Podcast Notes Playlist: Startup

• Innovation comes from a culture of experimentation
  • Without failure, innovation isn’t possible
• Spotify has tons of room left to grow
  • If audio is their sole market, and they’re looking to win it, they still have to grow 10-15x in size
• “We know that discovery is one of the core benefits that we provide to people. If we can get you to discover one new item of content that you absolutely love every single month, we’re pretty sure you’ll remain a user or customer with us for a very long time.” – Daniel Ek
• If your journey as a company isn’t slightly uncomfortable, you’re likely not pushing yourself hard enough
• “I think the last job to be done by a machine is creativity”– Daniel Ek

My guest this week is Daniel Ek, the founder and CEO of Spotify.

In my conversations with Daniel, I’ve found him to be one of the most interesting and thoughtful business leaders in the world. You’ll see what I mean as you listen to our conversation.

We talk about Spotify plenty, but what I so enjoy about Daniel is his way of thinking in systems and frameworks. He is committed to evolution, innovation, and growth for both himself and for Spotify and is on my shortlist of CEOs to emulate.

This was one of my favorite conversations on the podcast, I hope you enjoy it.

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

1:21 – (first question) – Management lessons from a Dubai chocolate maker

4:54 – Trends shaping the business landscape today: globalization, automation, and digitation

7:51 – How he thinks about the vertical integration of his business and scale

10:37 – Are companies doing a good job adjusting to the changes in the global business landscape

14:44 – How does Spotify view scale moving forward

17:59 – What trends has he seen among creators as a result of the Spotify platform

20:32 – The community benefit that has been created by the platform

23:47 – Intimacy of audio

25:31 – Creating an environment that continues to spur innovation

29:12 – Star vs constellation business strategy

32:21 – Measuring network health

35:12 – Spotify Originals and what his competition in the video market is doing

39:36 – How podcasts play into the growth strategy

43:04 – How did he solve the problem of competing with free

47:21 – Is their strategy repeatable, going after fractured suppliers

49:02 – Role of the CEO in a startup

51:22 – Others who have taught him great business lessons

53:18 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Daniel

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub

Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author

Today's episode was actually a live recording with a good friend, a former investor and a continual mentor to me (and dozens of entrepreneurs who I also love and respect). His name is Justin Kan, and he was episode number one for Below The Line.

Justin is a founder and investor based in San Francisco. He has been building startups for close to 15 years now, and he's seen pretty much everything there is to see when it comes to the founder’s journey.

He's also a former partner at Y Combinator and has invested in dozens of companies, giving him a unique perspective on both sides of the table.

He is the co-founder and CEO of Atrium, a full-service corporate law firm that uses modern technology to serve startups all around the world in a fast, transparent and price predictable way. It's phenomenally useful. I've used it and so has a number of founders that have been on the podcast.

You can email James questions directly at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC

• The top reasons why a product fails:
  • It’s too complicated – simplicity is king
  • It doesn’t spread by word-of-mouth
  • It doesn’t take advantage of the power of iteration
  • The founder is too fearful of creating something novel
  • It’s not launched into a community
• Worship your early adopters
  • “They are everything. They’ll take you to the highest of highs, they’ll show you the way, and they’ll help explain the product to friends. They’ll do your work for you, but you have to go and find those people.” – Brian Norgard
• Your product has to stand for something. If you don’t know what that is, your customer certainly won’t know what that is either.
  • When you put your product into the market and take a stance – hold that line
• “One of the things you learn about developing products is that if your aim is to make all your users happy, you will fail“ – Brian Norgard

Brian Norgard is the Former Chief Product Officer at the top-grossing mobile app in the world, Tinder. In less than 3 years, Tinder created over $11Bn in market value and with Brian's creation of Tinder Gold, Superlike and Boost, the platform has seen over 200m downloads and created millions of matches. Prior to Tinder, Brian founded Tappy, a mobile messaging application backed by Kleiner Perkins and acquired by Tinder. Before that, Brian built one of the fastest-growing Facebook applications in history (Chill) which reached over 30MM people. Fun fact about Brian also, at 25, Brian was the youngest GM/VP in the history of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp after the acquisition of his first company Newroo where he served as the GM of MySpace News. If that was not enough, Brian is also a prolific angel investor with investments in Tesla, SpaceX, AngelList and Coinmine.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Brian made his way into the world of startups and came to be the youngest VP at News Corp at the tender age of 25? How did that lead to his becoming CRO then CPO @ Tinder?

2.) What is the No 1 reason that products fail today? What can founders and designers do to retain the simplicity of product over time? How does complexity change the product experience? Why does Brian believe that product experience is an art? Bring in science, to what extent does Brian believe testing and iteration is key to success in product? How does one know how long is enough time to test for vs too short and not enough data?

3.) When thinking about distribution, what does Brian look for in the way that people describe a product to their friend? How does Brian think that the most successful products bake distribution into the core user behaviour? How does Brian think about community building around product? Who has done this best in Brian's mind?

4.) How should the very best founders and product people think about product risk? How can they know when to use risk to their advantage vs be mindful of excessive risk? On the features themselves, how important is it for a product to be 10x cheaper/faster etc? Why does Brian believe that is largely VC jargon?

5.) What were Brian's biggest takeaways from launching Tinder Gold and seeing Tinder become the Top Grossing App in the world? How does that sort of event also impact the team? How does Brian think about whether one should celebrate those moments or push forward to the next goal?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Brian’s Fave Book: The Old Man and The Sea

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brian on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

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