Rethinking Music Production Collaboration with ColDAW
Team: Yifan Deng (Tisch ‘26), Augusta Ding (Tisch ‘26), Chloe Yan (Tisch ‘26), Ian Askiem (Tisch ‘27), Elizabeth Kezia Widjaja (Tisch ‘27), Prisha Jain (Tisch ‘26)
About the Venture: ColDAW is a collaborative music production environment that enables creators to work in parallel across tools while maintaining synchronized version control. The platform organizes sessions, tracks changes, and keeps project files aligned across contributors.
Tell us about ColDAW and the problem it aims to solve.
ColDAW is a connected workflow platform built for music creators.
As creators ourselves, we figured collaborating on music projects across different software, time, and locations is still messy. Files get buried in folders, teams using different workstations found it hard to exchange sessions, versions overwrite each other, and months later it’s difficult to retrace what happened.
We built ColDAW to keep music projects structured, accessible, and collaborative across time, space, and platforms. We help creators work better together with the tools they already love, and make collaboration more efficient, stable, and transparent.
How did the team come together?
The idea started back when I was at HARMAN International with Youhan Li. In audio R&D, we saw firsthand how fragmented creative workflows were, even among professional teams.
So after I returned to the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU, I started working on some ideas around it and shared an early prototype with friends who were DJs, musicians, and multimedia artists actively working in the field, and they loved it.
ColDAW then slowly grew into a team of creatives with backgrounds in product, design, engineering, and marketing. Every member in our team joined because they genuinely care about music and creative tools, and are either using one or multiple regularly. We are all creators first, which is something we are super proud of.
What sets ColDAW apart?
Most music tools focus on creation within a single session and ecosystem. They close their ecosystems so users pay more for subscriptions. ColDAW focuses on what happens between multiple sessions and ecosystems, which is the connective tissue of collaboration.
We aim to build structure around projects and teams: versioning, metadata, organization, and long-term accessibility. What sets us apart is that we approach this from both technical infrastructure and lived experience. We’ve worked inside professional audio environments, and are building from that reality.
What motivated you to apply to the Challenge?
Entrepreneurship in the creative field depends heavily on community and trust. We had built an MVP, but we knew we needed structure, mentorship, accountability, and exposure beyond our immediate creative circle.
We’re hoping to gain perspective on navigating the intersection of entertainment, technology, and business, especially at a time when AI, creative ownership, and closed tech ecosystems are reshaping the landscape.
We want to stay true to creators while learning how to communicate clearly with investors and partners. Being the only Tisch project selected this year was meaningful. It showed us that creative infrastructure can be taken seriously as a venture.
What has been the biggest turning point for you in your startup journey?
The biggest turning point was sharing the first MVP with other creators. Seeing someone upload a project and say, “This actually helps a lot,” changed everything. Another turning point was forming the team. Moving from “my personal idea” to “our project” required us to define roles, communicate more clearly, and think longer term. That shift made the venture feel real.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far?
Our biggest challenge has been defining the business scope of what we’re building. In creative technology, it’s easy to keep building, but harder to step back and understand how it fits into the broader market.
We’re learning to balance creative exploration with discipline. We’ve addressed this by documenting and iterating on our roadmap more effectively, speaking with artists and founders, and actively seeking mentorship. We’re still learning how to speak the language of business while staying authentic to what makes us unique.
What are some recent milestones?
We recently completed our first functional beta and began structured conversations with musicians and creative teams. We’ve also brought ColDAW into classrooms within the Interactive Media Arts program at NYU Tisch, introducing undergraduate students to how more structured creative workflows can support their projects. Seeing students engage with the platform, and reflect on their own process, has been especially meaningful for us.
We were also nominated for the 2026 UX Design Awards in Berlin, which felt like encouraging recognition for the work we’ve put in so far.
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those just starting out?
Start with a problem you’ve personally experienced. It makes the difficult parts more meaningful.
For creatives especially, business can feel intimidating. But in many ways, it’s another creative layer. Be thoughtful about how you navigate entrepreneurship. Seek out people in similar spaces and ask for help, but allow yourself to build your own path instead of copying someone else’s.
Email Inquires please contact joe.deng@coldaw.app.
Visit us at https://www.coldaw.app/.
