THE idea for Bandwagon.sg was born during Clarence Chan's final semester in Singapore Management University in April 2011. Mr Chan wanted to put all information on live local music performances into a one-stop database. He hoped his ''online Lonely Planet guide for live music'' would connect music creators with music enthusiasts, and encourage greater participation in the live music scene.
Online information on gigs in Singapore had been dispersed and mostly available only on individual venues' websites. He also used to play with an alternative rock band and knows first-hand how difficult it is for musicians to get publicity.
Another reason came from one fateful night in Helsinki, Finland in 2009, when he Googled for a jazz club to visit. An hour's journey later in subzero temperatures, he found himself shivering before a fishing shop, no trace of music anywhere. ''It dawned on me that, hey, we need some reliability in this live music search. We can't just count on these one-off websites giving us information and they don't even update their sites,'' he recalls.
Search engine optimisation that displays places long closed and events long past high up on the list of search results can really mislead people, says Mr Chan, 27, who graduated with first class honours in economics and business (School of Economics, SMU).
Click here to read more about Clarence's sharings under SOE Graduates Success Stories covered in the October 2012 Issue of ECONnect.