It’s true to say, without a hint of hyperbole, that 25 year old Daniel Ek’s Spotify has taken the global music industry by storm, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Even in markets it hasn’t launched in yet (including the US), Spotify is generating a lot of attention and is now valued at €170 million. Music lovers have discovered ways to circumvent regional limitations on the software and are already using the service heralded by some as the future of the music industry. And that suits the music industry just fine, especially since they’ve invested in it. At a Glasshouse event at the Royal College of Physicians in London last night, an assembled throng of the tech business community listened to Ek’s thoughts.
“Despite making every mistake in the book in my previous companies,” says Daniel Ek, “with Spotify things seem to be working out. It’s true that we underestimated how long it would take the labels to come in, though: we started the company in 2006, but didn’t launch a product until 2008 because it took so long to get the labels on board.”
Ek was interviewed by Virginia Eastman, former BBC business journalist and now Principal at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles‘ London office. At one point she asked “So will you have the Beatles before iTunes?”.
“I don’t know. Hopefully!” said Ek.
It wasn’t a surprise to read one wag’s comments on Twitter earlier in the evening, who asked: “Can anyone confirm rumours Daniel Ek will be making an entrance dressed in white surrounded by hundreds of children?”: That’s how significant Spotify and Daniel Ek are right now.
So what lessons does this 25 year old CEO have to share with other start-ups? Eastman began by asking his advice about funding; specifically, whether going for Angel investment right away is a prudent course of action for small teams with great ideas.
“Yes,” says Ek. “Try to get Angels involved. Get someone in with a network, who can help you open doors. But remember that, ultimately, you’ll be doing the work yourself. There aren’t many people who can help with the actual work. Remember, too, that you have to live with them for the life of the company: be careful who you allow to invest. You should do as much due diligence on your investors as they do on you.”
Ek later focuses his advice into three main points. “First, get down and do the work. There will be a lot of sceptics, but if you believe in it, go for it.
“Second, be sensible about economics. If you write a forecast, you have to accept that it will not work out. I’ve never seen a single one that worked out. Be realistic about your burn rate. Concentrate on keeping your costs low and working out which information to pay attention to.
“Third, listen to smart people. With Twitter and other social networking tools, you can get a lot of advice from great people. I learn more from Twitter than any survey or discussion with a big company. Put your consumers in focus, and listen to what they’re actually saying, not what they tell you. Look behind the feedback into the stats and see how people are actually using the product.”
Ek looked satisfied with his answer; I suspect he’s given it a few times before. The discussion quickly moved on to Spotify itself. “What percentage of your users are premium subscribers?” asked Eastman.
“We don’t give out exact numbers. It’s not double digits yet, but we think we can get there. We’ve always realised that the vast majority will be free users, but as long as that’s on a big scale, that’s OK. The numbers work.
“In July, we accounted for 35% of digital music revenues in Sweden. We have a million users in Sweden, out of a population of only nine million. And that’s the key to success: scale. In any freemium model, if you’re getting double digits or higher, you’re doing well. We’ll get there. We’re already growing at 50% month-on-month, doubling our revenue every two months.
“Now, a lot of people doubt the model. I know that. And sure, comparing against CDs, it’s not a good model. But if you compare it against the number of illegal downloads, it’s pretty good, especially as we scale up to the bigger numbers.
“And it takes time for advertisers to wake up to the new medium, but they are waking up: we’re proving now that we’ll be around a while. A lot of advertisers are re-booking as they see our model working.”
“What will limit your growth?” asked Eastman. “Competition or regulation?”
“If there’s anything that should, it’s competition; a better product. If it’s regulation, then there’s something wrong.”
“Is iTunes a competitor?”
“No, not really. Our main competitor is piracy.”
“Do you think Spotify is capable of turning the tide against piracy?”
“Well, actually, yes. I think so: there have been a lot of surveys of user behaviour, post-Spotify. One point seems consistent throughout them: that 80% of Spotify users say they have stopped filesharing. And, for the majority, it hasn’t affected their spending.” If that’s true, it bodes very well.
Next, Eastman asked about the future of Spotify’s revenue streams: what proportion of revenue will come from subscriptions, and what proportion from advertising? And what did Ek think about the business models of the future?
“The majority for us will be subscriptions, perhaps 60% against 40% advertising. I believe in a freemium model, because information ultimately wants to be free.
