Alec Westerman's Startup Next Lyst

Please tell us more about your role and / or your startup.

​I started Next Lyst with a couple of classmates in mining. I wanted to launch a startup but only had bad ideas. ​

I asked one of them whether they had any good B2B ideas that we could charge more for than the cost of sending a sales guy out there. I though people in mining might not now how to launch startups and people in startups don't usually know what miners need. It worked out. I became the startup/tech guy and they helped me navigate Mining.

How long have you been in that role? How do you balance a startup with your personal life? 

I started phasing out contracting and working on Next Lyst about 2 years ago. At the time, I would hide from my room mate at coffee shops to balance a full time job and startup. Now, even though I'm only working part time, it still takes a lot of time. I have a girlfriend that is very supportive. We go on a lot of work dates together at coffee shops. Aside from living a healthy lifestyle and hanging out with friends we really don't have a life. I'm happy with it though.


You play an integral role in your startup. Can you please tell us more about what the startup does? 

We are an inspection app. A lot of industry best practices require inspections of hazardous/critical equipment by the operator at the start of the shift. We're replacing paper based inspections with tablet based ones and automatically notifying maintenance personnel of things that need fixed. Our main value add is in catching problems before they occur so that nobody gets hurt and production doesn't end up stopped.

How does it work? Can anyone join? 

I'd be happy to help any company get setup with Next Lyst. They just need to email me alec@nextlyst.com.


What is the most challenging part about what you do? How do you overcome that challenge?

The most tricky thing for me to balance has been learning to focus on delivering quality to a small group of customers at the start rather than taking the shotgun approach but, simultaneously, not counting on any one firm until they pay.

Where online can we learn more?

Feel free to visit nextlyst.com or send me a note and subscribe to our updates.