Building Anchor, selling to Spotify, and lessons learned | Maya Prohovnik (Spotify’s Head of Podcast Product)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5.0 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2023
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Maya Prohovnik is currently Spotify’s Head of Podcast Product. She was employee #1 at Anchor, which was acquired by Spotify in 2019 and now powers more than 80% of all new podcasts created in the world. In 2023, Maya was named one of the Most Important People in Podcasting by The Hollywood Reporter. In today’s episode, we discuss:• How Maya operationalizes “dogfooding”• How to balance data-driven decision-making and intuition• Strategies for preserving startup culture in a large organization• Tactical tips to improve at public speaking• How Radical Candor and the Eisenhower matrix transformed her approach to managing people• What’s next at Spotify for Podcasters
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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/building-anchor-selling-to-spotify-and-lessons-learned-maya-prohovnik-spotifys-head-of-podcast/
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Where to find Maya Prohovnik:
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mayafish
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayaprohovnik/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Maya’s background
(04:34) Spotify’s podcasting platform
(06:24) Maya’s personal podcasts
(11:36) The importance of “dogfooding”
(13:24) How Maya operationalizes dogfooding
(16:31) How to balance data-driven decision-making and trusting your gut
(21:38) Building Anchor 2.0
(26:24) The beginning of Anchor’s hockey stick growth
(28:08) How Anchor utilized interns to make the Apple Podcasts integration “magical”
(35:36) Anchor and Spotify’s successful integration
(37:50) Maintaining a startup culture within a large organization
(39:20) Transitioning from a startup to a large company
(42:02) Challenges brought on by the acquisition
(48:49) How Maya’s leadership approach is guided by Radical Candor
(51:53) The Eisenhower matrix for prioritization and task management
(52:46) Productivity tips
(55:10) How to get better at public speaking
(59:38) The future of Spotify for Podcasters
(1:00:58) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• What is “Dogfooding”?: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/dogfooding.html
• The Derry Connection: A Stephen King Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ixSiYlj3A9NqEXZDBgycf
• Blood on Their Hands: A Big Brother Fancast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4VP16lTL8sUniQXCFeBInv
• Time Share: A Children of Time Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/38yhl2lNOUajccfsdluh5j
• The End of the World as We Know It: A First-Time Parenting Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3TUr0LxcueYo2nvnyR5rML
• Forgotify (stream Spotify songs that have never been played): https://forgotify.com/
• Michael Mignano on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mignano/
• Lessons from scaling Spotify: The science of product, taking risky bets, and how AI is already impacting the future of music | Gustav Söderström (Co-President, CPO, and CTO at Spotify): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/lessons-from-scaling-spotify-the-science-of-product-taking-risky-bets-and-how-ai-is-already-impacting-the-future-of-music-gustav-soderstrom-co-president-cpo-and-cto-at-spotify/
• Radical Candor: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Revised-Kick-Ass-Humanity/dp/1250235375
• What is the Eisenhower matrix?: https://www.figma.com/resource-library/what-is-the-eisenhower-matrix/
• Todoist: https://todoist.com/
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0143126563/
• Spotify for Podcasters: https://podcasters.spotify.com/
• Children of Time: https://www.amazon.com/Children-Time-Adrian-Tchaikovsky/dp/0316452505
• It: https://www.amazon.com/Novel-Stephen-King/dp/1982127791/
• Poker Face on Peacock: https://www.peacocktv.com/stream-tv/poker-face
• Barbie on Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Barbie-Margot-Robbie/dp/B0CB1TMKR6
• Deadly Games: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096741/
• 1-800 Contacts: https://www.1800contacts.com/
• Lovevery: https://lovevery.com/
• CoopCrate: https://www.coopcratechickens.com/
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | We were obsessed with reducing friction. This was like our constant battle. And so we hired a couple of college |
| 0:05.4 | interns and we brought them in and we were like, people are going to push this magical |
| 0:09.9 | one button in the anchor app and they're going to say I want to distribute my podcast and your |
| 0:13.6 | job is going to be to do all that same manual stuff manually but to them it's going to feel |
| 0:18.7 | magical and like it happened automatically. I still don't know how many people know this I think people think that we had some |
| 0:23.9 | secret door like backdoor deal with with Apple for distribution but we we just |
| 0:28.9 | had college students making Apple podcast accounts and then submitting like hundreds of thousands of |
| 0:34.0 | podcasts through these accounts and I think that was a really big part of why we got |
| 0:37.6 | so much hosting market share so quickly because it was such an insane benefit |
| 0:42.2 | over the other platforms which otherwise had been sort of commoditized at that point. |
| 0:48.3 | Welcome to Lenny's podcast or interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-wound |
| 0:53.3 | experiences building and growing today's most successful products. |
| 0:56.8 | Today my guest is Maya ProHovnik. |
| 0:59.1 | Maya is Spotify's head of product for podcasting, where she oversees product, design, and |
| 1:04.3 | engineering teams responsible for building the tools and experiences for podcasters and |
| 1:08.7 | their listeners. Maya was also employee number one at Anchor, which Spotify acquired about five years ago, which |
| 1:14.7 | became the core of Spotify's podcasting hosting platform, which now powers over 75% of all new |
| 1:21.5 | podcasts created in the world. |
| 1:23.6 | In our conversation, we dig into why Maya is obsessed with dog fooding |
| 1:27.1 | and why she encourages everyone on her team |
| 1:29.0 | to create their own podcast. |
| 1:30.4 | She's got four podcasts of her own, |
... |
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