“We need something new. The news and entertainment industries are in heavy decline, yet people want to consume more content than ever, and from a grater variety of sources.
“We need to be creative. It’s not about one business model any more. Some of the revenue will come from advertising, some from subscriptions, some from merchandising, some from one-off sales…”
Eastman also asked: “What’s the next big challenge after mobile?” Spotify has released an iPhone app, one for the Android platform, and one for Symbian Series 60 phones.
“Making it easier for people to handle and share their music,” said Ek. “Particularly playlists. At the moment, there’s an ecosystem around Spotify, including sites like ShareMyPlaylists.com, but those sites are really just playlist aggregators. That’s not a concept we intend to replicate. We’re talking about real sharing and management tools.”
During audience Q&A the BBC’s Tim Weber asked two questions that many in the room have on their lips: when will Spotify be profitable? And what’s the exit strategy?
“I don’t find that first question very interesting,” says Ek. “In fact, we could have been cash-flow positive already if we wanted, but we chose to grow quicker, and we always will. Mark Zuckerberg made the same decision with Facebook. We’re in a fortunate position, because we have investors who believe in the product and are allowing us to pursue the vision. We believe in our goal and we believe we can execute it. I don’t really care about short term profitability.
“In terms of exit strategy, there have only ever been a few billion dollar exits. I want to build a company like SAP, a big company, run from Europe, and a standalone business. Our goal is to build a self-sufficient, European company. We hope that we can build a sustainable business that can live on its own.
And who knows. Maybe one day, it’ll be us acquiring interesting businesses.”
“Can anyone confirm rumours Daniel Ek will be making an entrance dressed in white surrounded by hundreds of children?”
Epic.
This actually sounds like it was a great interview. Is there a video of it anywhere ?
Oh, and I enjoyed the random hyperlink to SAP
“Is iTunes a competitor?”
“No, not really. Our main competitor is piracy.”
This guy is good. Turns the discussion to piracy and how Spotify is somehow the saviour of the music industry.
Of course, piracy is a competitor of iTunes hence iTunes is a competitor of Spotify.
Is he really 25?
“I don’t find that first question very interesting,” says Ek. “In fact, we could have been cash-flow positive already if we wanted, but we chose to grow quicker, and we always will. Mark Zuckerberg made the same decision with Facebook. We’re in a fortunate position, because we have investors who believe in the product and are allowing us to pursue the vision. We believe in our goal and we believe we can execute it. I don’t really care about short term profitability.
“In terms of exit strategy, there have only ever been a few billion dollar exits. I want to build a company like SAP, a big company, run from Europe, and a standalone business. Our goal is to build a self-sufficient, European company. We hope that we can build a sustainable business that can live on its own.
And who knows. Maybe one day, it’ll be us acquiring interesting businesses.”
If you’re going to think anyway, you might as well think big.
I love his determination and vision. Inspiring.
I loved spotify and I still do, but once again I feel let down by the major labels. Take a look at what artists Lily allen (Famous here, very big etc.) said about how her label treats spotify:
http://twitter.com/lilyroseallen/status/4033921083
http://twitter.com/lilyroseallen/status/4034006926
I asked her what percentage she gets from it, she gets nothing. How are artists supposed to support spotify when their labels don’t pay them anything for listens?
Rather than complain about Spotify…one might ask why she continues with a label that she knows is screwing her?
Spotify could actually do much more damage to the artist than piracy. Very few artist have the courage to tell the truth about this issue. And ALL major record companies screw the artists, ALL the artists. You might just as well say: “How come she keeps singing when she knows that. She should just shut up and get a job in a bank.” Wrong approach. Actually Daniel Ek “forgot” to answer one question which was asked during the conferance: “how much does the artist make on Spotify”. That is quite interesting in the perspective of what he says several times under the interview: “contrary to piracy, the artist is actually making money out of Spotify”. Well my musician friends do not agree with that, and neither does Lilly Allen. For more of what the artists actually mean about the music industry (Spotify’s big friends and investors) read “Courtney Does the math”.
Spotify is a really nice tool but it won’t feed my 80Gb iPod…thus I’m wondering why and how they will kill the P2P.
Long term vision dude.
In a few years you’ll be connected everywhere and cheap, and won’t need any 80gb device as it’ll all be on the fly.
