Spotify Product Leadership Plan: Mission, Priorities and Multi-Year Bets

You have just become Head of Product at Spotify. What goals would you set for the product, and what strategies would you use to reach them? ```hint Start from how the money moves Before naming any feature, work out where Spotify's revenue comes from, where most of it goes, and which groups the platform has to keep happy at once; let that shape which goals matter most. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should the goals cover the next year, or a three-to-five-year horizon? - Does my remit include the artist, podcaster and advertiser sides of the platform, or only the listener app? - Are podcasts and audiobooks mine to expand or scale back, or should I treat them as fixed and focus on music? - Is the company currently weighting profitability or user growth more heavily? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A short diagnosis of Spotify's position: business model, margin pressure, competitors and the groups it serves - Three or four prioritized goals, with a north-star metric and guardrails - A concrete strategy for each goal, including what the plan deliberately leaves out - Trade-offs between listeners, creators, advertisers and margin - Sequencing over time, the main risks, and how progress would be reviewed ### Follow-up Questions - If you could keep only one goal this year, which would it be, and why? - How would you tell within two quarters whether the spoken-word bet is paying off? - A rival starts bundling music at no extra cost into a broader subscription. What changes in your plan?