Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon founded Spotify (music SaaS) in 2008 with the goal of disrupting the music industry.
They now have approx. 100 million paid subscribers:
This post explains…
You’ve given me the greatest gift possible.
You’re only truly scarce resource.
The one thing that you can never get back: your attention.
I have your permission to reach out in the chance of gaining your attention for a couple of minutes each day.
And I don’t take that privilege lightly. Which is why I sit here each morning at 6:30 am to write these emails to you.
If permission leads to attention, what does attention drive?
Ultimately… commerce.
Permission -> Attention -> Commerce
I know that if I add enough value to you through these emails you may buy something from me or something that I recommend.
Spotify took this to a whole new level in 2015. They hired rap connoisseur Tuma Basa to curate one of their playlists: RapCaviar.
Within three months he had grown it to over three million subscribers, then nine million subscribers after three years.
If Tuma adds a new artist to the 50 tracks refreshed on Friday, they are big by Monday (this happened with Cardi B).
Spotify doesn’t need to buy or run ads on a media property (magazine, radio or tv) as they already have the permission and attention of their 217m monthly active users.
They have 9 million people logging into their app each week to review Tuma’s latest playlist updates.
And of course, they know the right triggers to spark commerce, with free subscribers exposed to ads every 3 songs and limited to just 6 skips.
What did we learn?
Remember: Permission -> Attention -> Commerce