Episode 9 - Transcript I’m Gustav Söderström. I head up product, engineering, data and design for Spotify. And this is the season finale of Spotify: A Product Story. On this show, we’ve brought you the untold stories behind Spotify’s biggest product launches -- from building a full-stack solution that let us stream audio faster than ever before: Daniel Ek: Already from day one, the ambition was always to revolutionize the music industry. It was never about being a so, so start up. To inventing, and then re-inventing, our entire business model just in time for the smartphone revolution: Petra Hansson: The access model and subscription, I think that scared the music rights holders a little bit. To entering the realm of hardware, and upending some conventions along the way: Nicole Burrow: You have to just stay focused on the end user. Like, for them it's about getting what they're playing from their device to their speaker. It's just important that the experience remains consistent for them. To pioneering the machine-learning that helps you find your next favorite song: Ajay Kalia: We were seeing like a 100 percent increase, like 2x increase. Like I've never seen numbers that high in a first test in Spotify and probably never will again. In retrospect, these decisions often look obvious. But that’s only because they worked -- you might know this as “survivor bias”. But in the moment, they are absolutely not obvious -- at all. And that’s really what this episode is about. Because on today’s show, we’re going to talk about what we’re up to right now. Which means, we don’t know how it’s all going to work out yet, or exactly what the product strategy lessons will be. But we do know which bets we’re making, and why we’re making them. And we know how we’re applying the lessons we’ve learned since day one in new and unexpected ways. 1 Episode 9 - Transcript So, keep listening for our plans for the future of audio, the work we’ve been doing for years in order to lay the foundation, and the brand new formats that we’re launching today, to make this vision a reality. (02:05) << Derry Connection: A Stephen King Podcast >> Maya Prohovnik: Welcome to the fourth episode of my Stephen King podcast. I am already mad at everyone. My name is Maya and I like to talk about Stephen King. Meet Maya Prohovnik. Maya Prohovnik: I run the R&D team for what we call the Podcaster Mission within Spotify. So I oversee the product, engineering and design teams who are responsible for building all of our podcast creator tools. Now, we’ve already talked about how we’re investing in highly produced exclusive and original podcasts through acquisitions like Gimlet and The Ringer and licensing deals with celebrities ranging from Barack and Michelle Obama to Kim Kardashian. And we are obviously very excited to hear what these partnerships bring to the medium. But what might be the most exciting thing of all is that that’s only one part of how we’re trying to push the boundaries of podcasting. Because we’re also creating the tools that regular people like Maya are using to launch their shows, and in the process making podcasting more accessible for everyone. Maya actually has three podcasts. Maya Prohovnik: As a product person, I always feel like I have to get to know the people who are making the -- whatever product I'm building and really understand their pain points. So I made -- I have many different podcasts because I wanted to experience all the different ways of creating. First, there’s the Stephen King show you heard a minute ago, called “The Derry Connection”. Maya Prohovnik: And that one I have -- I have a professional producer for and I do the whole -- I use a professional microphone. I get really impressive guests who are 2 Episode 9 - Transcript experts in Stephen King. So that's probably my most, like, serious -- well, it's a pretty goofy podcast, but that's the one that I try the hardest on. And then, there’s “Time Share” -- a stream of consciousness podcast about Maya’s favorite book; an 800 page sci-fi novel called “Children of Time.” Maya Prohovnik: Every single episode we make someone read the entire book. And it's cool because every guest has a different take on the book. It’s just one of those, like, people have very different perspectives on what it is trying to say. And finally, Maya’s third podcast is called “Blood on Their Hands” and it’s a reality tv recap show that she hosts with her husband. Maya Prohovnik: So that one we record entirely on our phones, it's all mobile, no professional microphones and no editing. So it's, you know, pretty -- pretty wild. << Blood On Their Hands: A Big Brother Fancast >> Maya Prohovnik: Hi Erik! Erik Price: Hi Maya! Maya Prohovnik: Should we tell them what we just said? Erik Price: Yeah. Maya Prohovnik: I said to Erik we can’t keep doing our same annoying intro every time because it’s going to scare people away and Erik said “it doesn’t matter”. It’s true -- our real fans get it, you know? If you aren’t familiar with Big Brother -- it is widely considered to be one of the first, and by many one of the absolute worst -- reality TV shows of all time. Which of course is the basis of its appeal. I myself have watched my fair share of Big Brother over the years. Maya Prohovnik: And we've built this really cool community of people from all over the country, who are into this stupid reality show. And so every week, not only are we talking about the eviction and the strategy in the House and what's going on, but we have this group of people who call in every single week with their own takes and sort of predictions. So to me, even though that's the least professional podcast that I do, that's the one that I feel like is closest to my heart. Because I think it really shows the value of, you know, getting to talk about something that you're passionate about, find other people who are passionate and want to not only hear you talk about it, but want 3 Episode 9 - Transcript to respond -- that's part of why I'm so excited about getting to innovate on the format of podcasting and give creators new ways to connect with and get to know their audiences. It's just something that's been really magical for me going through that experience. You might be surprised to hear that Maya’s last podcast best represents where we think audio is headed. It’s all driving towards less friction and more interactivity. And Maya’s team is leading the way by rolling out new features -- like in-app polls and Q&As -- that let listeners engage with the podcast creators directly. Maya Prohovnik: Every time we talk to creators, it's very clear that no matter what tier or what type of creator you are, the most important thing is not just getting people to listen. Like you don't just want numbers in your analytics dashboard. You want to know who these people are and where they are and why they're listening and what they want to hear and what they think about what you're saying. So I think giving creators all of these different ways to get feedback from their audience is going to be really a game changer. Because what Maya is describing -- the desire to turn podcasting into a genuine dialogue between hosts and listeners -- is something podcasters have wanted to do for a long time. And over the years they’ve come up with some creative workarounds. Like how Maya slots voice messages from listeners into her show. But historically, true interactivity simply wasn’t an option with the tools available to podcasters. You could even say that -- by definition -- interactivity has been impossible for podcasts. But as we’ll explain, we think all of that is about to change. Maya Prohovnik: We're not necessarily just making podcasts anymore. We're making audio. And I think that's a whole new world of use cases and ways to express yourself that haven't really been possible before. (07:05) 4 Episode 9 - Transcript The story behind the interactive tools Maya’s team is launching really begins in 2014 -- when not that many people even knew what a podcast was. And when Mike Mignano and Nir Zicherman started an audio company called Anchor. Mike Mignano: My co-founder Nir and I had both loved audio and we felt like there was a gap in the market where it wasn't easy for creators to express themselves through audio, and it wasn't easy for consumers to consume compelling content via audio. Yes, podcasts existed at the time, but they were still small and growing. That was the big insight early on from Nir and me around Anchor. It was: let's just make this easier and let's put it in a place, a platform, where it wasn't constrained to the limitations of something like a podcast. Because Mike and Nir didn’t want to just make podcasts. In fact, they were so adamant that what they were doing wasn’t part of the podcasting landscape, that they didn’t even want to call Anchor a podcasting app.