1/ Highlights and takeaways from Spotify, $SPOT, presentation's at the Bank of America Conference, 9/10/2010, below

The Company is led by founder, Daniel Ek, whose interview on @InvestLikeBest provides background on his vision https://open.spotify.com/episode/3eGF6pKazFiCe9n5C0wd4i

2/ Paul Vogel was promoted to CFO in late 2019, succeeding Barry McCarthy, who joined SPOT from Netflix, $NFLX, and spearheaded The Company's direct listing

During its first two years as a public company, SPOT developed credibility from their investors

https://twitter.com/bizalmanac/status/1303516456215343104?s=20

3/ SPOTs revenue per user (ARPU) has decreased as they experiment with Family and Student plans as well as with different bundles

Vogel claims that subscriber lifetime value / acquisition costs (sAC) has remained constant between 2.5x - 3x through the various promotion efforts

4/ Spotify launched in Russia and 12 other Eastern European markets in July 2020 with great success

https://investors.spotify.com/financials/press-release-details/2020/Spotify-Launches-in-Russia-and-12-Additional-European-Markets/default.aspx

5/ The Company credits product improvements and their podcast efforts for increasing growth in North America in the first half of 2020 compared to the first half of 2019

6/ SPOT followed their acquisitions of podcast creation tool, Anchor, and podcast studio, Gimlet, by signing Joe Rogan, Bill Simmons / The Ringer and Michelle Obama to exclusive content deals in 2020, suggesting their podcast strategy is bearing fruit

https://investors.spotify.com/financials/press-release-details/2019/Spotify-Announces-Strategic-Acquisitions-to-Accelerate-Growth-in-Podcasting/default.aspx

7/ The Company evaluates podcast investments by the expected return on advertising dollars as well as increased user engagement and growth

As Spotify continues to execute and launch exclusive content, the better they will be able to forecast returns on podcasts investments

8/ Similar to Netflix expanding their content's reach by offering subtitles on a popular regional show, SPOT is dubbing popular podcasts to broaden their audiences

9/ The Company is using Joe Rogan's show to experiment with live video podcasting, which they think has huge potential

10/ Spotify is applying the same discovery algorithms from their music service to their podcasting platform, enhancing users experiences, increasing engagement and potential advertising revenues

11/ Omnicom agreed to buy $20mm worth of podcast advertisement on Spotify's platform in the second half of 2020, the largest podcast advertisement deal ever

The Company may offer their podcast advertising technology to third parties in the future

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/353460/spotify-snags-20-million-podcast-ad-deal-with-omn.html

12/ @ZettaVentures introduced me to the concept of data as a competitive advantage

SPOT exudes data as a competitive advantage as they have amassed the largest data set of music preferences globally, which attracts advertising dollars

13/ The top decile of artists, based on earnings generated through Spotify, expanded 43% y/y in 2020 Q2, demonstrating their growth in content and increasingly powerful discovery algorithms (if you like this you'll like that) and playlists

14/ The Company's two-sided marketplace allows labels to increase their audience by leveraging SPOT's discovery tools

UMG signed on an as anchor two-sided marketplace customer in 07/2020, as they renewed their royalty deal with Spotify

https://investors.spotify.com/financials/press-release-details/2020/Spotify-and-Universal-Music-Group-Announce-Global-Multi-Year-License-Agreement/default.aspx

15/ The Company is sanguine about their competition from Amazon, Apple and Google

They acknowledge that the tech giants can bundle their music services with other offerings without having to make a profit

But also cite their singular focus on audio as a competitive advantage

16/ Spotify's slow start over their first 18 months in India demonstrate the long time horizon and attention to each markets unique dynamics necessary for long term success

https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-02-27/3-major-streaming-trends-from-spotifys-first-year-in-india/