How Spotify was saved by a woman and a lawyer

Mary Winter White says that one should never binge, Tweet at night, or code in Java. But there are exceptions. One of them is "The Playlist" a documentary on the birth of Spotify. Yes I have been binging last night. Was it good? If you are a student or a fledging CTO this is a must watch. It is directed by Per-Olav S?rensen. You can recognize many Stockholm-city landmarks in it. The party-Berns hotel, the stairwells of Kungsgatan, and so on. Should you watch it? Yes, because apart of all the noise and theatricals, in episode 3, minute 43 you can see how the lead-lawyer Petra - played by Gizem Erdogan from Love and Anarchy, saves a sinking Spotify by pitching the Freemium business model model to a then sceptic Daniel Ek - ceo role played by Edvin Endre. What is genius about it? While the Freemium model is now ubiquitous - after all it was invented in 1980, this model was not really popular for Apps until later in 2009. Yet another example of how thinking diversity pays-off, and not just because gender fairness. Once the Spotify biz model found product-market fit, the startup went on to become Europe's most iconic unicorn. It's impact was only surpassed by design-thinking champion SAP AG from Germany. My respect for Spotify has since then only grown mostly thanks to Apple Music's **spectacular** multiple failures to recommend any meaningful songs to their subscribers. But remember, it all started with the point of view of an outsider.