Arguable at best. I give you 10 years at least until everywhere has at least 3G access.
Short term vision – today, data is expensive (even broadband) in MOST countries outside of USA, Canada, and EU. Ever traveled to Brazil or Australia?
I see that complaint all the time… it won’t fill my insanely large X amount of GB’s on my mp3 player. Can you really listen to 80 GB’s worth of music in a day or even a week?
1) There is not only MP3 but also some lossless codec (ALAC here) and in that case 80GB is SMALL. Will I listen all ? Certainly nope but at least I have all with me.
2) Just like the quality of movies on Blu-Ray have a FAR better than VOD, I much prefer the sound of my losslessly compressed music than spotify’s stream.
2) All my music by stream ? So I have to pause everytime I lose the connection for whatever reason ?
I love strategy and the music business is a great case. God blog post.
that’s a bold statement ,saying spotify will end piracy.Not without the help of legislation and rights societies going after every illegal site with the same determination as when they went after the pirate bay.
Choose not to be profitable at this time?The business model makes this unprofitable at this time.
Yeah, because going after illegal sites has proven so effective. They did an amazing job shutting down pirate bay.
How is this any differnt than Rhapsody or Napster?
Oh yeah its a web only play with a young cocky CEO so it must be better – or is its shiny web 2.0 ajax interface?
Im confused – not by the product or the direction (this is where music is headed) but by why this company is getting the attention when there are others who have done this well for years?
Anyone care to enlighten me on what I am missing?
Technology wise Spotify is much better than Rhapsody or Napster. If you haven’t tried Spotify then you just won’t understand. But basically think of using iTunes but with direct access to everything that they sell. No buffering and playback/FF/rewind so near to instant that for most users it doesn’t matter, it just feels the same to them as using iTunes. The music that you play most often is automatically cached and the streaming technology is peer to peer.
That’s why Spotify is better. Does that enlighten you?
How is this any different than Rhapsody or Napster?
Oh yeah its a web only play with a young cocky CEO so it must be better – or is its shiny web 2.0 ajax interface?
I’m confused – not by the product or the direction (this is where music is headed!!!!) but by why this company is getting the attention and valuation when there are others who have done this well for years?
Anyone care to enlighten me on what I am missing?
FWIW, your comment comes off as cocky too.
Just sayin’
I’m still at a loss as to how Spotify is better than Rhapsody. Their pricing even seems similar. I just signed up for Rhapsody-To-Go for the iPhone app, and it’s fantastic.
As mentioned above, in an always connected world (and my iphone is basically always connected), why do you need to download songs? In fact, I deleted the 1000 songs I had on my iPhone drive and am planning on using it for video now.
It doesn’t look that much different than Pandora, which is already available in the U.S. Am I missing something here?
Mark Zuckerburg ≠ The Global Music industry. Might you also, in the interests of balance, point out the article in this week’s NME, which points out that most musicians actually fucking hate Spotify?
That NME-article was pure garbage with very few correct facts…
Spotify, you need to allow third party developers to build on your social platform, much like an API for social music.
The future of multimedia content delivery is peer-to-peer, not streaming. It is a technical evidence.
And to allow right owners to widespread “fairly shareable contents” the solution is on http://www.ubicmedia.com.
Stay tuned, intriguing news from Hollywood coming soon…
Disclaimer : I’m an investor in UbicMedia…
Spotify is peer-to-peer!
Spotify is not using a regular P2P network/protocol like eMule or BitTirrent…
anyone else think their logo looks ever so slightly similar to spotify?
love daniel’s response to when will spotify become profitable! it’s a new day & the savvy investors are waking up to this fact. i don’t even think facebook is the best example. i would point to linkedin & reid hoffman. build it & they will come –> then AND only then, monetize
i can’t believe he mentions merchandising as a potential line item. that’s awesome! they really are trying to build a cult, aren’t they?
