Product growth Case study
Collaborators : Shubham Parekh, Sonakshi Verma, Harsh Raghuwanshi
CONTENTS
About Spotify
Spotify is a digital music, podcast, and video service that gives you access to millions of songs and other content from creators all over the world.
Founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, it is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 551 million monthly active users, including 220 million paying subscribers.
MARKET RESEARCH
Spotify in 2023 leads by -
44% of users listen to Spotify on a daily basis (Goodwater Capital)
Spotify currently has 5 Mn podcasts & 100 Mn songs in its library with 60,000 songs added everyday.
Competitor Analysis
Job To Be Done
Functional: To discover, enjoy and share music according to our mood and activity.
Social: To share and connect music with friends and demonstrate social status.
Emotional Job:
USER PERSONAS
Samantha PrABHu, Music Enthusiast
Age - 29
Profession - Sr. Consultant, LinkedIn
Location - Bangalore
Favorite Genres - Pop, Rock, Indie, Rap
Favorite Artists - Harry Styles, Coldplay, Prateek Kuhad, Badshah
Frequency of Usage - Daily, 3-4 hours
Likes to streams music whether on the go, working out or just relaxing at home. Lives with flatmates with whom she enjoys karaoke nights and jam sessions every weekend. Always on the look for niche and experimental music to curate playlists and share with friends and family. Additionally, likes to keep a tab on her favorite artists’ tours and new albums.
MOTIVATiONS
1. To listen to her curated playlists to match her mood and activity, be it commuting or working out.
2. To switch between different devices seamlessly in between songs.
3. To easily share or collaborate on music or playlist with friends.
4. To keep a tab on her favorite artists’ tours and new albums.
FRUSTRATIONS
1. Hard to integrate new music discovered outside of spotify to her app memory.
2. For songs from different regions, lyrics show up in only the native language.
3. Genres do not show up, which makes it hard to sort new music in her curated playlists.
4. New releases or live launches of her favorite artists’ cannot be streamed.
Jake mendez, Music Artist (Indie)
Age - 22
Profession - Singer, Songwriter, Performer
Location - New York
Favorite Genres - Country, Pop, R&B
Albums - After Hours
Upcoming Tours - Chicago, IL, Denver, CO, Austin, TX
Jake discovered his love for music while strumming his dad's old guitar in his childhood bedroom. He's a self-taught musician, juggling gigs at local cafes and a part-time job to pursue his dream of making heartfelt, acoustic-driven music. With Spotify, he's found a platform that amplifies his talent, connects him with a global audience, and helps him reach listeners who resonate with his unique sound. It also provides him a means to promote his upcoming shows and events.
MOTIVATiONS
1. Dreams to go mainstream by releasing solos and albums along with collabs with other artists.
2. To diversify his income stream through multiple channels
3. Being a millenial artist, wants to use digital first tools to create, publish & get discovered by fans.
4. Social element of spotify and analytics tools helps understand the audience better to create and curate better music.
FRUSTRATIONS
1. Unable to reach the target audience and improve discoverability.
2. Revenues at Spotify are very low for new artists.
3. Artists are required to have a third-party distributor to upload songs to Spotify.
4. No avenue to sell tickets for shows directly on Spotify.
(Retd) Lt Gen Vikram Batra, POdcast creator
Age - 60
Location - Chandigarh
Hobbies - Reading, Writing, Gardening
Subject Expertise - Strategic and Military Affairs, Geo-politics.
Favorite Books - Grand Chessboard, Future of Land Warfare
Frequency of Podcasts- Twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays)
Lt Gen Vikram Batra’s podcast is a valuable resource for getting a deeper understanding of India’s strategic challenges, geopolitics and military affairs. He’s an avid writer who occasionally pens articles on military history and enjoys meticulous research and scripts for each episode of his podcast. He actively engages with his audience, and promotes the podcast on social media and through collaborations which also add to his retirement funds.
