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Building Anchor, selling to Spotify, and lessons learned | Maya Prohovnik (Head of Podcast Product)

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 — Brought to you by Sidebar—Catalyze your career with a Personal Board of Directors: https://www.sidebar.com/?utm_source=lennys&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=waitlist_launch | Wix Studio—The web creation platform built for agencies: https://www.wix.com/studio | LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business: https://www.linkedin.com/podlenny Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-anchor-selling-to-spotify Where to find Maya Prohovnik: • Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mayafish • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayaprohovnik/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ 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 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/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

Maya ProhovnikguestLenny RachitskyhostGuest PM (colleague of Maya, possibly Wilma Chu)guest
Sep 27, 20231h 7mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

From Anchor Hackery To Spotify Powerhouse: Maya Prohovnik’s Playbook

  1. Maya Prohovnik, Head of Podcast Product at Spotify and first employee at Anchor, shares how Anchor evolved from a scrappy startup into the backbone of Spotify’s podcast ecosystem, now hosting over 75% of new shows on the platform.
  2. She explains why deep dogfooding (running four of her own podcasts) is central to her product philosophy, and how that informs onboarding, community features, and creator tools.
  3. Maya dives into balancing gut and data in product decisions, including two major strategic ‘evolutions’ of Anchor and a famously unscalable distribution hack powered by college interns.
  4. She also covers integrating a startup into a big company, maintaining a fast-moving culture, leadership frameworks like Radical Candor, productivity habits, public speaking tactics, and even backyard chicken therapy.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Dogfooding deeply improves product judgment and empathy.

By running four of her own podcasts—including highly produced, fully mobile, niche, and parenting shows—Maya experiences the same pain points as creators, which sharpens her sense of what to build, how to onboard, and which features actually matter.

Be willing to “kill your darlings” even when something is working.

Anchor twice rebuilt its core product despite strong user love and retention, because the team believed the existing direction couldn’t achieve their mission of democratizing audio at massive scale; each bold shift led to materially better growth and fit.

Treat gut instinct as a valid data source, not the opposite of data.

Maya frames intuition as one type of data among many, then backs it with past experience, user anecdotes, and research; this makes subjective calls easier to align around and avoids the trap of hiding behind numbers or pure opinion.

Unscalable hacks can unlock differentiated value and market share.

Anchor’s “one-click” distribution to Apple Podcasts was secretly powered by college interns manually creating Apple IDs and submitting hundreds of thousands of feeds—an experience so magical for creators that it rapidly accelerated hosting market share.

Clarity of mission makes strategic pivots and acquisitions survivable.

Because Anchor’s founders were unwavering about democratizing audio rather than about any specific product instantiation, they could repeatedly pivot features, and later flex within Spotify’s evolving strategy, without losing their core purpose.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

We were obsessed with reducing friction. This was our constant battle.

— Maya Prohovnik

We just had college students making Apple Podcast accounts and then submitting hundreds of thousands of podcasts through these accounts.

— Maya Prohovnik

You never know which tiny product changes are going to end up being this existential moment for your business.

— Maya Prohovnik

I would think of your gut actually as a type of data, and I think it's a totally valid one.

— Maya Prohovnik

Only a fool wishes time away.

— Maya Prohovnik

Dogfooding and building products by being an active creatorAnchor’s product evolutions and path to product–market fitUnscalable growth hacks (manual podcast distribution via interns)Balancing gut instinct with data in product strategyIntegrating a startup into Spotify and preserving startup cultureLeadership and management approaches (Radical Candor, feedback, values)Personal productivity systems and public speaking techniques

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