Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

Chapter 27Build a Balanced Team

Alex White

Alex was the cofounder and CEO of Next Big Sound, a company that provides online music analytics and insights to over 750,000 artists and bands with 30 million songs. Next Big Sound raised about $1 million from Foundry Group, Alsop-Louie Partners, and Uncork Capital after completing Techstars in 2009. The company was acquired by Pandora in 2015.

I wish I was a good programmer, but I’m not. If I put the time in I could probably be good at it, but I don’t enjoy it at all. Instead, I handle the business side of things for Next Big Sound. Before coming to Techstars, I always seemed to find myself surrounded by really smart people with great ideas and no way to execute them.

From my experience, interaction between technical and nontechnical entrepreneurs is often minimal. When I showed up at Techstars, I found the tables completely turned, as I was one of the least competent developers out of 30 founders—they had me surrounded!

At the earliest stages of a company, it’s foolish to have more than one nontechnical cofounder. Think about a nontechnical small business such as an auto mechanic, sandwich shop, or tailor. On one side of the equation is the actual product or service that makes money, such as fixing engines, making sandwiches, or sewing clothes. On the other side is everything else that gets in the way of making money but still needs to be done; things like renting a garage, keeping the counter clean, and purchasing thread and other ...