Life is all about having a sense of purpose. No matter if you are a broke person with no money or a financially independent person doing well in life. Without a sense of purpose life begins to fill empty. Daniel Ek, a lover of music founded world’s top music streaming app to fulfill his own sense of purpose. After achieving great success at very early age and becoming financially independent, Daniel launched Spotify, a music streaming app which became impossibly famous in the whole world.
Born on 21 February, 1983, Daniel Ek grew up in Ragsved, Stockholm, Sweden. His father got out of their lives early on and most of his life, Daniel and his younger brother Felix, were raised by their mother Elisabet and stepfather Hasse. Daniel described their economical condition as “An average Swede. We didn’t have much money”.
Daniel and his Love for Music
Daniel’s love for music grew right from his childhood and the seed was sown from his family itself. His grandmother was an opera singer and grandfather was a Jazz pianist. He learnt to play the Swedish nursery rhyme “Lilla snigel” at the tender age of four. Daniel’s love and involvement for music heightened when in secondary school i.e. IT Gymnasiet in Sundbyberg, he was allowed to combine two of his favorite subjects – music and technology. Taking robust advantage of this opportunity he installed internet in the Oasen youth club and started his first business – building websites.
Daniel initially charged upto $100 for his first client and made his fees double for the next client. The website development business grew so much that he eventually started charging as high as $5000. Later on, due to increasing demand for his skills, Daniel hired the students from his own class. Soon, his team size grew up to 25 and his monthly earnings to a whopping $50000. On the other hand, Daniel’s devotion for music became the sole reason for him to attend the school. His music teacher Tony Kinberg said,
“Music really was Daniel’s thing. If music wasn’t on his timetable, he would come to the music room anyway, or if he had a free period. He’s really good singer and guitar player”.
Music and programming was what made his life worthwhile. Daniel Ek completed his graduation from Sundbyberg in 2002 in IT scoring top grades in eleven subjects. He later went on to join KTH Royal Institute of Technology. After realizing that the first year in his higher studies was all about theoretical mathematics and nothing about programming Daniel left the place by the eighth week.
Early Career
Leaving the KTH institute came as a turning point in Daniel’s life. Money had always been a luxury for Daniel. And a life he was longing for would soon provide him with this luxury. Daniel took a job at TradeDoubler – Europe’s biggest online advertisement company. His performance at the company brought him success and riches at the age of just 23, making him financially independent. The success poured in and soon brought another twist in Daniel’s life.
At the age of 29, Daniel started feeling a sense of emptiness into his life. Even after earning fat paychecks, owning a dream car, a three room apartment in central Stockholm Daniel felt lost in his life. This lead him into depression and soon he sold his apartment and car and moved to a secluded cabin long way from town. The isolation, music, and meditation which Daniel acquired while spending time in his wooden cabin led to the origin of his biggest business idea and he contacted Martin Lorentzon – an IT nerd. The idea was to create an app which allows the user to listen any music in the world at the cost of short advertisements in between.
Before, turning into a billionaire from Spotify, Daniel Ek has worked with several billionaire’s. He initially founded Advertigo which was acquired by TradeDoubler. He also served as a senior at Tradera – a Nordic auction company which was sold to eBay in 2006. Ek also served as a CEO of uTorrent along with its founder Ludvig Strigeus. uTorrent was also acquired by BitTorrent in December 7, 2006, which also ended Ek’s term as a CEO.
The idea of Spotify, originated in the wooden cabin, was in the development mode in 2006. Daniel used his old school trick to hire the young technology graduates from KTH to work on Spotify. The team would work in a small office in Riddargatann in Ostermalm, Stockholm. The company launched it’s official music streaming service ‘Spotify’ in October, 2008.
The service received huge positive response from all over Sweden and company targeted one country at a time. This pace helped them to focus on one particular region completely to provide better quality and huge playlist. Nearly 80% of Spotify’s works around the world to produce the best results for their users. Today, Spotify has more than 140 million users in more than 58 countries and has raised more than $2.5 billion from funding.
Personal Life
Daniel Ek is married to Sofia Levander, a TV actress and three years senior to Ek, in 2016. His net worth is calculated to be around SEK 4.5 billion. Daniel is also actively involved in charity and has donated 1 million Swedish Kronor for Charity Water – an organization dedicated to provide safe and clean water to 800 million people living without it. Daniel Ek lives with his wife and two children.
Harshal Pawar is an avid reader, a TV show addict, and a writer. He has a personal blog brainwork.wordpress.com where he jots down his articles and poetry about love and life.
He is currently pursuing film-making and wishes to bring the words written on a paper to the screen. More of all he is a scorpio.