In this episode of the Iowa Tech Podcast, host Kaylee Williams sits down with Eric West, founder and CEO of Music League, a competitive music discovery game that’s quietly grown to over 1.1 million registered users, starting from a handful of people in a break room.
West breaks down how Music League works: players submit songs around a theme, listen to an anonymous playlist, and then vote – creating winners, losers, and a surprising amount of nostalgia, discovery, and community along the way. He explains the power of open leagues connecting players across the globe and why labels are obsessed with catalog rediscovery, from forgotten deep cuts to songs that suddenly go viral again.
Eric West
West, is reshaping how music fans discover and share tracks through competitive, theme-based playlist games. Born out of a breakroom idea among a dozen coworkers, the Des Moines, Iowa-based platform has expanded into a global network. Today, the startup boasts over 1.1 million registered users and roughly 200,000 monthly active players spanning 170 countries, with major adoption across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and Brazil. Reflecting on this organic trajectory, West highlighted that the platform grew “from those 10 or 12 people, solely word of mouth, over 1.1 million users today”.
Bridging the Gap for Record Labels The app allows players to submit songs fitting specific themes, listen anonymously, and vote on favorites. Beyond casual gaming, Music League delivers proprietary behavioral data to music executives seeking to revive legacy content. “The rediscovery of the catalog is huge for the music industry because they are sinking literally billions of dollars into catalog buys right now,” West explained, emphasizing how user playlists provide labels with a low-cost mechanism to drive streaming traffic.
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Scaling Beyond Gaming to Social Media Ahead of a major Version 2 platform overhaul targeted for late August, West is expanding the product from a niche game into a full-scale social network. The update will feature enhanced user profiles, direct fan networking, and artist-led leagues where musicians play publicly for their followers. Scaling toward a target of 500,000 monthly active users to unlock a brand-funded B2B revenue model, West envisions a massive trajectory for the Midwest venture. “Music League can go from a very successful, growing, profitable game to a zeitgeist level social media phenomenon,” West declared.