""We didn't have much money in the bank," recalls former CEO Joe Kennedy."
""People were getting to the end of their trial, and hacking around [to keep] listening," says an early employee who spoke to Fast Company on the condition of anonymity. "It was very clear that we were onto something.""
""They were never going to give us deals that were going to allow us to succeed," says the early employee about the major labels. "They just hated us.""
Pandora launched its music service in late summer 2005 with a paywall offering ten free hours per month before subscription. Low conversion rates and users circumventing trial limits prompted a rapid pivot to a free, ad-supported model. The ad-supported model produced explosive growth, peaking at more than 81 million monthly listeners. Over the following decade Pandora experienced steady decline, losing millions of monthly users and averaging around 43 million this spring. Competition from Spotify contributed to the downturn, but missed opportunities, flawed strategic pivots, and adversarial relationships with major record labels also undermined long-term success.
Read at Fast Company
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