Startups and Persistence: Soundcloud Launches Premium

At startups events I am often asked about important qualities in the character of founders. Persistence strikes me as crucial. Startups have many setbacks along the way and possibly even near death experiences. Only someone with persistence will be able to come back from those and keep plugging away. A great story in our portfolio in this regard is the team at Soundcloud.

Yesterday, Soundcloud launched their premium service Soundcloud Go, which combines an offline ad-free experience, the catalog of the major music labels, and all the amazing longtail content that’s unique to Soundcloud. This allows you to create playlists that range from Abba to Zappa and yet also include tracks by emerging artists (and even tracks by our kids!).

Getting there has been a long and arduous journey that required protracted negotiations with music labels over the course of three years. Yes, launching Soundcloud Go was three years in the making. And now of course it just the beginning or rolling it out and delivering a great experience for users. That’s a perfect example of the kind of persistence required in startups.