As an entrepreneur, sometimes you need to shed some hats, Mycroft AI Inc. co-founder Joshua Montgomery said.
In March 2020, he relinquished his CEO title and traded it for first officer.
“I view an entrepreneur’s job as taking off hats, so when you start a company, you wear all the hats: you’re the CEO, CFO, you do product, do marketing, do fundraising. You do everything,” he said. “The goal of the entrepreneur is to take each hat off and give it to somebody who is better at the job than they are.”
Michael Lewis, who previously invested in Kansas City-based Mycroft, now is CEO. Lewis brings valuable experience to Mycroft, which developed open-source voice assistant technology that’s focused on privacy and allows consumers to control their data. He has a strong background in software development and co-founded Stellar Semiconductor Inc., which sold in 2000 to Broadcom Corp. for $162 million in stock. He also co-founded Cryptic Studios, a massively multiplayer online game developer that sold to Atari in 2008.
Some of Mycroft’s more recent wins have included landing a NASA contract to evaluate how voice assistants can be used in early-stage satellite design and raising $2.4 million during the second quarter of 2021.
Shedding the CEO title has allowed Montgomery to focus on prospective investor and customer conversations and doing what he does best: telling Mycroft’s story in a compelling way. In addition to overseeing operations, Lewis can play a significant role in helping Mycroft raise money, he said.
“It’s definitely helped us to be better organized,” he said of Lewis taking the helm. “It’s definitely improved our chances of being successful longterm. Founders sometimes get ahead of themselves and bite off more than they can chew. Michael’s very measured and has really helped us delete things we shouldn’t be doing and focus on the things we should be doing. I think that’s had a real positive impact.”
