Our Story
Dapple started with a simple idea: creative work deserves better systems behind it
How it Started
In early 2025, Ally and Oz got together to chat about a problem. The two had previously worked side by side at DesignMyNight, where they helped scale its reservation management system to thousands of venues worldwide—Ally leading the engineering team, building solutions for high-volume bookings, and Oz heading up customer success for top-tier clients. But this time, the problem they found was rooted in the creative world.
The Problem
As a songwriter and producer, Oz knew the frustration of sending demos into the void. No confirmation, no feedback, no signal they'd even been heard. It didn't take long to realise this wasn't just a music industry problem. Across arts, publishers, magazines, awards, academic institutions, agencies, and creative teams, the same pattern kept showing up: thousands of submissions, and no system built to handle them properly.
What did exist wasn't much better. On one end, there were legacy application platforms that were expensive, clunky and looked like they'd been built in the MySpace era. On the other, there were generic form builders, flexible, but completely unequipped for the nuance of reviewing creative work at scale. Nothing purpose-built. Nothing modern. Nothing in between. Teams stitched together inboxes, spreadsheets, and workarounds, while new layers of complexity, like AI-generated work, only made things harder to manage.
An Idea
What if there were a better way to handle and review creative submissions—one that worked for both creators and the teams receiving them? After hundreds of customer conversations, hours of industry interviews and months of building, Dapple was born.
Our Mission
Putting Creators First
At Dapple, we believe that every creative work deserves care, attention, and transparency. For creators, we've designed a platform that respects their work and time, ensuring submissions don't disappear into a black hole. We aim to make the submission process as smooth and enjoyable as possible, honouring the hard work that goes into every application.
Saving Precious Time
For creative organisations, we aim to save hours in admin by helping teams handle high volumes of submissions efficiently, review thoughtfully, and report with ease. By reclaiming this time, we give those editors, judges, curators, programme managers managers and administrators the space to focus on what matters most: supporting and celebrating creators.
Bringing It Together
Dapple is more than just a submission management platform – it's a bridge between talent and opportunity. Our mission is simple: to make the submissions process fairer, faster, and more meaningful for everyone involved so that no great creative work goes unnoticed.