The offices of Pandora Media were thick with excitement and anxiety in March 2017. The company had just launched its new streaming music subscription service, Pandora Premium. The product was a major departure for Pandora, which since 2005 had built its brand and its business primarily on being an ad-supported, free Internet radio service. Now, it was offering music fans ultimate "on demand" control—play any track, at any time, for $9.99 per month. The company's senior leadership believed the new product would help Pandora better compete with formidable challengers like Spotify and Apple Music, whose on-demand music streaming services were attracting millions of paid users, particularly the young consumers so coveted by advertisers. The development of Pandora Premium was a massive effort across the entire company, requiring new contracts with music rights-holders and the integration of a new team of designers and product managers after Pandora's acquisition of rival streaming service Rdio. Product managers were on the front line of the process, which required complex decision-making around user features, target customers, marketing strategies and how to balance the need to continue generating ad revenue while developing an ad-free, subscription product.
