Next Big Sound: An Interview with founder David Hoffman
Imagine if you knew the first time someone listened to a song..
This was the notion, posited by the guys behind Next Big Sound, which led what was once a seed idea in an entrepreneur class at Chicago’s Northwestern University to TechStars in 2009. After TechStars wrapped last year, the three founders -Alex White, David Hoffman, and Samir Rayani- stayed in Boulder, where they now share space with other Boulder startups like Graphic.ly and Everlater. So what exactly does Next Big Sound do? In its current form, NBS is a client-facing metrics and analytics platform for the music industry that measures activity on sixteen different social media networks for a given singer or band -or as they like to put it, “[provide] actionable intelligence for the music industry.” Last week, Hoffman and I met up in downtown Boulder to talk shop about the company that ultimately took him away from both Chicago and college prematurely.
SAL CHRIST: So, how did you and your partners meet? Did all of you meet at Northwestern or did you know one another beforehand?
DAVID HOFFMAN: The three founders, we all met at Northwestern… through weird ways, too. I’ve been working on this kind of stuff all through college. I worked at a startup my freshman year out in San Francisco over the summer. I was always doing design stuff with web stuff and was obsessed about it. I couldn’t find really good people at Northwestern to work with on this type of stuff, so Alex (White) -one of the other guys- he approached me about Next Big Sound and I was working on other projects and was like, “That’s a horrible idea!” Three or four months later, we were in a class together -an entrepreneur class. I thought it was just going to be an easy, sort of “blow it off” kind of thing. I show up and the teacher goes, “No, you’re going to work on an idea!” Alex and I were in that class together and he called me up over winter break and was like, “Hey, you want to be on my team?” There was this other guy, Samir, that Alex knew through the organization that does programming at Northwestern. Samir was the account executive of the organization. Neither of us knew that he was also a CS (Computer Science) major and the three of us got together and just ended up working really well together. We put together the first version of the site and had a business plan and people were like, “You guys should actually do this!” We decided that we were actually going to do it then.
Initially, NBS was pitched as a “build your own record label” venture along the lines of independent A&R, whereby users acted as agents and were awarded points based on who they had “signed” on their virtual label and how popular the band got. “People like to be first and people like getting credit for being first,” Hoffman says. However, as Hoffman explained, NBS ran into the issue of the chicken and the egg, in that you cannot have users without bands to listen to and yet, bands will not sign up without there being a listener/user base. With that conclusion came the serendipitous idea, “Imagine if you knew the first time someone listened to a song.”
SC: What would you say is the focus of NBS?
DH: We’re hoping to bring more clarity to marketing. Quantity of qualitative data.
SC: What’s been the biggest thing you’ve learned since moving away from the original idea?
DH: We’ve learned how to collect and visualize data.
SC: Currently you’re integrated with sixteen different social sites, including Twitter, iLike and SoundCloud. Will there ever be integration of sales tracking in terms of music acquisition?
DH: Not right now. Social data is openly available and accessible, whereas other data -such as sales information- is not.
SC: What was your experience with TechStars, in terms of idea exchange?
DH: Oh, it was great. We applied twice and got in the second time. The company was basically on its last legs. We’ve kept in touch with other TechStars and share offic space with Graphic.ly and Everlater.
SC: Would you do it again?
DH: Definitely.
SC: What do you hope NBS’s place in the music and tech fields will be in the long term?
DH: This may be lofty, but I want anytime anyone makes a decision in the music industry to consult NBS first.
SC: What do you love about startup culture and what do you hate?
DH: The best part? I love to create things… I love that the limits on things we create we don’t know! The worst part is the uncertainty. You have to have a really high tolerance for the uncertainty.
SC: Okay… on a more personal note, in terms of music… What do you miss the most about the music industry from your childhood?
DH: Hmm… It’s the thing that I miss and love about now and then… I miss the singular voice that music has for people. I don’t think music is as unifying for people as it used to be. Everyone collectively recognizing a song all at once.
SC: What was one of the most defining moments in your musical history?
DH: Probably hearing the Pixies for the first time.
SC: What’s on constant replay for you right now?
DH: Charlotte Gainsbourg, The New Pornographers, Surfer Blood, Caribou… Theophilus London.
SC: And last, but not least, what is the most exciting tech trend for you?
DH: Definitely data creation.
As someone coming from the film and performing arts industries, I wonder how NBS will affect music supervisors, producer and ad agencies. How will it impact long term projections for a music industry where more and more musicians are able to take the reins on their own marketing, their own licensing, and their own distribution? Will record labels even be relevant in ten or fifteen years? Perhaps the measuring of social actions in terms of the marketing and monetary potential of a musician will become an art, much like the art of trading in the stock market. NBS will likely remain a mainstay in that arena, as the minds behind it are focused less on their competition and more on innovation, improvement, and ultimately listening to their customers.