To all of you asking what’s the difference between Spotify and this or that? It’s impossible to explain until you’ve actually used it. Think of a place where you’ve got every album you could want available to play in its entirety anytime anyplace. Plus playlists and the rest. No hunting around for free vs fee tracks, or only being allowed to play via controlled playlists. Spotify is amazing, and as their music collection grows it just gets more and more cool. All that said, I wouldn’t put it past the record labels to do something stupid and wreck the momentum just as it starts to really deliver. Stupid is as stupid does.
the experience is great, I’ve used it. the issue is that the economics don’t work and they get worse with scale. if it doesn’t work and it is shut down, the labels aren’t the stupid ones here, spotify’s inverstors are
the hype on this is amazing. what’s the news here? young, cocky ceo with no business model makes hyperbolic statements in interview? feels like 1999.
how can he compare spotify to facebook? facebook’s value is not based on content owned by its partners, facebook created its own value and has no licnesing obligations. with every new user and every song play spotify incuirs licensing and technology costs. anyone remember imeem? what’t he difference? punters are suddenly going to flock to subscriptions? ala rhapsody and napster?
He’s got a chance.
agreed, he does have a chance, but not a good one.
what irks me is the media hype and spotify’s taste for the spotlight, when they really lack on the model.
@Jaggs – I dont think you’ve used the other streaming subscription services. You dont need to hunt for anything, its all clear and clean and you have access to full albums, singles, playlists, album art, content, blah blah blah.
I’m going to try out Spotify for sure but im still confused as to what makes it revolutionary or soo much better than the other streaming music services that have been around for years.
Spotify sounds like a great deal for users, but what about the Artists?
If the labels actually cooperate as opposed to aiming to collect the most money to fund exorbitant lifestyles, there will be a buck for the artists too. If the labels cooperate.
I think it is ok to be positive. But just for fun, take a look at Larry Lessig’s book “Free Culture”. The guy is the most competent copyright lawyer on the web, and he does not agree with the big media. Actually his book has a sub-title saying: “How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity”.
He’s 25????
He looks about 40 to me.
+1. Yep, too bold for someone who is 25 years old.
So by that logic, is every 25 year old more or less the same person?
I don’t mean for it to sound like I’m attacking you, but comments like these drive me loco.
I just wanted to say that the guy on photo can’t be 25 old. He looks close to 35-40 . I did not mean to offend all bold people.
Yep, another thought came to my mind: trying to sell access to the whole catalog or music subscription (is not that there business model?) is DEAD idea today.
would you join OJ Simpson if he was teaching a free football camp?
im sayin, when someone shows you what they are capable of, dont forget. the record labels have no place in the “perfect” music industry we are so close to…
they inhibit creative freedom and attack their own support system.
holy *** check their blog :
Sep 18
- Music catalogue updated with 73,226 tracks
Sep 17
- Music catalogue updated with 65,582 tracks
Sep 14
-Music catalogue updated with 111,678 tracks
and daily promotions for gifts, new albums exclusively to premium members etc
if this had success to the home of pirate bay (sweden), why not worldwide ?
By all accounts Spotify is a nifty music service. But anyone with a shred of business sense knows the economics prevent them from ever making it as a sustainable operation.
Assume 100 users and one month of activity:
9% (Ek said single digit paid subscribers) pay $10/month = $90
If free revenue is 40% and paid is 60% that means he expects to generate $60 from advertising from the other 91 users.
Total revenue is $150. Assume 50% of this money goes to pay for music royalty rates which is a HUGE *unsustainable* percentage.
Assume he pays 1 cent per song play (which is what US companies pay).
This means for $75 you get 7,500 song plays for 100 users or 75 songs per user per month which is only 2.5 songs per day/per person which is
absurd.
Say that instead of 1 cent per interactive song play they have a sweetheart deal at half that rate. Ok, now they’re up to 5 songs per day which is not a music listening service but a sampling service. Now we’ll go into pure fantasy land
and assume that they get all their servers for free, bandwidth for free, office space for free, every sales person, manager and engineer
works for free so they can give 100% of their revenue to the industry for royalties. At 1 cent per song play they would still be able to pay
for just 5 songs per user per month. If they’re paying 1/2 cent then it’s 10 songs per user per month – but remember this assumes ALL of
their revenues goes to pay for royalties. Presumably investors involved wants to generate a profit right?
I know many people love Spotify but they will go belly up as long as they have to continue to pay their per song fee.
p.s. Yes, I know Spotify charges more than $10/month – it’s closer to $16 but even fewer than 9% (the gracious number I used) will pay at $16.
i assume that given the piracy problem that the record labels will probably be accepting a very small per play fee.
and considering that spotify have raised a few quid from investors, they probably have a sustainable business plan, otherwise how on earth did they get the investment?
