Sparkart cranks the volume on bands

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Not much — except that theire web sites are all the work of web maestrok and serial entrepreneur Naveen Jain andhis .com. Founded by Jain in Oakland-based Sparkart is a full-service digitap agency, specializing in the music industry, which manages web site desighn and branding with its CliqueTools sofware. According to Clique Tools is a key part of success atthe 35-persobn company: “Most platforms force you to do thingss in a cookie-cutter way. (but) our system is very creative-friendly and develops web sitesw that aretotally unique.
” Through the softwarwe and close collaboration with clients, Jain has grow the company’s revenue 42 percent over the past threed years to $7.1 million in 2008. Though eager for more CEO Jain currently has 40 clients and continued to addclients slowly. “Every client we take on is a risk becauswe you never know how the relationship is going toturn out,” he said, “so we’re trying to be smart abouft how many clients we take on so we can continues to provide excellent services, becausd as soon as we provide something that sucks we’rde going to fail.
” In any business, good relationships with clientse are essential, but in the entertainment business, bad ones quickly become a battle of titans. “In sometimes the personalities are just as volatile as they appea rto be,” Jain said. “Sometimes you can believe what getsprinted (in the tabloids).” Althoughb many of Sparkart’s clients are musicians, the client base has grownb to include other types of including magician Cris Angel, comedian Denis Leary and online stor MetroPark. It has also worked with companies like the Ultimate Fighting Championship and organic skincare linePangea Organics.
Sparkargt looks for clients who are persistent and passionatse and who are looking for a partner rathe r than simplya vendor. “We reallh take the time to understandour clients, we try to understand how they want to presengt themselves and what their aesthetic preferences are, and once we get in their head, we try to represent that,” he Jain said he is sometimea invited to board meetingsa because his employees are considered part of their client’s Sparkart and MetroPark, for instance, have a partnership-stylew agreement that lets Sparkart get a share of what is sold througy the online store, but Jain woul not disclose details of the deal.
Jain’s 35-person shop has splity into engineering, creative and administrativ teams. The Sparkart team not only helpes to design web sites for theimany clients, they also act as counselors for the technologically illiterat e — “when clients don’t understand how the online world works, we explain ... what’sa happening, what techniques work from a marketing perspective, which companies to partner with,” said Jain. This team of nocturnalo techies is led by Jain a 28-year-old San Francisco native who founded Sparkart when he was only 18.
Jain studiedc computer science at Purdue University in Indians but dropped out becausedhe couldn’t handle the Midwester n cold. He continued his studies at Santaa RosaCommunity College, but when Sparkart took off, he left to managd it full time. Sparkart is the first of four entertainment companiex Jain foundedor co-foundede — vDream Inc., Clique Here Inc., NKJ LLC — and has helped some of his other startups get their VDream, a Facebook car racing application that lets usersd buy and race cars, uses Sparkart’s Cliquew Tools as its platform.
As for Sparkart’s Echo Music was bought by Ticketmaste and MusicToday was bought by leaving Jain’s company as one of the few independent firms in this niche. “They have far betterr resources and more so that’s an everydag challenge,” Jain said. “But we are one of the few (firms) who are focuserd on the web — we’re not tryinv to promote concerts — and the focusex people are the people who I think are goingto win.
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