Spotify was founded in Stockholm, Sweden by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. Spotify was developed in 2006 in response to the growing piracy problem that the music industry was facing. Two years after developing the software they launched and made music free for people who only had to listen to advertisements every so often. Ek and Lorentzon realized that there was no way to prevent pirating music with the way it was being sold at the moment, so they found a way to give the listener all the music they wanted, while compensating the artists.
Spotify grew rapidly and became known as the number one name in music. Spotify’s main rival, Apple Music, came into the market in 2015 and also launched a pay per month subscription to listen to music. Spotify was designed as a platform to listen to music, but has adapted and molded into different areas. Spotify has linked up with different services, like Hulu and Showtime, for linked subscriptions.
Spotify has innovated and adapted to stay ahead of its competitors. It started as a solution for people pirating music, and innovated and changed into the largest name in music. Spotify succeeds because of the relationship that they build with the users, building community playlists and events.
It is always interesting how even making efforts to solve a problem can lead to giant successes. Spotify really struck gold when they went into the music industry trying to compensate artists that were losing money due to pirating issues. They, in turn, made instant millions for themselves, all while working smarter not harder. Providing linked subscriptions keeps current customers and brings in a whole new market. Spotify should no longer ask the question of who their market is, but rather ask themselves, “who isn’t in our market?”
I did not know that they were created to help artists avoid the problem of piracy. It’s good to see that they grew into a giant in the industry by solving that problem. Personally, I like Spotify more because of the playlists they make the user based on what they listen to.