“how on earth did they get the investment?”
By hyping the fact that they are super-supported by the major labels (who have secretly bought shares in Spotify).
Spotify – Ponzi scheme.
You think they pay 1cent or .5cents per track? Wrong!
0.0001cents per track more like!
Spotify is a new tool for labels to rip off artists. That’s why they love it!
Exactly…so obvious…the labels are gambling that this becomes a world wide pheomena, then they’ll be able to control distribution again…beware of the wolf in sheeps clothing!
Piracy is a reaction from users not being able to access content, even for cash. Remember that file sharing is dealing with over 1,4 billion songs, while hardly more than 7 million are accessible digitally in a legal form. That means 99,5% of all music is unavailable digitally unless you are willing to “pirate”. Spotify on the contrary makes piracy legal, and will really stop all CD sales the day users stop wanting to “own” the music (for those who think they “own” the music in their CD).
Hype! Rhapsody has already been doing all of this stuff (streaming, instant play, huge selection, playlists, sharing playlists, caching, etc. etc. etc.) for years. It makes no difference if it’s peer to peer, that’s just buzzwording. All you people who claim Spotify is better have never used Rhapsody.
#1 Rhapsody (like most other similar services besides Last.fm) is US only. Most of the world lives outside the US.
#2 Rhapsody (like most other similar services) is a website and has a bunch of other issues. Lagging start of play and music which stops when you navigate from the page are two of the obvious ones.
But yes, most of what Spotify does has been done before. But Spotify does it better and makes it available to people who can’t access other services.
Rhapsody is an app as well which doesn’t have those issues. They have a website too, and there is no problem with music stopping when you navigate the site.
Ok. Still doesn’t work outside the US though, which is why I’ve never tried the app so I can compare them,
Ahh shucks I was greeted with a page saying it was not accessible where I live ,Spotify is currently available in only these countries Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain.
I think it’s going to have the opposite effect unless Spotify is planning to allow downloads.
Lets assume the majority of Spotify users have Mp3 players. How do you think they are going to get their playlists onto the devices?
Not by buying them one by one from 7Digital.com
I wrote about this check it out:
http://mobileinc.co.uk/2009/09/the-spotify-itch/
iPhone + Spotify’s offline playlists = problem solved.
Oh right because everyone that listens to Spotify has an iPhone?
It’s on Android as well… Problem solved.
Seriously though, it is an issue but it’s likely to become less of one as time passes. More and more people use connected devices for playing music and that opens up for new ways of licensing music.
I totally understand that, but until phones kill off Mp3 players which I don’t see happening for a long, long time there is no way Spotify will kill file sharing.
There are not that many IPhones or Android phones around. But there is a ****-load of Nokia music phones. When that app is out in the market things will start to happen. Although still no money for the artists. But who cares? I do.
I want to try Spotify but need an invite code. Anyone wanna share one? thejunkaccount AT google’s mail service. Thanks!
Spotify will, by giving nobody but themselves money, sink their company within a year. Bye, bye!
Spotify’s grand vision discounts the fact that major record companies are going to dissolve or become irrelevant within five years. Sure, the hundreds of smaller (read: artist-paying) labels will likely release their music on Spotify, but none of them expect to make substantial amounts of money on recordings anyway, so the countless (ad-)free alternatives have a better future ahead of them.
The artists have made so little money on their records for the past…100 years, that they really think it is normal, that you can only make money on concerts and merchandising. But where do you think the industry is making their billions? The songs are supposed to be AVAILABLE, all of them, and FOR MONEY, even if it is less than today. But eat as much as you want for 9,99 is a horrid and vile idea. Weare talking culture here, not fast-food.
“Think of a place where you’ve got every album you could want available to play in its entirety anytime anyplace. ”
Google “torrent” bro…
OK..how about this then..
“Think of a place where you’ve got every album you could want available to play in its entirety anytime anyplace. ” and the artist has at least a tiny chance of picking up a bit of money.
This actually does make a difference. I well know what torrernts are, and how to use them. I also know that for me, given full access for a tiny amount per play is a lot more palatable than filling up my hard drive, which the majors have made the current model, and makes the “80% stop filesharing” comment sound about right to me. People file-share not to steal from artists, but to gain access to their music. Give them some way to gain the access that doesn’t cost them 10’s of thousands of dollars for a reasonable catalog and they will flock to it…..as Spotify is proving.
