History
Initiated: 23rd April 2006
Daniel Ek, former CTO of Stardoll, and Martin Lorentzon, co-founder of Tradedoubler, created Spotify in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden. According to Ek, Lorentzon’s name was yelled and the company’s name was misheard. Later, they devised an etymology based on the words “spot” and “identify.”
Spotify started public registration for the free service tier in the United Kingdom in February 2009. Following the launch of the mobile service, Spotify decided to suspend enrollment for the free service in September, reverting to an invitation-only approach in the UK. In July 2011, Spotify launched in the United States, with a six-month free ad-supported trial period during which new customers may listen to an unlimited quantity of music. The free trial periods began to expire in January 2012, and users were limited to ten hours of streaming per month and five plays each song.
In April 2016, Ek and Lorentzon issued an open letter to Swedish legislators requesting action on three issues they said were impeding Spotify’s ability to recruit top talent as the business grew: flexible housing, improved programming and development education, and stock options. To compete in a global market, Ek and Lorentzon argued that lawmakers needed to respond with new regulations, or thousands of Spotify jobs will be relocated from Sweden to the United States.
In February 2017, Spotify announced a substantial expansion of its US operations at 4 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York City, with about 1,000 new employees and 832 current ones. The company’s US headquarters are in the Flatiron District of New York City.
The business announced 13 new markets in the MENA area on November 14, 2018, including the establishment of a new Arabic hub and numerous playlists, as well as support for right-to-left text in its applications.
Products
Spotify’s mobile and tablet clients are available for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Spotify also provides an official, but unsupported, version of the service for Linux users. Spotify Connect is a proprietary protocol that allows users to listen to music across a variety of entertainment equipment, including speakers, receivers, TVs, automobiles, and smartwatches. Spotify offers a web player as well (open.spotify.com). The online player, unlike the applications, does not allow you to download songs for offline listening. Spotify became available as a Windows Store app in June 2017.
Music may be viewed or searched for on Spotify’s apps using different parameters such as artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label. Users may create, edit, and share playlists, as well as post music on social media and collaborate on playlists. Spotify has over 70 million songs, 2.2 million podcasts, and 4 billion playlists to choose from.
CEO/ Founder
CEO: Daniel Ek
Daniel Ek (born February 21, 1983) is a Swedish scientist and millionaire entrepreneur. Ek is best known for co-founding and leading the music streaming service Spotify. Ek graduated from IT-Gymnasiet in Sundbyberg in 2002 and went on to KTH Royal Institute of Technology to study engineering before dropping out to focus on his IT profession.
Ek’s first venture into the business world came when he was 13 years old, when he launched a home-based business building websites for clients. He charged the first customer $100, then charged the second client $200. He eventually raised his prices to $5,000 per website. To help grow the company, Ek bribed pupils in his class to work on websites in the school computer lab in exchange for video games. By the age of 18, he was supervising a staff of 25 people and making $50,000 each month. When Ek began bringing huge TVs home, his parents were aware of his earnings.
Ek later worked as a senior executive at Tradera, a Nordic auction firm that was bought by eBay in 2006. Ek was also the CTO of Stardoll, a browser-based game and fashion community. Ek went on to found Advertigo, a firm that specializes in internet advertising. In 2006, Advertigo was acquired by TradeDoubler.
Following the sale of Advertigo, Ek temporarily served as CEO of Torrent, along with founder Ludvig Strigeus. This came to an end on December 7, 2006, when Torrent was sold to BitTorrent. Strigeus would go on to work for Ek as a Spotify developer later on. After a few months, he recognized he needed a new project, which led to the creation of Spotify. When peer-to-peer music provider Napster went down in 2002 and another illicit site Kazaa took hold, Ek conceived the concept for Spotify.
Net Worth
Net Worth: $10 Billion
The nest is estimated to be worth $10 billion in 2021. Spotify’s popularity based on the company’s freemium business strategy, enebaling the company to expand the company while simultaneously generating money. It provides customers with unrestricted service packages, despite the fact that the majority of its competitors do not.