Dot Com DJ

Mixaloo

by Kelley Granger and photographs by Matt Petricone, January 24, 2008

The hall in Poughkeepsie’s Dooley Plaza is lined with relics of a bygone time. A newspaper clipping from a 1907 issue of the Putnam Hall Chronicle is matted and suspended in a frame. A battered pack of Beechnut Brands chewing gum and a package of Philip Morris & Co. cigarettes dangle in a shadow box. A timeworn plaque for J. D. Johnson Co., the pipe, valve, and fitting company that once operated here, still dominates the wall across from the entrance.

It’s not the type of environment you’d expect to find cutting-edge technology, but the historic plaza by the train track is home to the developers of Mixaloo, a new web application that has brought a jazzier version of the mixtape into the 21st century.

Perhaps this is not surprising, considering that CEO and founder Mark Stutzman isn’t quite what you’d expect for a techie, either. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he was an English literature major and used to pound out loud, aggressive sets as the drummer in his band, Poureurik, with local guitar legend Johnnie Wang.

Stutzman says he was lucky to get involved in the Internet boom as early as he did. After college in 1994, IBM hired him to work on one of its first Internet-commerce projects. After his stint there, Stutzman spent a few years as chief technology officer for Bolt.com, an online community for teens that boasted millions of users at its peak. Then, in 2000, Stutzman departed to found Digital Variant, a full-service interactive marketing firm specializing in social networking sites that has done work for companies from Comedy Central to Smithsonian magazine. By late 2006, Stutzman was dreaming up his next venture—Mixaloo.

“I’ve always been thinking about ways to marry my passion for music and my passion and skills online,” Stutzman says. “When I first started thinking about Mixaloo, I was really trying to think about how musicians can take advantage of this new viral social landscape to better market their products.”