Really unique idea… love the sleek user interface and its ability to export drops to other platforms. A great medium to share my audio talent with the world. Love the fact that we can explore genres too..would love to see the future of this app!
Hi there! 👋
My name is David and I’m one of the co-founders of Droplet 💧 the new sound-bite social media app!
Who are we? 🧑💻
We’re Yannie, Sean, and Dave! Yannie is a student (on leave) at Stanford, Sean a former software engineer at AT&T, and Dave is a student (also on leave) at Harvard. We met building the Crown Education Challenge and loved working together - which has now led to us building Droplet!
The problem? 🔊
Audio creators don’t have a space to share socially. If you think of visual social media, many names come to mind - Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, and more. But if the talent you want to share is not visual, where is your place to post?
What we’re building 💧
Droplet is an audio social media app of sound-bites between 5 and 60 seconds. You can record these in app (or upload from your files) and share them with a community of your friends and listeners! Listeners can choose between a default Discover feed - including all types of Drops - or listening within a specific category (we call them Clouds).
Our vision 🚀
Drops, 30 second sound bites, will become the new audio media form. We believe in Drops and Droplet for three key reasons:
Merit-based social media - less focus on visual appeal, more focus on audio talent and merit
Mindshare and timeshare - passive and active usage. Open the app when you want to, listen passively otherwise
Fostering new creativity - there’s so many audio use cases out there that we currently don’t consume. Comedy sound bites? Music beas?
What you can do and what’s new 💡
Create
🎤 Record Drops in-app, or upload from your files
🎈 Add filters! Sound like Darth Vader, Helium, and more
👯 Duet - found an awesome beat? Add your track on top
Listen
🎧 Listen actively and engage - comment, like, audio replies!
😴 Go passive, turn off your screen, but continue listening
☁️ Favorite genre? Filter your feed by Cloud
Share
📸 Export your favorite Drops directly to your Insta story
🌐 Add your website to your profile
🤝 Invite your friends via text
Download out our beta and let us know what you think! bit.ly/joindroplet 💙
Also, check out @yannietan 's message for a more in-depth look on how we got started 🎵
Hear you there!
Dave
Hey! It’s Yannie, co-founder of Droplet. I’m a musician and Youtuber with 40+ million views.
💧It all started with a 2AM night in my college dorm. Tired of working on my problem sets, I decided to spontaneously pull out my piano keyboard. Within minutes, I had made my first Lofi beat: Droplet. Within minutes of making it, I posted it my socials.
Within minutes, I heard my friends playing my short song in the hallways, dancing to the beat. People wanted more. They wanted it fast. Within a couple of weeks, Droplet became a short song with 20K+ listeners.
What I realized was that there wasn’t any easy way to just share and drop a beat, a one-liner, a thought. Especially as a music YouTuber, my community of influencer friends wanted to find a space to collab, make beats, share funny ideas – without having to put focus on visual aesthetics. As a competitive classical musician who has competed in many competitions, I’ve witnessed visual biases that influence how people perceive a performer.
Imagine preparing a Tik Tok. You’re thinking about the background setup, outfit, makeup, and dance choreography. But what about the music, the joke itself? We want to promote the audio side – where the joke or the music beat actually slaps. So much goes into the preparation process of making a polished video, that the audio creativity dissipates.
That’s why we are making Droplet an audio-only social media platform, where we want creators who put audio first – those who believe that they can shine creatively through audio, without being judged by their cover. Whether it’s a joke, a music beat, or even ASMR, if you’re content, it’s good. Visuals are not putting a stop to how far your spontaneous audio creativity can go.
We wanted to not be the only people to share beats quickly and accessibly. I wanted my non-musical friends to also share creative audio. Ideas, thoughts, sport highlights, beatboxing – something short and sweet that can make someone’s day, within seconds.
Try it out. Drop something and discover your creativity through audio.
Hear you there,
Yannie
@yannietan Very cool! I'm interested in the mix of content on Droplet... it seems to have a lot of music, but also conversation based. What are your guys' thoughts on the best types of content on the app?
@chrismessina Thanks for the question, Chris! Droplet is to SoundCloud as TikTok is to YouTube: we are short form only, encourage virality, and allow creators to create, edit, and share in-app (rather than uploading from say LogicPro). Importantly, we are also mobile only - nurturing spontaneity in creation. Can't wait to hear you on Droplet!
Really appreciate how the talent behind the audio is being promoted here.. As a creator myself I understand the importance of good audios and love the features of this app especially being able to duet with friends and the filters available. Would love to download it!
@sidharth_kumar4 Please do - you can join us at bit.ly/joindroplet Very excited to hear that you are interested in the duet and filters features in particular. Filters actually just went live today!
I've been using droplet for the past few weeks, and I have really enjoyed the experience so far. The user interface is extremely sleek and easy to navigate. I really enjoyed recording and uploading drops, as well as listening to others' drops. I'm excited for the future of this app!
Because it's only sound recordings and no video, it's instantly an improvement over Tik Tok. Sure, there may be some unforeseeable repercussions, but at least there's nothing to physically look at, to burn our eyes with.
(I'm still a bit sad that i have no phone, so i can't download the app.)
@usynn Unfortunately not yet. We're currently testing our beta on iOS, but will be releasing on Android once we wrap up our beta testing! Can't wait to hear you there :)