Val Kotyev

How a Rhapsody side-test became the global Ringtone Matcher

Val Kotyev describes diversifying off Google by testing music sites, discovering a ringtone service that converted 3x better than his Rhapsody deal, then realizing he could scale it globally across carriers and labels — birthing Ringtone Matcher.

“And then I kind of tested a ringtone service and it just crushed. Like it was not even close. Like it did 3 times better. And I'm like, wow, this thing did 3 times better than Rhapsody. Ringtone provider was, uh, just covering US, just like one or two music labels and like two carriers out of four. I think I had four— there were four major carriers at the time. I was like, hold on a second, if it's already doing three times as well, what happens if I start integrating everything globally, right? So that's how Ringtone Matcher came about.”

Test 10 things instead of perfecting one

Val's core playbook against analysis paralysis: while others perfect a single bet that still has a ~60% chance of failing, he tests 10 things in the same window, giving himself far better odds that one hits big.

“And the reason I think a lot of people are successful, like especially somebody like me, is while somebody's thinking about making, perfecting one thing, which by the way will still have a, you know, 60% failure, right, on that one thing that you just overthought, I'd rather test 10 things by, uh, within that same time period, and I will likely have, I have a better, um accuracy, or I'll have a better chance of hitting it out of the ballpark with one of those 10 things, maybe more than one of those things.”

Steal thisInstead of perfecting one launch, ship ten rough tests in the same time window.