MOTIVATiONS
1. To be able to get feedback and engage with the audience through QnAs and Polls.
2. To be able to host, record and edit podcasts along with other spotify users online on spotify itself.
3. To be able to monetise the podcast through various streams like ads, merch, patreon links.
4. To be able to customise podcasts through promotional banners, host recommendation and best place to start.
FRUSTRATIONS
1. Options to get live feedback or open comments are not available.
2. Sharing snippet’s from one’s podcasts on other social media platform for promotions are unavailable.
3. Avenues for monetization are few, especially for small or newer podcasters.
4. Technical glitches when uploading episodes across platforms and poor customer support.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING
We are focusing on listeners as the primary user persona because they consist of the majority of Spotify’s user base. Understanding listener behavior and preferences is key to delivering a great user experience and ensuring Spotify remains competitive and innovative.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING
NORTH STAR METRICS OF SPOTIFY
No. of paid subscribers (REVENUE)
Podcast consumption hours (ENGAGEMENT)
Monthly Active Users
(ENGAGEMENT)
Spotify’s important business performance metric
Metric for Podcast as a sub-product
Metric for Freemium & Ad Supported users
Problems and Prioritization
The following problems were found through user research and investigation. Prioritization of the problems are done based on how closely they drive the north star metrics of spotify.
PROBLEM | CRITICALITY |
Genre doesn't show up for any song | Not Critical |
Cannot preview any song without the app | Somewhat Critical |
Cannot close the player completely while using the app | Not Critical |
No integration of radio | Somewhat Critical |
Only connects with fb contacts | Somewhat Critical |
Spotify Canvas- Music Videos are limited to 3-8 seconds | Critical |
Live releases/Song launch not available | Critical |
Lyrics in only 1 lingual script | Somewhat Critical |
Spotify sharing on instagram does not play the audio | Somewhat Critical |
Cannot detect songs playing outside spotify like Shazam | Critical |
Doesn’t show how many likes on a particular song. | Not Critical |
Remote Listening group has limited no. of participants (only 7) | Not Critical |
Listeners does not find existing playlists good enough for them. | Critical |
Acquisition
Cannot preview a particular song without the app
Preview song on the browser without logging in
Opportunities
Solutions
ACTIVATION
Opportunities
Solutions
Limited friend connectivity, relies only on Fb contacts
Enable integration with phonebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Listeners seek more personalized and engaging playlists.
Generate on demand customized playlists by considering mood, activity, location and language.
Inability to identify songs being played outside of Spotify
Implement Shazam-style song recognition functionality.
RETENTION
Opportunities
Solutions
Lack of functionality to translate lyrics to sing along.
Provide lyrics to enable users to sing along in their preferred language.
No option to watch music video with playback.
Enhance support for long-format music videos on Spotify.
Users lack a convenient mode of music discovery
Partnering with radio stations to stream their shows on spotify
Live releases/ launch not available
Live song releases/album launch premiers
Referral
Audio playback unavailable when a song is shared from spotify to instagram or whatsapp.
Ability to stream preview of song by embedding spotify player with Insta/WhatsApp etc. along with option to take user to spotify app to listen to full song
Opportunities
Solutions
Growth and Engagement METRICS
Acquisition
Growth -
Growth -
Engagement -
Activation
Retention
Growth -
Engagement -
Referral
Growth -
Revenue
Growth -
Growth LOOP
SPOTIFY WRAP
Engagement LOOP
PERSONALISED RECOMMENDATIONS
Prioritization of Solutions�Through ICE Framework
Solution | Impact | Effort | Confidence | Prioritization |
Improving spotify integration with instagram, FB, Whatsapp etc | 4 | 3 | 5 | P3 |
Connect to /Recommend contacts from phone, instagram, whatsapp | 3 | 2 | 4 | P4 |
Shazam like song recognition | 4 | 3 | 5 | P3 |
Preview a particular song without login for non users (on web) | 3 | 1 | 3 | P2 |
Generate a playlist based on mood, activity, location and language. | 4 | 2 | 5 | P1 |
Radio Integration | 3 | 3 | 5 | P5 |
Longer format music videos | 3 | 1 | 3 | P2 |
Translate Lyrics in multiple language | 2 | 1 | 3 | P4 |
Live Song releases | 3 | 1 | 4 | P0 |
WIREFRAMES
P0 - Live Song releases
P1 - On Demand playlist generation
P2 - Longer format videos
P3 - song detection on the lines of Shazam