- Shazam co-founder and Board Director
- Leading expert in mobile applications
- Successful entrepreneur and startup advisor
Shazam started out as an idea conceived by Chris Barton in the latter half of 1999. He and his three co-founders managed to lead the creation of this music recognition technology from its conception, launching the world’s first mobile music recognition service.
Although the company was launched in the United Kingdom in 2002, Shazam soon expanded to numerous world markets, becoming an international sensation in different countries, including Japan, the United States, Australia, and Germany. Shazam, as a company, has built its own particular cluster search engine for music and has a massive database of different music fingerprints. He is still currently a Shazam Board Director.
Although the company struggled for a while, 2008 saw it grow exponentially due to the introduction of iPhone and the Android app stores. Shazam, these days, is one of the world’s most popular apps. Its superior customer ratings and advanced use of technology convinced Apple to purchase the company in 2017.
Besides Shazam, Chris Barton, who holds an MBA from UC Berkeley, a Masters in Finance from Cambridge University, and a BA from UC Berkeley, has also worked for Google, where he focused on the mobile and industry, and Dropbox, as their head of mobile operators development. Chris has also been involved with Microsoft MSN, News Corp, San Francisco Consulting Group, and LEK Consulting.
Chris Barton – Speaker
Besides his various entrepreneurial efforts, Chris Barton has become a much sought-after speaker. The technology expert’s passion relates to all things entrepreneurial and technological in their nature.
Speaking Topics
- Breaking the Sound Barrier – Challenges We Faced and Lessons We Learned in Building Shazam
- Shazam’s Early Years: Surviving Difficult Times & The Keys to Startup Success
- Lessons for Entrepreneurs Collected from My Shazam Experience
- Ten Things I Am Grateful for in My Shazam Experience
- Picking the Right Obsession
- The story of Creating Shazam and “Touchy Feely” Lessons for Entrepreneurs
- Innovation and “creative persistence” – insights, stories and learnings from creating & building Shazam
North America