💡How Spotify Beat iTunes

Hey—It’s Mohammad.

It’s a great night below freezing. But I’ve cooked up some other ideas for this newsletter.

Trying a new style. Let me know what you think.

Read Time: 7.1 minutes

📝 Case Study: How Spotify beat iTunes

The music industry was in trouble.

Napster’s piracy had devastated sales. iTunes rose as the dominant digital alternative, it wasn’t enough. People still pirated content despite iTunes or Pandora or CDs existing. There was a gap in the market and a Swedish company saw it.

Spotify was founded in 2008 and joined the US market in 2011, and it dominated the market within 1 year.

They used 4 advantages to beat iTunes on other music providers:

1. Data-Driven

2. Diversification

3. User-Experience First

4. Sharing & Personalization

Spotify is an interesting case study because they spent 3 years developing their system in Europe. The music industry was dying because of Napster’s piracy and music licensing deals. Spotify solved that issue.

People could listen to music they enjoyed, for a reasonable price, legally.

Here’s how they did it:

✍️ This week’s “Rise Above” Tip

Offer a quick, actionable tip to elevate your business:

Ask: Is it Falsifiable, Unique, Visual?

These are the questions to ask yourself when you write anything: from marketing copy to content writing to social media writing.

Let’s break it down.

Falsifiable means it can be proven wrong. It’s when you give specific numbers or information that can be verified. It forces you to put your foot down.

Unique means can only you say this? This is a good thought for any content writing. What makes you unique & write towards that.

Visual means you need to see it in your head. If someone can’t see it in their head, it’s hard to understand it.

Here’s an example Rolls Royce:

The first line: Powerful. Silent. Luxurious. The New Rolls-Royce is a truly remarkable car.

• Falsifiable? Yes, kinda. You can prove it's silent and powerful.

• Unique? No. Replace “Rolls-Royce” with any Car brand and it works

• Visual? Not really. Luxurious means different things to people.

The second line: At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock

• Falsifiable? Yes. You can drive the car 60 mph (96 kph) & hear how loud it is.

• Unique? Absolutely. What other car makers in the 1960s can say this?

• Visual? Yes! You can feel going 60 mph (96 kph)

When you write to persuade, make sure it’s Falsifiable, Unique, and Visual

🧠 Exercising Insight: Challenge for Broader Thinking

This is a quick, practical challenge to apply a cross-disciplinary approach to your business.

Take 1 piece of writing. It can be a LinkedIn post, article, essay, newsletter.

• Distill it down to 5 sentences.

• Then 3 sentences.

• Then 1 sentence.

This is what screenwriters do all the time. They take 3-hr. movies & create loglines.

Loglines are then pitches to get funding for the movie from producers.

🧩 Analogies in Action: Insights from Another Field

Forcing you to think differently about business.

When Darwin first proposed the Theory of Evolution, he saw evolution as a gradual change over eons. But Darwin had blind spots. He thought evolution was slow because he only saw the macroscale. At the microscale, evolution happens quickly.

If you view your business macroscale, evolution takes time. But if you zoom in and focus to specific teams, evolution happens faster.

It’s why smaller teams are more lean and agile than larger teams. They can pivot and adapt quickly.

Zooming in and out helps you view business growth differently. It might be slow on the macro, but at the micro, you’re adapting and growing quickly.

📚 Insightful Resource:

This week’s book, article, or video that reinforces the value of cross-industry thinking in storytelling.

This week I’m listening to the audiobook: The Innovators by Walter Isaacson

A book on How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.

It’s not technically heavy but a great read if you want to learn different business practices to innovation.

One idea I want to get across with this newsletter is this:

Every field has something valuable to teach you.

If you don’t learn from other fields, you won’t rise above your competition. You’ll stay in the same bloodsport of competition. You’ll think just like everyone else and die from obscurity.

When you apply wisdom from different fields, you rise above others because no one else is doing this. No one is applying filmmaking to the healthcare industry. No one is applying wisdom from the computer industry to marketing.

Find what interests you & let that be your launchpad so you rise above competition.

If you take nothing from this newsletter, do this.

Look outside your industry for fresh perspectives & how can you apply it to your industry.

Hope you enjoyed it!

See you next Saturday — Mohammad Khan

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