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James McAulay
Encore CEO 🎸 Scaling best marketplace for live musicians, bands & DJs 🎤 Banging the drum for a more sustainable music industry 🌳✊ 2x Ironman Triathlete 🏊♂️🚴♂️🏃♂️
James McAulay is an entrepreneur and technology leader with a background in music and computer science. He is best known as the co-founder and former CEO of Encore Musicians, a marketplace for booking live musicians for events.1 McAulay founded Encore in September 2014 and led the company for nearly 10 years before stepping down in late 2024.2
In addition to his work with Encore, McAulay has been involved in several other ventures:
- Host of Marketplace Mechanics podcast since July 2017, sharing stories from founders, operators, and VCs involved in two-sided marketplace businesses.1
- Board Trustee for Scottish Ensemble since December 2020.1
- Previously worked as a Facilitator at Decoded, teaching coding courses.1
McAulay has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge and holds a Diploma in Cello Performance from ABRSM.1 He combines his passion for music, technology, and entrepreneurship in his professional endeavors.
Outside of his professional life, McAulay is an avid triathlete and recently achieved a personal goal of running a sub-3-hour marathon in Valencia.3
As of February 2025, McAulay has moved on from Encore and is exploring new opportunities in the technology and entrepreneurship space.2
Highlights
We launched the world's most accurate AI transcription model @elevenlabsio 2 days ago...but can it handle Rap God by Eminem? 🔥
Rap God entered 2015 Guinness Book of World Records for most words in a single: 1,560 words in 6 minutes 3 seconds
Demo inspired by @addyosmani 🙌 https://t.co/iy99IugN5H
Lots of new followers off the back of my Scribe demo - hi 👋
Quick reintroduction for those new here:
I co-founded Encore, a marketplace for booking live musicians and DJs, in 2014 and spent all of my 20s as CEO scaling it to 50,000+ total bookings.
We were acquired by Mixcloud Sep 2024, and I stepped down in December.
Joined the @elevenlabsio rocketship just six weeks ago, and have learned, shipped and experienced so much already. 🚀
Professionally, I'll be posting mostly about ElevenLabs and AI Audio on X.
Outside of work, I write and release my own ambient piano music, put on meditative concerts, run a lot, and am currently training for Riga Marathon in May. 🇱🇻
Let's build.
