From Failure to 300 Million Users: Chris Barton’s Relentless Journey to Build Shazam
Against all odds, Chris Barton transformed an impossible idea into a global music discovery phenomenon
Chris Barton was told his idea was impossible. Not difficult. Not improbable. Impossible.
The world’s leading experts in audio signal processing — PhDs from Stanford, MIT, and Berkeley — didn’t even entertain it. Creating an app that could identify any song in any environment, no matter the background noise, using just a mobile phone? "We don't know how to do that," they told him flatly. “And we have no idea how to invent it.”
And yet, Barton did exactly that. He defied their verdicts, battled six years of near-failure, and co-founded Shazam — the app that now boasts over 300 million monthly users, became a verb in the global lexicon, and was ultimately acquired by Apple. His journey is a powerful testament to what startup entrepreneurs can achieve when they refuse to quit.
On March 11, 2025, Barton returned to the birthplace of his dream — London, where he first conceived Shazam — to deliver a stirring keynote at Tech Show London, held at Excel London. His message? The impossible isn’t as far out of reach as it seems — if you’re willing to challenge assumptions, persist creatively, and connect emotionally to your work.
The Weight of a Pebble
To understand Barton’s journey, one must grasp his concept of a “pebble” — seemingly small obstacles that turn out to be massive, company-threatening problems. “We see a piece of friction, oh, the consumer, they just have to click here. You know, it’s just one click. And we think it’s just a little pebble, but actually it’s a boulder.”
For Shazam, friction came in many forms. Initially, the service required users to dial a four-digit number, hold the phone to the music, and then receive a text. Every step, decision point, and moment of user effort was friction—a “pebble” that deterred mass adoption. It wasn't until Apple’s App Store launched in 2008, allowing Shazam to become a simple, free mobile app, that the product overcame these barriers.
A Defiant Beginning
Barton’s own life began with friction. As a child with dyslexia, learning was a constant uphill battle. “I really struggled in fifth grade,” he shared. “There were 60 kids in my class… they said, we’re gonna put the smart 30 kids in this classroom and the not-so-smart 30 kids in it. And that’s where I ended up.”
Being labeled wasn’t new. A biology teacher once described him as “defiant,” writing, “He questions the things I teach. He questions my authority.” That word, meant as criticism, became a badge of honor for Barton. “Maybe defiance is not such a bad thing… What is magic but defiance? Right? Defiance of logic. So what if you could use defiance to create magic?”
Defiance drove Barton to UC Berkeley, where he struggled again. “I got a 1.7 grade point average in my first semester at UC Berkeley. That’s failing grades.” The school warned he’d be expelled if he didn’t improve. But Barton found ways to adapt, cope, and persist — qualities foundational to his entrepreneurial journey.
The Birth of an Impossible Idea
In 1999, while studying abroad in London, Barton pondered how his early idea — identifying songs on the radio by entering a station number — might be leapfrogged. Lying in bed in Notting Hill, he had an epiphany: “What if you don’t need to know the name of the song that’s playing on the radio at all? What if you could do it from the sound of the song in the air coming to the microphone of the phone?”
Two basic truths underpinned his idea: every mobile phone has a microphone, and all music is audible. “From those two basic truths comes a breakthrough idea.” This was first-principles thinking—stripping away assumptions to build something new from the ground up.
Despite being non-technical, Barton assembled a founding team. He sought someone to invent the impossible algorithm alongside business co-founders Dhiraj and Philip. With help from Professor Julius Smith of Stanford, they identified Avery Wang, a brilliant PhD with four Stanford degrees. But even Wang initially said, “It’s impossible.”
The challenge wasn’t just recognizing music — it was doing so with background noise and at scale. Noise and scale together, Barton explained, make pattern recognition nearly impossible. After months of effort, Wang nearly quit. Then, in June 2000, he succeeded, creating what Barton calls “the very first AI in history that became a mass consumer.” It used a 3D graph of spectral peaks and combinatorial hashing — a technical marvel hidden behind the simple “tap to Shazam” button.
The Six-Year Struggle
Breakthrough in hand, Barton now needed capital. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The dot-com bubble had burst.
“We pitched over 100 venture capital firms. They all would say, No, no, no,” Barton said.
One investor told Barton, “I don’t see why anyone would ever use that.”
Barton smiled as he recalled thinking, “I’ve got to prove this guy wrong.”
Eventually, three firms, including Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, invested $7.5 million. With funds secured, Shazam had to digitize music, but no digital libraries existed.
Barton’s team struck a deal with a CD distributor and hired 30 teenagers to fingerprint music 24/7 for nine months. Once again, it was “creative persistence.”
In 2002, Shazam launched. But without smartphones, it wasn’t an app — it was a phone number, “2580,” users called to identify songs. “And we thought it was going to be this huge smashing success… and it didn’t happen.”
For six years, Shazam barely survived. There were no digital downloads or iTunes. Users had to drive to record stores, show the text, and buy CDs. Worse, they paid 50 pence per song identification.
“That is friction,” Barton emphasized. Each of these “pebbles” slowed growth. “We had six really bad years… running out of cash, barely surviving.”
Emotional Connection and the Power of Passion
When Apple’s App Store arrived in 2008, everything changed. Shazam’s friction vanished. Users simply tapped a button. Downloads exploded. But survival wasn’t enough. Competitors like Sony and Google launched their own recognition tools. Barton feared irrelevance.
Yet Shazam thrived. “Why? Because we are so personally and emotionally connected to what we were doing.” Barton and his team obsessed over every detail — synchronized lyrics, offline Shazam, local concert charts, lightning-fast recognition.
“We cared about everything so deeply,” he said.
To Barton, “connecting emotionally” means caring intensely about the user experience, mission, and people you serve.
“You don’t have to found a company to do this. All you have to do is think about what you’re doing and how it impacts others, and then feel the impact of what you do.”
This emotional investment is what sustained him through failure, rejection, and hardship.
“Did you ever want to give up?” people often ask. “No, I never wanted to give up, because I was so emotionally connected to it… I know, no matter what, we’re going to get there.”
The Moment That Made It All Worthwhile
Barton’s most rewarding moment wasn’t the algorithm’s invention or Apple’s $400 million acquisition of Shazam. It happened in a small grocery store in San Francisco. “Suddenly, the person in front of me said to the cashier, Hey, what’s that song? And the cashier said, I don’t know, let’s Shazam it.”
As Barton watched two strangers use his creation, he thought, quietly, “Thank you so much.”
His closing message to founders and executives was clear: “Think how you can question the assumptions, defy your own brain by folding from basic truths and first-principles thinking… defy barriers… defy effort… and connect to your emotions, making it personal.”
In the end, those crazy enough to believe they can change the world are the ones who do.