I’m the founder and president of Mixed In Key.

This month, my company will turn 18 years old. I started it in 2006.

Looking back, it became everything I wanted it to be. We have an amazing team of people, a lot of cool products, and great fans.

How did it all start? My dad was an artist, a musician, and a computer programmer. He had both art and technical skills. My mom has a PhD in math, so it makes sense why I was able to combine design and science in my own work. I’m a product of my parents’ creative and scientific skills.

When I was a young kid, my dad taught me software development. He was patient and kind and gave me lots of advice and time to experiment with computers and learn how they work. I guess you can say I was “early” to a lot of things. My family got on the internet in 1994. The first website that I made personally was in 1995, my first blog was in 1997, and my first e-commerce business was in 1998. I started using Photoshop and 3D graphics in 1996, way before they were popular. Being early taught me that I really liked innovation and I wanted to be innovative too.

When I was 17, I got a job at Bethesda Softworks, a computer game developer known for making legendary franchises like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, and many more. I worked with Pete Hines, one of the senior VPs at the company, and my daily goal was to learn from him. He recently retired, but he’s a legend in the game industry and he has taught me so much about how to run teams and build great products. He was a dream mentor at that age.

After Bethesda, I went to university for a degree in Computer Science and Design. I was also lucky to live downtown in a large city and I was able to DJ at its best nightclubs. I had 3 residencies per week, performing about 15 hours every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Playing so many shows weekly gave me a huge amount of insight and appreciation for what other producers and DJs do every day. I have a lot of empathy and respect for people who earn their living through music. It’s not an easy job.

After I graduated, I started Mixed In Key to solve a problem I was having with finding the keys of songs. It immediately connected with fans and got into the hands of my favorite DJs in the world. We had instant support from Pete Tong, David Guetta, the Swedish House Mafia, Kaskade, and many other incredible artists. Our community grew over time, and we built a reputation for great customer service and passion for creating useful software.

One year after making Mixed In Key, I made my second product called Platinum Notes. Then, another one called Mashup. The ideas kept coming and we kept innovating. Since then, we’ve created more than 20 different products for the music industry. I was also lucky to attend MIT to continue my graduate-level education, and learn from professors who were doing cutting-edge work.

A core principle of Mixed In Key and my personal philosophy is:

“If we’re not the first people to build this type of software, then we’ll skip it and go build something else.”

Over the last 18 years, we’ve only build software that we invented ourselves. The company motto is: “We always have to be first if we take on a project.” The patent office has granted us over 16 patents for different inventions. Many of our ideas have gone on to become industry standards.

Seeing other companies imitate what we pioneered years ago is a badge of honor, and it still happens every month. So, we continue to innovate and build new stuff that nobody else has done yet.

We value our team’s happiness above all else, including profits. We love having talented people working together to build great products. Working on music tools is a joy every day.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. It’s hard to write a bio that makes sense, but now you know what motivates me personally and what my company is all about. It’s about empathy for the musician and about building tools that are completely new.

If you are an artist or a creative person who wants to work or collaborate with us, please reach out. The best email is [email protected]. If you have my personal cell, feel free to text me.

Thanks!
Yakov

David Guetta

“Captain Chords can inspire you. It’s the perfect tool for song-writing. I’m using it every day and showing my friends. Captain Play is great for creating melodies”

LP Giobbi

“I live by Mixed In Key. I use it religiously and key everything so I know what key to jam on a piano on top of any song! It’s part of my performance.”

Diplo

What do you like about Mixed In Key?

“Everything.”