“We paid £300/month to be ‘guardians’ of a 60k square foot warehouse, with no internet connection”
Nico Perez, Mixcloud, Founder & CEO
17M Users, Zero Investment
Nico Perez sits down to discuss the humble beginnings of Mixcloud, now a major platform with 17M unique visitors a month.
In an age of making record losses but still having billion-dollar valuations – Mixcloud has taken a unique path.
They have raised zero outside investment to date, are a profitable business, and operate with only 6 engineers and 12 full-time employees.
Part DJ, part breakdancer, part entrepreneur, part change-maker and deep thinker – Nico embodies the essence of what we call “Creators” on this podcast.
Five Things To Listen Out For
1) Living in a warehouse and having no internet connection – many people say they “had no money” when they started, but Mixcloud really had to live that mantra when they failed to raise any investment. We go into how they paid their rent with limited income after Nico quit his job to go full time.
2) Getting rejected by Y Combinator and other investors – how this drove them to become revenue-generating early on.
3) How to find a technical co-founder – answering one of the most common founder problems: “how do I find someone to help me build this” – Nico shares how he approached this problem with a “skill share” approach.
4) Getting the head of growth at Facebook to be on their advisory board – building a great team isn’t just about the employees and founders of an organization. There are mentors, board members and in many cases: “advisory boards”. Nico tells us how they organically made relationships to convince smart people to be a part of their vision.
5) Free Flowing Convo – diversity of boards, artificial intelligence, building an MVP (minimum viable product), splitting up equity amongst co-founders, benefits of having 3 co-founders, books that have impacted him & what success means to him
