Dave Yeager spent his teenage years making mixtapes for his friends and early adulthood as a DJ. Now he is reinventing music discovery as the founder and CEO of Showcase Ventures Inc.
“One of my favorite pastimes was reading through liner notes and listening to an album for the first time and being fully immersed in that experience of really going deep on something,” he said. ”I feel like a lot of that is getting lost. I'm not ready to let that go.”
The Showcase app introduces one emerging artist each day. Users can read the artist’s brief biography and like their favorite songs to create a playlist.
The simple format aims to give budding artists time in the spotlight without distractions.
“You're reading about the artist's journey, their influences, their hometown, and listening to them at the same time,” Yeager said. “It's that full 360 experience.”
The experience is human-curated by Yeager’s team. There is no AI or algorithm — they work directly with the artists.
Jenny O’Neil is the production coordinator.
“We have listening sessions every week,” she said. “No one gets on the app without our ears having heard their music.”
The Wilkes-Barre based rock band "So Much Hope, Buried." was featured on the app in January.
"Jenny did us a solid," drummer Eric Novroski said, remembering how she enhanced the biography they originally sent in.
"They put so much care into it," he said. "They were wonderful to us."
“We might want to showcase them around a news announcement, a new tour date, a new single release,” Yeager said. “And we’ve had a lot of artists debut new tracks on us for the first time.”
Yeager says the overabundance of music streaming platforms makes it difficult for independent artists to get noticed.
“There's 100 million songs on these platforms now, over 100,000 get uploaded every single day," he said. "It's just a lot of noise, and it's a lot of clutter."
Showcase isn’t trying to compete with Apple Music, Spotify or other streaming services. It's meant to compliment them and direct users to new artists on those platforms.
“It's nice to be able to just help funnel some of these artists off to potentially further their career. And they appreciate that,” he said. “We've helped open doors for artists to get bigger tour dates to get introduced to managers.”
"I did notice an uptick in streams," said singer Mollie Edsell, who was featured on the app in February.
Edsell is a Scranton-native who moved to New York City to chase her dreams.
"Showcase is a really wonderful blend of music and community," she said. "The music industry is all about interconnectedness."
The windy road back to NEPA
Dave Yeager grew up in Forty Fort, but left Northeast Pennsylvania after high school to pursue a career in music.
He worked as a DJ through his college years at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Full Sail University in Florida.
Yeager went on to live in Nashville, Los Angeles, and even South Africa before making his way back to NEPA.
“I slept in my van all the way across the country with a couple hundred bucks to my name,” he said of his journey to L.A.
He worked at Apple Music, Beats by Dre, Dark Horse Recording and more.
In 2020, Yeager ventured back to Pennsylvania to care for his mother, and he started building the app the following year. He and his family now live in Falls, Wyoming County.
Yeager’s idea won the 2022 tecBRIDGE Business Plan Competition and he quickly became part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Lackawanna County.
Yeager says the headquarters will remain in Northeast Pennsylvania. Two of his six employees are in Scranton, and he will soon hire two more, thanks to a $105,000 loan-to-grant award from the city. Showcase was also awarded $100,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Small Business Startup and Expansion Funds. Yeager says investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners was also instrumental in his early growth.
Showcase also works with another company to host live Showcase events three days a week in Los Angeles.
“A lot of times we program the app to the artist who's performing our showcase that night,” Yeager said. “It's very central and local to just Los Angeles at the moment. But we've already been approached to actually replicate these live events, and showcase artists from different regions.”
Yeager has plans to add a virtual tip jar and merch sales to directly benefit the artists, and even expand the app's services beyond music.
"People are starting to look for smaller communities," he said. "They're looking for the curated services, because they're so inundated every single day."
One reviewer on the App Store wrote, "This app has been a solid way to discover new music without feeling overwhelmed by options. It’s a must for music lovers!"
"I feel like I finally have a solid source for discovering amazing emerging artists without putting in a ton of work," another reviewer wrote. "Their research team really has their fingers on the pulse! ... Super fun and simple experience! I’m a fan!"
