When two people began working on an advertisement-based free service that allowed users to listen to all of the music in the world in 2005, it changed the music industry forever.

Spotify was co-founded in Stockholm, Sweden by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon who had met in 2005. Despite being very different in terms of skillsets and as people, they became friends and discussed many ideas. The idea for Spotify came about when they were looking for media on Ek’s home theatre computer, which they found rather awkward. Spotify was Ek’s 4th company and the name was actually a word he misheard when Lorentzon was shouting to him from another room. There were no google search results for Spotify then, so they registered the domain name.

The application was officially launched on 7th October 2008. Mark Zuckerberg was an early fan as one of his Facebook status’ in summer 2009 read “Spotify is so good”. By 2011 they’d amassed a million paid subscribers and it was only that summer that they launched in the United States. After Ek met Zuckerberg over a beer in Zuckerberg’s garden, Spotify launched integration with Facebook to show friends what users are listening to. This resulted in strong growth for Spotify and an increased lead over competitors.

Further partnerships with Uber, allowing users to play their music in their cab rides and a 50% discount for college students keeps Spotify ahead of its rivals. It now boasts over 75 million users, of which 20 million use its paid service.