About Lee Pritchard

The Background

Born 24 August 1971, Lee exhibited musical aspirations from about the age of 11, when he took up the trombone and joined the Bradbury Boys School Brass Band.

Having developed to a high standard, Lee played in a variety of bands and did work as a session musician. His longest position in a band lasted for 6 years, with the Ashton-on-Mersey show band, under the musical directorship of the late Ernie Waites MBE.

Playing venues all over the UK and abroad, some of his notable gigs included the Free Trade Hall, Manchester; The Ballroom Tower, Blackpool; Aiya Napa Town, Cyprus; Universal Studios and Walt Disney World, Florida.

A Change of Direction

In his late teens, Lee realised that day jobs were extremely counter-productive to being a musician and creative thinker, so he embarked on a succession of mini-enterprises to run alongside his music. These included: garden maintenance, flower sales, building and hiring out PA speakers and developing and leading a team of catalogue distributors with Kleeneze plc. An eclectic mix by anyone’s standards!

Although the adrenalin buzz from performing live to an audience can be addictive to some, Lee was beginning to tire of the limelight and developed an interest in music composition and recording.

By his mid 20's, he became an obsessive music "tech head" and was looking for ways to make a living from his new knowledge. As a self-taught composer, Lee began to work with professional cabaret acts, providing original show music for introductions and adverts that would invariably end up touring the country as show jingles.

Working with solo acts and tribute bands, Lee became adept at creating backing tracks, which led him into doing live sound engineering and producing lighting for whole shows.

Whilst on the road and managing an act, Lee decided it was time to get some formal qualifications and despite high demand for places, he managed to get himself an unconditional place on a Music Technology HND at City College Manchester.

Getting off to a False Start

Lee successfully graduated the two-year course, whilst at the same time managing, producing and sound engineering a touring act. Although still a musician, Lee had now developed the mindset of a young entrepreneur - his sights were set on new and exciting high-risk music ventures.

As his consolidated project for his HND, Lee had devised a plan to develop a mobile recording business. After raising the finance to buy all the professional equipment required, he was off!

Enthusiasm and confidence were sadly not enough and in his naivety he was financed up to the eyeballs with overly-optimistic targets to succeed. It didn’t work but in true entrepreneurial style Lee picked himself up and started to pull himself back from the brink.

Now in his late 20's, Lee was doing all sorts, from sound engineering to van driving. With his passion for music still intact and his desire to succeed stronger than ever, Lee had been developing an idea of a website for music downloads.

However, the world of websites was pretty unfamiliar, so he secured an investment from the Princes Trust and Trafford Business Venture which helped him to get started.

Zejo.com was born and he soon had a team of people, who later became shareholders. Despite best efforts though, things didn’t go according to plan, so in July 2005, Lee resigned as CEO and with the shareholders, decided to dissolve the company.

Lee sees this as an essential learning curve and is positive about the whole thing, despite the trauma and the minimal financial benefit that came out of the company:

"Being a successful entrepreneur does not always happen overnight. Learning from failures is a key part of the process and you have to take responsibility for your decisions." explains Lee.

Lee announced that he would start again and as he was in the process of applying for Dragons’ Den, one investor who had great belief in Lee and his conviction, decided to support him.

Lee registered mediamusicnow.com and in the same time-frame met Duo web design, who expressed an interest in the concept of music for website and media use.

"After a series of meetings, it was clear that Duo were the best company to do the new site. In four years of working with website developers and talking to technical people, I have never come across a company like Duo. They interpret your vision and ideas into a great looking website and provide you with all the tools you need to maintain, expand and develop your site without the need for their intervention. For a website like Media Music Now, developing new content, adding music and making changes quickly is essential for success."

Media Music Now - A New Era

Learning and developing from previous experience, Lee is now relentlessly driving Media Music Now forward. It was formed in July 05 and launched online in January 06. Sales are coming in and the company is quickly building a reputation for quality professional music without the complications.

The music is provided by independent composers, artists and bands and is set to grow steadily from the 15 who are currently on board. At present, there are 700 tracks available for download. (30/03/06)

Lee has accumulated in-depth knowledge and skills from years of creative and business activity. He has truly developed the mind of an entrepreneur, spending many hours studying the teachings of self-made entrepreneurs.

Lee has made many sacrifices to be able to persist with his music ventures and exploit his huge passion for music but believes that he can make Media Music Now the success it deserves to be. Watch this space, as they say!