You tend to sit up and take notice when someone pitching an online music product says they’ve conducted their customer validation with a community that includes Janis Joplin’s former manager.

Becky Jefferson and Bill McEwen did just that at Startup Weekend Halifax this month when they pitched Backstage Sessions, a proposed website that would allow music fans to experience online get-togethers with bands.

The company is in its infancy. In fact, Jefferson and McEwen first met at Startup Weekend at Dalhousie University on Nov. 16-18. And they are still working out the finer points of their business model. But their story is a wonderful example of entrepreneurs coming together, devising an idea and moving it forward in a short time.

“We’re just collaborating with musicians around these ideas because we want to break down some of the barriers that exist between the fans and the musicians themselves,” Jefferson, a New Brunswick Community College accounting student, said in an interview Wednesday.

The site will probably work like this: Fans of a musician or band can buy online tickets to meet with them after a performance. The ticket could include online access to the performance, meaning the viewer could witness the performance from just about anywhere. Then after the performance, the musician(s) will go backstage and get online with the ticket holders. The fans can ask questions, hear stories, get to know the performers — enjoy all the aspects of a backstage pass, only doing it in an Internet-based environment.

Backstage Sessions get a cut of the ticket sales, and the musician can also name a charity that would get a slice.

Jefferson, originally from Quispamsis, N.B., is studying accounting for practical reasons, but her great loves are music and photography. Last year, she and her fiancé Josh Hunter drove across Canada to interview musicians and put their stories online in a series called “Something in the Air”.

Jefferson positively gushes as she recounts the experience of meeting musicians from around the country, including Bill Pettinger, Joplin’s former manager.

When Jefferson and McEwen met at Startup Weekend, they already had a network of musicians across the country that they could canvass to get feedback on the project and ensure that they have a market — a process known as customer validation. They surveyed 100, and 80 per cent of them like the idea.

They hope to have their website live next week and are planning their first event late this year or early in 2013.

“Getting that first show under way will help us get more bands to sign on,” said Jefferson.