Building foundations: How Repped Music developed its technology roadmap

Repped Music is addressing a persistent problem in the digital music industry: incomplete catalogue availability across streaming platforms. Founded by Richard Hinkley and Robin Jenkins, who bring 45 years combined experience in record labels (including over 20 years at Universal Music UK), the company helps artists and labels identify and fix gaps in their digital distribution – from missing territories and platform omissions to poor-quality historic assets and absent video subtitles.

The founders recognised that catalogue music drives significant revenue, yet money is consistently left on the table. In response, they built a solution which combines repertoire availability analysis with asset improvement services.

The duo holds deep sector knowledge but have limited technical backgrounds – Hinkley’s expertise is in marketing, while Jenkins specialises in archive and digital supply chains. To maximise the potential of Repped Music, the founders needed to translate their industry insight into scalable technology.

Repped Music had a clear vision: build tools that could systematically identify catalogue gaps across platforms and territories, then deliver lasting improvements that generate a sustained revenue uplift for clients. However, the company lacked the level of internal technical expertise to translate this vision into a production-ready platform.

The founders had begun working with a developer on a prototype, but quickly encountered challenges about functionality prioritisation, infrastructure design and scalability considerations. Questions also arose about hosting configurations, system architecture and the long-term implications of technical choices – critical issues for a business that needs to operate efficiently whilst bootstrapping growth.

The timing was particularly acute. Without strategic technical direction, Repped Music faced the prospect of either making costly mistakes in platform development or pursuing inefficient paths that would drain its limited resources.

The project paired Repped Music with a technology strategist and senior technical specialist from Digital Catapult who brought extensive experience in platform architecture and scalability planning.

The engagement focused on creating a technical framework that would enable Repped Music to move confidently from prototype to production. The Digital Catapult team conducted detailed research into cloud-based infrastructure options, explored deployment architectures that the company’s existing developer hadn’t considered, and designed a roadmap specifically tailored to Repped Music’s resource constraints and growth ambitions.

The assessment included critical guidance on hosting decisions, system architecture considerations and infrastructure choices that would impact long-term scalability. The team also explored adjacent opportunities, including potential applications for AI in addressing some of the company’s data challenges.

The working sessions were intensive, with the Digital Catapult team quickly grasping the specific nature of the music catalogue data and asking meaningful, targeted questions that pushed the founders’ thinking.

The Digital Catapult engagement delivered several tangible outcomes for Repped Music: 

• Strategic clarity on technology development: The project provided a clear technical roadmap with prioritised next steps, giving the founders confidence in their development path. 

• Platform improvements: The work enabled Repped Music to enhance its prototype to operate more quickly and at greater scale – critical for conducting business development with potential clients. 

• Commercial traction: Armed with an improved platform, Repped Music now has two pilot project discussions underway with potential clients. 

• Additional funding secured: Insights from the technical discussions catalysed Repped Music’s successful application for a further grant to support business progress. 

• Business continuity: Perhaps most significantly, the project provided confidence to persist. “I think we might have thrown the towel in if we hadn’t done this challenge,” Hinkley admits.

Reflecting on the collaboration, Hinkley emphasises the value of accessing objective technical expertise at a crucial juncture. “I’ve always believed in the value of working with experts because there’s only so much that any of us know,” he explains. He also notes that relatively modest investment (£15,000) can provide substantial value for early-stage ventures.

The engagement provided not only a deliverable roadmap, but also strategic validation that gave the business permission to continue investing time and resources in their vision. “The time spent with them was fantastic,” Hinkley recalls, describing the sessions as “a rich source of inspiration and further direction” that extended beyond the immediate project scope to explore adjacent opportunities, that subsequently led to securing a further grant.

The intensive working sessions proved particularly valuable, pushing the founders to articulate their requirements with precision and consider dimensions of their platform they hadn’t fully explored. This rigorous thinking process was as valuable as the final technical documentation.

For early-stage technology companies navigating similar challenges, the Repped Music case demonstrates the value of targeted technical support. The project equipped the founders to work more effectively with their developer, make informed infrastructure decisions, and approach potential clients with confidence that their platform could scale to meet commercial demands.