Most people wouldn鈥檛 connect even a crooked line between playing bassoon and creating a business-to-business AI-powered customer acquisition service. But to serial entrepreneur Sean Fenlon 鈥�90, they鈥檙e in perfect harmony.

鈥淲hen you have to defend your doctoral dissertation in front of a committee of really smart professors, that gets you ready for the boardroom,鈥� Fenlon says. 鈥淎nalyzing an orchestral score and having to do transpositions in your head from alto clef to treble clef in real time and seeing how every line relates with every other line gets you ready to evaluate an income statement or a profit and loss statement.鈥�

Fenlon鈥檚 first business is the only one (so far) that had anything to do with music. After that, he founded customer acquisition and online marketing businesses. His latest venture鈥擲ymphony42, the sales and marketing platform built on top of ChatGPT鈥攎ay be his opus.

鈥淔rom the beginning days of Listensmart.com all the way to the intersection of digital ads, performance marketing, lead generation and customer acquisition, we鈥檝e combined that with this incredible world of AI,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his is the big one. All the other ones were just prelude.鈥�

1968

Born in Maryland at Prince George鈥檚 hospital 

In 1968, Fenlon was born In Maryland at Prince George鈥檚 Hospital (now UM Capital Region Medical Center).

1986

Enrolled at 撸先生

鈥淚f you look at my arc as a bassoon player, the most improvement I made was during the years at Towson.鈥�

1987

Studied with jazz legends Hank Levy and Greg Hatza

鈥淭hey are two of the most amazing musicians in the world. I don't think I really appreciated the honor and privilege of being able to study with them both then.鈥�

1990

Graduated from 撸先生 with a B.A in music

Fenlon purchased his first personal computer.

1993

Earned a Master鈥檚 Degree in Music

Fenlon earned a Master鈥檚 in Music at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore.

1995

Married his wife Teri 鈥�89

Fenlon's wife Teri is a fellow 撸先生 graduate and bassoonist. 

1999

Founded Listensmart.com

鈥淚 launched my first internet startup with the vision of allowing the independent artists of the world to put their music on the internet and build an audience.鈥�

2001

Earned a Doctorate in Music at Johns Hopkins University and cofounded Theloanpage.com with Jason Goldsmith 鈥�97 

鈥淲e grew very quickly, and we got over $10 million in revenue and about $3 million in profit with around seven employees.鈥�

2004

Started DoublePositive

Fenlon started DoublePositive, a customer acquisition and online marketing platform.

2011

Ernst and Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award Winner

In 2011, Fenlon won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

2015

Founded Meta42 and Abovo42 

Fenlon founded Meta42, an online marketing platform focused on email, and Abovo42, a service that helps individuals publish on the internet by sending emails.

2022

Created Symphony42, an AI customer acquisition platform. Later that year, ChatGPT debuted and forced a total overhaul of Symphony42. 

鈥淚t surprised us all. We knew this was 10 times better than anything that we were considering using. So we had to scrap the old product and rebuild on top of ChatGPT."

2024

Symphony42 projected to move from text interactions to AI voice interactions 

In the second quarter of 2024, Symphony 42 is projected to move from interactions to AI voice interactions.