Last week I had the chance to sit down with Alex White, CEO of Next Big Sound. We spent a few minutes talking about the bootstrap stage of Next Big Sound, its trek through Tech Stars and the year following.

Next Big Sound started during some rough economic times which almost forced the close of the company just before it was accepted into Tech Stars.

“I quit my job the same week as a major market crash,” said White.

The first year of Next Big Sound consisted of its three founders working out of a house in Chicago, where White slept on a couch for several months during the first major iteration of NBS. Prior to its current model, White described Next Big Sound as a “fantasy sports league for the music industry.”

“Each of us were continually fascinated with the question of ‘How does a band become famous?’”

The way by which NBS tried to answer that question changed dramatically during the company’s time at Tech Stars. Shortly before closing the company, acceptance into Tech Stars gave White and his team “a second chance at life” to reinvent how Next Big Sound would approach the music industry.

Shortly after acceptance into the tech startup accelerator, Next Big Sound dumped its old model and spent several weeks contemplating and ideating a new business model, this time focused on providing data and analytics to music industry professionals.

The free version of the new software started collecting data just 5 weeks into the 13 week Tech Stars program last year. Since then, NBS has grown to track  more than 700,000 online artist profiles which have generated more than a billion unique data points. Subscribers can get weekly notifications reporting on the online activity surrounding specific band profiles.

“When we started, we wanted to reverse engineer the billboard charts, but you just can’t go back in time.”

Now with a full year’s worth of data under its belt and a growing list of online platforms, NBS might get its wish.

“We’ve seen bands go from 50 plays a day to over 500,000 in that time.”

Band managers, producers and other industry professionals interested in “the why” of such quick growth can subscribe to Next Big Sound Premiere, a music analytics software service which gives context to the data.

Going forward, White looks to more data and continually increasing user involvement to drive success.

“We want to solidify our place as the standard of music industry data.”

As quickly as they’ve gathered data sources and a backlog of online social media activity, they might do just that.

On a recent visit to Boulder, entrepreneur and thought leader Eric Ries was kind enough to stop by the TechStars Bunker to lead a discussion for a room full of folks interested in the Lean Startup methodology. In reflecting on that night, I can’t help but wonder, will Lean Startups be the standard in the Boulder startup ecosystem someday soon?

Here’s the methodology in a nutshell: “Stop wasting people’s time.” Ries implores entrepreneurs to stop building products and services that customers don’t want by replacing guesswork with validated learning. At a high level, this requires three actions:

• Build. For the first iteration, build the minimum viable product, as basic as is possible for customers to understand and use. For subsequent cycles, release small batches of code through continuous deployment.
• Measure. Ries recommends measuring the high level stuff, the stuff that matters. Unless it tells you something important about whether what you have built is more or less likely to make customers pay for it, don’t bother measuring it.
• Learn. Talk to customers, look at the data, and face reality. Apply that validated learning to the next cycle before building anything else.

Many of the principles are derived from lean manufacturing, made famous by Toyota, applied in the startup environment. Speed is key here, and progress is measured in how much you learn, not how much code you write.

There’s no need to recount the entire presentation line by line because you can view a recent webinar of Ries’ and hear him directly instead. If you’re curious as to whether the Lean Startup methodology has applications beyond writing code, the answer is yes. Erica O’Grady, who was also there that night, has even applied the Lean Startup methodology to dating.

The Lean Startup methodology seems to be gaining momentum, especially as of late with bloggers and the press. In April Ries held the first Startup Lessons Learned Conference in San Francisco, which was streamed into locations around the world, including Boulder’s own Rally Software.

With that said, coupled with the fact that entrepreneurs, present and future, filled The Bunker that night, it seems that the future for Lean Startups is bright in Boulder. I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens.

If you haven’t watched them, The Founders video series is a collection of webisodes about the TechStars teams and their experiences. A healthy combination of funny, inspiring, and straight-up knowledge, I’d recommend you keep an eye on them.

“The Innovation Lab” The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Episode 2 from TechStars on Vimeo.

“The Question is Why” The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Episode 1 from TechStars on Vimeo.

The videos are produced by Megan Leigh Sweeney. This summer’s videos are here (check out the teasers!) and you can find last summer’s videos over here.

I recently had three friends fly into town from Chicago, Boston, and Delray Beach, and had a chance to show off what I think makes the Boulder community special for a few days.  I had a real sense of pride sharing it with them, and it reminded me why I feel so lucky to be living here.

A tradition 18 years strong, the four of us take turns hosting what we now refer to as The Mannual.  As this year’s host, I was responsible for choosing a theme, planning the long weekend, and sending a packet of information to the rest of the group.  Though it was my third time hosting in Colorado, it was the first feeling like this is home.  And it felt good.

I settled on: “Eat.  Drink.  Play.  Boulder.”  I arranged to borrow a friend’s vacation rental to make downtown accessible by foot, narrowed my wish list of spots to visit, and decided to use technology as an underlying theme (a facet of Boulder that I appreciate more and more).  A week before their arrival they had access to our trip loaded into Gowalla, a Flickr account, and our newly minted website.

