #dailyintervalchallenge on Instagram (@benoteful).
• Launched the blog on our company website
• Started receiving beta tester interest requests from people all over the world, including an entire music school in New Zealand!

November 2021      

• Bradley Schmerl (a systems scientist at CMU) joined the Noteful team and has been helping to explode the speed at which we can generate content for the app.
• Received a Creative Entrepreneur Grant from the Pittsburgh Partners in the Arts.

        
December 2021

• Noteful was chosen as a partner/client for the Human Computer Interaction Capstone Project at Carnegie Mellon University.  In January 2022 we will be welcoming a team of four to five CMU masters students to work on Noteful’s student/teacher interface so teachers can assign work and track student progress within the app. 

It’s pretty remarkable to look back and see how much has transpired in this relatively short amount of time.  I’m grateful every day for this amazing team that is working with me and shares my vision for what we can accomplish.  (Meet the whole gang here!)  Our team members span the entire US geographically, so we end up working and connecting with each other at odd hours to avoid conflicts with the time difference and full time job schedules, but we have been thriving nonetheless.  We will have an app demo to share with you very soon, and we have other exciting developments in the pipeline which I hope to be able to share and celebrate in the next newsletter.  If you have friends and family who would be interested in our project, please direct them to our social media platforms, and to the signup form for our newsletter and our beta tester team.  (We will need beta testers that are experienced musicians as well as complete novices–and all the space in between–so really anyone who is interested is eligible.  Get in here!)  We are also actively seeking a team member with marketing expertise.  The value of your help in spreading the word about our project cannot be overstated and our whole team thanks you in advance!

The past few years have been challenging for humans in every way imaginable.  With Noteful, we hope to bring the comfort, joy, and inspiration of music making into more homes and lives in 2022.  

Be Noteful, every day!

Becky Billock 
Noteful CEO and Co-founder

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