A Word from Ali, Co-Founder

Why Veinote?

We believe that in the years ahead, craft and human connection will be worth more than ever. When anything can be generated in seconds, the things that cannot be generated become precious: a lyric that could only have come from your life, a melody two people found together at two in the morning, the trust between co-writers who have been through a hard song together.

That is why we created Veinote. To bring songwriters together, to make collaboration fun again, to give you every tool you need in one place, and to make sure the songs you write stay yours.

If there is one thing we have learned, it is that the best work is never done alone. We found that out on long, hard races in Sweden. We hope you find it here, with your songs and with the people you write them with.

How Peter and I met

Peter and I did not meet in a studio. We met through track and field in Sweden, both of us doing extreme endurance challenges: ultra marathons and races so long that your mind gives up before your legs do.

You learn a lot about a person on mile forty. You see who keeps going when it stops being fun, who shares their water, and who is still curious about the view when their legs are gone. Peter and I recognised the same stubbornness in each other.

Somewhere between races, the conversations changed. Peter is a songwriter, and he kept telling me about the same frustrations, the ones he saw in himself and in every writer he worked with. Ideas scattered across voice memos, notebooks and chat threads. Co-writes that fell apart because nobody could find the latest version. Songs that were ninety percent done and never finished. Writers unsure who owned what once a song was written by three people in two countries.

As a designer, I could not stop hearing those as product problems. As endurance athletes, we both knew that big things get done one step at a time, with the right support around you. So we decided to build it.

The problem we kept coming back to

Songwriting has never had more tools, and it has never felt more fragmented. Lyrics live in one app, voice notes in another, chords in your head, demos in a DAW, and the conversation with your co-writer somewhere in your messages. Every switch costs you a little momentum, and momentum is everything when an idea is fresh.

At the same time, a lot of the new technology in music is aimed at replacing the writer instead of supporting them. We wanted to go the other way: build tools that make the human doing the writing faster, braver and more connected, and never take the song away from them.

One place for the whole song

Veinote brings the whole journey of a song into one workspace, from the first spark to a finished, protected song.

• The Create canvas. One canvas for the whole song. Type your lyrics, sing an idea straight into a voice note, or photograph a page from your notebook and turn it into editable lines. Words, takes, images and documents live together, in the order the song needs.
• Rhymes and words. Rhymes and synonyms one click away while you write, in English, Swedish and Norwegian.
• Demo Studio. Record and layer takes, split a song into vocals, bass and instruments, and build a demo without leaving the song you are writing.
• Live co-writing. Invite someone and write on the same canvas at the same time, wherever they are in the world. As someone who has spent years working across borders, this one is personal to me.
• Learn. Lessons that take you from an idea to a finished song, one part at a time, taught by professional songwriters.
• Practice. Hands-on exercises for melody, chords, rhythm and lyrics, so the skills stick.
• Connect. A community of songwriters: find writers near you on the map, join rooms, trade takes and get honest feedback.
• Mind Power. A simple way to see your progress as a writer grow week by week.

Your song, your name on it

When you write with other people, the most important conversation is often the one nobody wants to have: who owns what. We built that conversation into the product. Before a song is published on Veinote, everyone credited agrees on the ownership split, and it is recorded as a split sheet attached to the song.

You create them. You own them. That is not a slogan to us; it is a design requirement.

Story of Ali, CPO

I was born and raised in Africa. For most of my adult life I have lived as a digital nomad, moving between countries, cultures and time zones with a laptop and a backpack. I have worked from shared kitchens, airport lounges and small rented rooms with bad Wi-Fi. That life taught me one thing early: wherever you are, people want the same things. They want to make something that matters, and they want someone to make it with.

By trade I am a designer with a background in technology. I have spent my career as a product designer, building apps for health, finance, mobility and fan communities. The job is always the same underneath: understand what people are really trying to do, then remove everything that gets in their way. I like to put it simply. Design the right things, and design things right.

Today I am the Chief Product Officer at Veinote. That means I am responsible for building a product with soul: how it feels, and whether it actually helps you become an exceptional songwriter.

See you on the canvas.

Ali Ould Kaddour
CPO at Veinote