As a drummer of 25+ years, Sven Spierings, wanted to build a piece of technology for his band My Own Army, to help his band write songs. This piece of tech soon grew out of proportion and resulted in BAND-ADE, a startup focusing on developing a music app called Tapsody. “The idea behind it is to cater to musicians, by bringing them in contact with venues and other service providers in the music industry in a really easy and fun way.” Tapsody was designed to improve independent musicians’ careers by helping them expand their network. “The app is a platform; it facilitates a community.”

With this app, a lot of hypotheses were put to the test. Bands were interviewed and asked if they had trouble communicating with one another, writing music and organizing themselves. While conducting these interviews, Sven found that bands would appreciate being offered a helping hand in growing within the music business, getting gigs, marketing themselves and getting into contact with professionals. “I decided to pivot to accommodate those key points, which kept coming up in our surveys.”

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"Instead of doing the bulk of the work myself, I now watch over it from a higher level, empowering my High-Flyers to use their creativity."

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How the Minite match happened

Having first seen an article on Minite, Sven admired the concept. When the time came and he needed extra manpower, he welcomed the idea of having a High-Flyer aboard. What stood out to him was that a large process of finding said student talent was automated, with just the right touch of personal/human attention. “This level of efficiency (without compromising on quality) helps save costs for startups like ourselves.”

BAND-ADE’s team was looking to focus on two separate fields, first of which was content management (for their social media). “The amount of work was getting too big for me to handle on my own. So we needed a content manager interested in the music business.” Additionally, they also needed help with further developing the app. After a quick contact with Minite, they were able to find a pair of knowledgeable High-Flyers! “A word that comes to mind instantly is convenient. Working with Minite is an easy, convenient and friendly service.”

As far as the two High-Flyers go, Kenny helps with BAND-ADE’s social media content management, designing visuals for their social media, including video. Besides that, he researches bands and other important players in the music industry while also writing for their newsletter and does interviews with bands and musicians. Anass, a Computer Science student, is on the front-end development side, helping debug features on the app. He also focuses on adding functionalities in the app as they become needed by customers and therefore, assisting their CTO.

“A word that comes to mind instantly is convenient. Working with Minite is an easy, convenient and friendly service.”

From alumni to partner

Sven got more free time after hiring our High-Flyers - time that he could channel into being on the ground and bringing their app to different customer segments. “Instead of doing the bulk of the work myself, I’m now focused on empowering my High-Flyers by giving them the freedom to do their work as they see fit, using their skills and creativity.”

High-Flyers possess a level of creativity which allows them to do what they promised to do, and even more! “It's interesting to see how we are going to tap into even more of their potential.” For instance, Anass has set up Sendgrid, so that people get emails automatically through the backend of the app. “It was great to see that he could take on that project by himself, do the research and send us the results!”

As an alumni, Sven felt drawn to Minite’s array of Erasmus University and TU Delft students. “I love your newsletters, they’re very effective. And I felt that working with Minite would bring a personal and business relationship.” Sven also recognizes the immense added value of pre-screened High-Flyers. “It added an extra level of convenience for us, it was time saving and reassuring.” It formed trust with the company, as BAND-ADE had a clear job opening and Minite was able to respond with the right candidates in a quick and efficient way, while also asking critical questions about the job to better understand what an ideal candidate would look like. “We even ended up adjusting our job description to ensure the right candidate (in terms of quality and amount).”

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Sven lives by the motto: “don’t be afraid to fail.” And he certainly embodies it, having undergone a big career switch himself, from architect to startup founder! As the Tapsody app grows, bringing on new challenges and opportunities, BAND-ADE will be looking to Minite for their next High-Flyer or two! And if you also want to have your own High-Flyer aboard your team, sign up and post a job today or schedule a free 15 min demo and we’ll show you how easy it is to find your next High-Flyer!