Chief Freemium Business Officer at Spotify, Alex Norstrom: The Power of Setting Impossible Goals
Grit30 Maj 2022

Chief Freemium Business Officer at Spotify, Alex Norstrom: The Power of Setting Impossible Goals

When Alex Norstrom started working at Spotify in 2011, CEO Daniel Ek told him there were three goals: Growth, growth, and growth. But Alex — now the Chief Freemium Business Officer — argued that his team would be better motivated by an “impossible goal,” something like reaching 100 million users. To which Daniel replied: “Let’s do it. Your goal is to get us to 100 million users. Please begin.”


In this episode, Alex and Joubin convene at Spotify’s brand-new Stockholm studio to discuss his first job, the “shadow” mentorship program Alex runs, how Facebook changed everything for the gaming company King, thinking about the “bigger picture,” the tremendous effort happening behind the scenes before Spotify launched in each new country, “optimizing for surprises,” Joubin’s embarrassing Spotify playlists, why we’re still in the early innings of podcasting, Alex’s lowest point at Spotify, partnering with FC Barcelona, and culture as currency.


In this episode, we cover:

  • The surprising lack of media coverage of Alex despite his prominence at Spotify (05:56)
  • Working at his mother’s Chinese restaurant and his relationship with food (12:21)
  • The early “fiascos” in Alex’s career, and how he came to work at Candy Crush Saga creator King (18:01)
  • How Spotify CEO Daniel Ek convinced Alex to work for him (25:38)
  • Why Alex has tried to set “impossible goals” since his first day at Spotify (28:40)
  • Why the freemium business model works (34:21)
  • Spotify’s hardest and biggest market: The USA (38:39)
  • Pivoting to a mobile-first strategy and the pricing trick that turned conversion numbers around (42:59)
  • The invention of Discover Weekly, and Spotify’s deep bench of other features (51:21)
  • How Spotify got interested in podcasts, and the decision to put them in the same app with music (57:50)
  • The odd but crucial lesson Alex learned early in his career: Stay near the laughter (01:06:46)
  • Being ubiquitous on many platforms, and the art of pitching big & partnering smart (01:09:05)
  • The end of free growth on the internet, and the power of Spotify Wrapped (01:15:07)

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Chief Sales and Success Officer at Slack, Bob Frati: Exploring Slack’s Key Growth Levers and Competition

Chief Sales and Success Officer at Slack, Bob Frati: Exploring Slack’s Key Growth Levers and Competition

In Episode #1 of Go to Market Grit, Slack’s SVP of Sales and Customer Success, Bob Frati, gives the inside scoop about the company’s sales and go-to-market strategy, and why they have been able to scale their go to market so quickly and effectively over the last few years. Bob and Joubin discuss two key topics in detail, outlining the next four years for Slack and key growth levers they can pull, along with growing competition in Slack’s market and what that means for their future. In this episode of Go to Market Grit, we cover: Key growth levers for Slack, and why the company is positioned for continued market dominance.Slack’s response to growing market competition, and why it’s ultimately better for the consumer and for the company.How Slack identified a business need and strong product market fit, and then worked to expand the solution to a broader audience. The importance of having a strong and developed customer-facing team to navigate complexities in large enterprises, and push business forward to completion.How Slack grew its sales team from 300 to 2,000 people — quickly, and effectively. Some of the factors that Slack looks for when hiring customer-facing sales staff, and why they value these characteristics.Why hiring should be a mutual fit for both the candidate and the employer.Identifying motivated individuals, and finding ways to tap into their motivation that will drive them to be successful. Bob’s career journey from sales rep to manager — including why and how he executed the leap. Why much of Slack’s success can be attributed to tight collaboration between its engineering, product, sales, and success teams. Slack’s ability to not only deploy a solution in an organization, but to help manage through the change and ensure success — and why this is a game-changer.Slack’s role in ushering a new way of working, and why it transcends the tired and overused digital transformation narrative in business.Links Host company: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/Loom: https://www.loom.com/ Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rfrati/Host Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoubinmirHost Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com

16 Juni 202050min

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About the Joubin MirzadeganJoubin has been with Kleiner Perkins since 2019 where he advises the KP portfolio companies on how to build and scale a robust go-to-market strategy. Additionally, he enables the firm’s portfolio through high impact relationships with F500 executives and key ecosystem partners. Joubin was previously at Palo Alto Networks as a global district sales manager for the Central US based in Chicago where he scaled the Central Cloud business from 1 enterprise rep and $2M ARR to 12 reps and $50M+ ARR in 4 quarters. He has also worked for Evident.io as an enterprise account executive and at Bracket Computing (acquired by VMWare) where he built the inside sales team from the ground up.

20 Apr 202045s

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