Spotify’s grand vision discounts the fact that major record companies are going to dissolve or become irrelevant within five years.
HARD TO PREDICT THAT, or what any of that means, as far as future results, though.
THE LABELS/their successors will still control the licensing of catalog. This is where the majors are headed. They have a good ROI for their goods, and deeper pockets than any other player. They wont be going away any time soon. They’ll adapt. As stupid and short term as most of them operate, they control the content. With legal distribution under their tent, they will scrounge up the resources to survive.
No one yet has pointed out what has to change is the nature of the artist supported system. The labels used to accept all the risk of developing artists. So of course they sought 90% of the gross revenue generated from sales. Publishers have even a much bigger roi, far less overhead, and less risk. And they do far less to hunt down opportunity than any other player in the game. They’re a windfall business.
In the era of digital distribution, is it still useful to divide the “recording” income stream into so many hands? That’s open for debate.
To the extent that the Spotifys of the world help offset revenue decline accruing from loss of recording sales, the labels will morph toward that model. Its their best chance at survival. And they already have enough catalog recordings to stay afloat at least another decade. Albeit in different model specification.
///////////////
Sure, the hundreds of smaller (read: artist-paying) labels will likely release their music on Spotify, but none of them expect to make substantial amounts of money on recordings anyway, so the countless (ad-)free alternatives have a better future ahead of them.
SCALE WONT BE achieved with the Spotify model using labels that pay artists. Even in the salad days of the industry, 90% of every release did not recoup. Artists were content to let the label prosper, because it gave the artist the best shot at big money. I suspect that for every Ani Difranco, there are 1000 Elton Johns.
Sure, cost sdjustments have forced their way into the system. Cheaper recordings, fewer recordings, reduced pay, etc. But these still are the “lesser” expenses in breaking a band. Marketing and promotion are sine qua non.
You dont need much of a budget to market catalog.
Which tells us what? There will be fewer and fewer new artists breaking in the future, until more partners are found who will help share the expenses of establishing an act.
You are likely right. Fewer and fewer artists are likely to “break”. The question is..do they need to “break” all at once? Or is the fact that their music will be available for all to hear for decades somewhat offset the concept of “overnight sensation” and “1 hit wonders”?
Music performance is no longer quite as ephemeral as it once was. Yes..if I were Lily Allen I also would be worried about a market where the choice is not just her and her contemporaries…but also Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and Janis Joplin etc etc.
When you have to fight for your pennies against every singer that ever recorded the life of a “star” is not quite the cakewalk it once was. Tough. The life of an auto assembler is not what it once was either. Adapt or die.
Let people decide who has talent, not the majors. Get a fair price per song and give a fair share to the artist, instead of 0,0001%. People are able to detect talent perfectly by themselves. They don’t need a big guy to tell them what they shoul like.
Daniel Ek Just 25 year old i dont believe it, just in that age he managed to do this. He is really good, pirate bay has now some headache.
I have been using Spotify for some months now and it works fine for me. And no, it is by no means comparable to Pandora (which I was also using until it became US only…). Spotify is simple, fast and FREE. Suits my background music needs perfectly. UI is almost identical to iTunes, only that I don’t need to store files on my computer. Find music you like, drag and drop playlist creation etc. Lovely!
I would say, what Napster was for P2P, Spotify is for the next gen music service.
http://www.spotilinks.co.uk is a social web-app to receive and manage albums, playlists and audioblogposts shared by the Spotify community.
Feel free to try and provide feedback
Jeez, what pumping PR some of those startups generate. But where is essence? There is no essence. Spotify stream music for a monthly payment. Decade old idea. Broken one. Youngster don’t pay for anything.
So investors R.I.P.
Additionally, free model doesn’t have chance to be compensated with ads. Thats also old story. Average music download costs around one USD. There is no chance any advertiser will pay a dollar per listened music piece.
Do all all those investors have calculator?
I heard something in the news recently about an artist only recieving something lke £100 for 100k plays of their song on Spotify. Can’t remember the exact figures but it was something like that, seems a shame really, although I do have a lot of respect for Daniel Ek, to have created a multi million dollar company at such a young age.