Eat:  We did plenty of that, as we usually do.  The highlights included my favorite lunch spot SALT (especially because they feature a few local ingredients and I love the wood fired oven and stove), Sisters’ Pantry dumplings at the Boulder Farmers’ Market, and an old fashioned barbeque, with plenty of sunshine on the patio and socializing with the neighbors.

Drink: Yes, plenty of that too.  We never did make it any of the breweries on my list (Oskar Blues, Boulder Beer, and Upslope), but we did hit Liquor Mart to stock the fridge with their great selection of local stuff.  Some of the favorites were Upslope Pale Ale (Friend: “Is this the one I read about in Maxim?”  Me: “You read Maxim?”), Left Hand Milk Stout, and Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale.

Play: Some of that, but less than in our younger years.  Disc golf was cancelled due to high winds and laziness, but we did manage to squeeze in Whiffle Ball at Chautauqua Park, where my friends were my groomsmen a couple of years ago.  We also soaked up plenty of sun playing Cornhole on the patio (insert joke here), and learned a thing or two from neighbors who went to college in the Midwest where the game was born.

Many of the things that I wanted to do and places I wanted to visit never did make the cut, but in the end, it may have been better that way.  We had a chance to enjoy the sunshine, have some great food and drink, and really relax – the things that I love to do, here in my home.

The next time your friends fly into town, what will you show them?

Another spring in Boulder is throwing 10″ of snow one day and melting all off the next.  Bright sun is welcoming in the spring and summer, and those of us that were welcomed here are pushing forward the invitation to you, startup lover, to visit Boulder May 4-8.

We are hosting Boulder Startup Week May 4-8th.  The startups in town are rolling out the red carpet (not really, I don’t think there is one in town) but figuratively, for you, talented developer, designer, UI, manager or startup enthusiast, to come for a visit.  There are a ton of jobs for developers, marketers, designers and managers (and we need more talent in town!).

The week will be full of coworking, hackathons, hikes, rides, parties, Ignite Boulder (largest Ignite in the world), Boulder New Tech Meetup and many, many more events.

Here is a sample of events

May 4th

Boulder New Tech Meetup.  6 companies show what they are up to.

Opening Party Hosted by Pivotal Labs

May 5th

Hike up Sanitas hosted by Nate, Natty, Ryan, Tony from Everlater- We’ll meet at the trailhead and hike up Mt. Sanitas.  A fun and beautiful hike right near downtown Boulder

Coworking at QuickLeft hosted by Ingrid Alongi- Have work to do? We have snacks and desks with a great view, come and cowork with us!

Blogs & Beers hosted by Tara Anderson- Let’s drink some local Boulder beer and talk blogging. What could be more fun that that? (Especially on a day when everyone else will be drinking margs!)

May 6th

Burgers at Trada hosted by Niel Robertson- We’ll be just moved into our new office and have a great front patio where we can do burgers and drinks

Ruby Hackers Meetup- dojo4 Ruby Hackers meetup, talk about jobs in the area, what you are working on and meet other Rubists!
Ignite Boulder hosted by Andrew Hyde- Ignite is a night of presentations with a twist.  http://www.igniteboulder.com  Meet at 5pm at the DraftHouse for beers on TechStars, then walk over at 6pm for Ignite!

May 7th

TechStars Pow-Wow hosted by TechStars / David Cohen Come hang out with David Cohen and learn about TechStars in “The Bunker”. Learn how TechStars has helped the local entrepreneurial ecosystem and meet a few of our companies too.
Banjo Billys Bus Tour Nate, Natty, Ryan, Tony from Everlater
Beans & Brews (necessities of a startup) hosted by Napkin Labs Come work with Napkin Labs in our coffee shop office (shared space with 15th Street Coffee) over Complimentary Beer (the good stuff) from Napkin Labs  and/or 1/2 priced Coffees & Espresso from 15th Street Coffee
SimpleGeo-palooza: Rock Band, Beer, Pizza, Awesomesauce hosted by SimpleGeo

Disco Bowling at Splitz hosted by SurveyGizmo

May 8th

Startup Social Brunch hosted by Andrew Hyde The send off brunch, I’m going to buy brunch and mimosas for everyone that came!  Thanks for checking out Boulder, enjoy Mother’s Day Weekend!

We are adding about 20 more events, the tech community is throwing down the ‘cool event’ gauntlet and making sure there is ample stuff to do.  The local hosts of these events many times are hiring or know people that are and will help you if you are looking for a new job.

If you want to visit Boulder, this is the week to do it!

So, will you join us?

Register (FREE) here.  Also mark it on your plancast. This is so we know how many are coming!  Questions or want to help out?  andrew@techstars.org

Great article on the Boulder Colorado Tech Scene in Fast Company today.

Tons of great commentary by Brad Feld, a must read.

I think one of the things that makes Boulder special is that you have this larger percentage of people willing to engage in the entrepreneurial community, and that integrate into their life very effectively, versus it becomes this thing that they do for a period of time and then need to go have a life, but still want to be in the same place. Those two things sort of work together.