At 34 in 1999, Tim Westergren left behind a two-decade career in music composing to establish something that the world had never witnessed. What ensued was one of the most phenomenal entrepreneurial resurgences in contemporary American history.
The Big Leap
Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren is a record producer and film score composer with almost two decades of work experience before the formation of Pandora in 1999. After quitting a professional life of steady and creative activity, he gambled everything on one groundbreaking concept of discovering music.
The Genius Idea
Western conceived the Music Genome Project – a mathematical algorithm that analyzes music on hundreds of characteristics. A totally developed system, this would come to run one of the most fully utilized internet platforms ever in the history of America.
The Brutal Struggle
Pandora was started in the poorest climate of startups of all time. In the leanest years of his business, Westerngren survived 347 straight funding offers, defaulted on eleven personal credit cards, and paid office rent with a personal cheque.
Team Believed Him
Pandora became penniless in 2001. Westergren persuaded his entire workforce of fifty people to go without pay for almost two and a half years. That remarkable act of leadership helped the company to survive in the most dangerous and uncertain time.
The Turning Point
Pandora received the much-needed financing after years of near failure. Westergren became emotionally most significant in his entrepreneurial career when he spent time writing back-pay checks to his team, which went beyond financial success.
IPO Made History
After Westergren and his team made the sacrifices, Pandora went public on 15 June 2011, on the New York Stock Exchange for sixteen dollars per share and with a valuation of almost 2.6 billion dollars, a feat credited to the company itself.
Numbers Spoke Loudly
As of 2012, Pandora had more than 150 million registered users and sixty-eight percent of the total internet radio-listening market, as outlined by Triton Media. It was the second-best iPhone application to have been downloaded.
Never Stopped Building
Since departing Pandora in 2017, in 2020, Westergren started Sessions, a livestreaming musician-centered platform that would address the income issue that Pandora was not able to solve entirely.
The Bigger Lesson
The trend in which Westerngren is told is in 2025. Rewards of leaving a salary, potential complaints. MBO partners research indicates 5.6 million Americans have over 100,000 a year as independent professionals.
Quit To Win
At a First Round Capital CEO Summit, Westerngren explained that success is doing what you want to be the best at and putting all your energy into it, regardless of the length or difficulty of the process.
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