What do you know about Spotify, which gives you easy access to millions of songs? What is the story of Spotify's founding?
Born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1983, Daniel Ek was born into a middle-class family. A very successful student, Ek spent his youth in a small area called Rasgsved. He completed his high school education at IT-Gymnasiet.
After high school, he continued his university education at the Royal Swedish Institute of Technology. He was an engineering student here, but that didn't last long. Like many other successful entrepreneurs, he dropped out of university and paved the way for spending more time on his entrepreneurial life.
Music has always had a special place in Daniel Ek's family life. Especially his grandmother and grandfather were very interested in music. His grandfather was a jazz pianist while his grandmother was an opera singer.
Daniel Ek, who opened his eyes in a family full of music, started to play simple pieces with the guitar when he was 4 years old. When he started primary school, his music teacher immediately noticed this light in him. For the rest of his life, Ek composed his own pieces alongside his work.
Daniel Ek had a curious personality who was constantly thinking and contemplating new ideas. This part of his personality was starting to show even when he was just 13 years old. His interest in the Internet led him to design his first website at the age of 13. Thus, for the first time in his life, he began to earn money.
When he was 14 years old, he improved himself in this regard. He learned C++ and HTML CGI programming languages on his own. With the knowledge and talent he gained, he started to prepare websites for people. Earlier, it only made 100-200 dollars, but in a very short time, it started to earn big enough to surprise everyone.
At the age of 15, he was making an average of $50,000 a month from his website creation business. Even so, he had more income than his parents combined.
Thinking he had enough knowledge, he applied for a job at Google at the age of 16. But Google did respond to Daniel Ek that said he should finish college first. The negative response he got prompted him to try harder instead of demoralizing him.
Became a Taxpayer at a Young Age
By the age of 18, Daniel Ek had become a young entrepreneur, employing 30 people. According to the letter from the Stockholm Tax Office during those years, Daniel had become an additional taxpayer.
He was very confident that his future was bright and that he would become a successful person. He knew his potential. He had become a self-confident person with the experiences he gained at a young age.
In order to have a more serious experience besides his own job, he got a job in a Swedish company called Tradera in 2006. While working here, he also took part in various positions in other companies. He continued to rapidly increase his experience in entrepreneurship.
He Founded His First Company, Advertigo
With Tradera, he obtained a lot of information about the market he was in. Thus, he took his first step towards entrepreneurship by establishing an advertising company called Advertigo. Advertigo, which rose rapidly in the same year, was bought by a Swedish digital marketing company called Tradedouble. This initiative has been an important source of motivation for Daniel Ek in his business life.
Became a Millionaire at 23
The first thing Daniel Ek, who became a 23-year-old millionaire after selling his company, was to buy a red Ferrari. During these years, he became an important figure in Stockholm's nightlife. He was having fun in the most famous and elite venues with his friends circle that changed in an instant. But this situation was not as pleasant for Daniel Ek as it seemed from the outside.
In an interview he gave, he explained that he was depressed at the time. Ek stated that he had a difficult time psychologically when he realized that his close circle did not actually love him and that he was only friends with him for his money.
In Seclusion Discovered Spotify
Daniel Ek briefly became CEO of μTorrent after selling Advertigo. After μTorrent was sold, it ended this task. Thanks to the experience he gained in business life, he achieved many successes at a young age and became a widely recognized name. His wealth was enough to run his entire life. But he had not yet established his dream company, on which he could carry his name like a signature.
After leaving the CEO of μTorrent, he started thinking about a new idea. That idea was Spotify.
First, he decided to change the order of his life. He took the first step in this change by selling his luxury home and Ferrari. He then cleared his mind by living in a small cottage outside the city. At the same time, the idea of Spotify in his mind constantly excited him. Even during his seclusion, he was still seeing Martin Lorentzon, one of the founding partners of Spoitfy today.
Aimed to End Pirated Music
In 2005, pirated music was becoming more and more common. Daniel felt that something had to be done about it. The protection of the law was clogged in one place, and something else was needed to stop it.
He thought that if a very high quality platform was established and provided a better service to people, the demand for pirated music would decrease. Thus, the foundations of Spotify were laid in 2006. Market research took 2 years. In 2008, Daniel Ek launched Spotify with his partner Martin Lorentzon.
The company, which made agreements with many big music companies in 2008, aimed to make a quick entrance to the market. But all did not go as planned, and Daniel and Martin lost $5 million in the first year.
Finding investors was not easy for Spotify, as it is in every entrepreneurship story. So much so that there were days when Daniel Ek had to sleep at the door of investors.
The biggest reason for their $5 million loss was that Spotify could only be used with an invitation system. This system was necessary to control the growth rate of the platform.
In 2009, the invitation system was temporarily disabled. However, Spotify, which faced greater interest than expected, had to return to the invitation system again.
Mark Zuckerberg was among the people who liked Spotify during this period. In a post he shared on Facebook in 2009, he made statements praising Spotify.
Soon after, Spotify gave up the invitation system completely and created the membership system. While some privileges are given to members, some restrictions have been introduced for non-members. Although some users were uncomfortable with these new regulations, the number of users of the application continued to increase.