The 2026 Business Playbook: Leverage AI Before Your Competitors Do | Epidemic Sound CEO

1. 0:00 – 1:02

   Intro

   1. MMMarina Mogilko0:00

      The world is crazy right now.

   2. OHOscar Höglund0:01

      Yeah.

   3. MMMarina Mogilko0:01

      You're building a company in a very competitive market. How do you stay sane?

   4. OHOscar Höglund0:05

      If I were to boil it down into one word, it's [beep] .

   5. MMMarina Mogilko0:08

      This is Oscar Höglund, the co-founder and CEO of Epidemic Sound, who grew a $1.4 billion company behind 3 billion views on social media every single day.

   6. OHOscar Höglund0:19

      One of the most important things that we ever did was trying to understand value chains.

   7. MMMarina Mogilko0:24

      Can you explain value chain?

   8. OHOscar Höglund0:25

      If you understand the value chain you are in, you can get leverage, and leverage, in my world, is with a small amount of input, you can get a huge amount of output.

   9. MMMarina Mogilko0:33

      With more data on viral content than almost anyone, Oscar is building an AI that will change everything. But success came at a price: the darkest moment that almost made him walk away.

   10. OHOscar Höglund0:44

       My wife said, "This doesn't work anymore because our life now is better when you're not here."

   11. MMMarina Mogilko0:51

       [music] Oscar rebuilt everything after that night. Now, he breaks down the framework any founder can apply: how to scale bigger, make more money, and avoid the mistakes that cost him everything.

2. 1:02 – 3:58

   What makes content viral

   1. MMMarina Mogilko1:02

      Hello, everyone. Welcome to Silicon Valley Girl. I have Oscar from Epidemic Sound today. Oscar's company is behind 3 billion views on social media every single day, and that's just YouTube, right?

   2. OHOscar Höglund1:16

      Correct.

   3. MMMarina Mogilko1:16

      So you know a thing or two-

   4. OHOscar Höglund1:18

      Mm

   5. MMMarina Mogilko1:18

      ... about going viral. Have you seen any patterns behind videos that stand out, that use your music? Is there anything like, "Oh, this is happening right now"?

   6. OHOscar Höglund1:28

      Well, first off, thanks for having me, and then to answer your question, we soundtrack huge amounts of online video every single day across all platforms, and so we're privy to see a lot of different trends. I think that what's at the core of all of those trends, however, is like a very philosophical thing, which is content creation and going viral is ultimately about helping create meaningful human connections. And so what we do is we facilitate creativity, and we help spark interest.

   7. MMMarina Mogilko2:00

      Do you see any correlation? Like, if I'm a YouTuber, 'cause I use music-

   8. OHOscar Höglund2:04

      Mm-hmm

   9. MMMarina Mogilko2:05

      ... but I feel like the way I use music is like, "Okay, I was at Ed Sheeran's concert yesterday. Uh, let me just use Ed Sheeran."

   10. OHOscar Höglund2:11

       Mm.

   11. MMMarina Mogilko2:11

       Like, and that's the way it works for me, but I'm trying to understand the mechanics. Like, do you see anything like, "Oh, this type of music performs better with this?" Like, have you noticed something-

   12. OHOscar Höglund2:21

       [inhales]

   13. MMMarina Mogilko2:21

       ... while analyzing that data?

   14. OHOscar Höglund2:23

       Ultimately, what you're trying to achieve with music, as we said on the outset, is you wanna help create an emotion, and this, similar to common belief, if you only use commercially well-known music as a storyteller, as a person looking to help create a specific feeling, you abdicate from that power because you don't know exactly who's had what kind of experience-

   15. MMMarina Mogilko2:47

       Mm

   16. OHOscar Höglund2:47

       ... with a Nine Inch Nails track or an Ed Sheeran track, regardless of how romantic the track might be-

   17. MMMarina Mogilko2:51

       Mm

   18. OHOscar Höglund2:51

       ... or how full of energy it might be. Oh, I'll share one interesting cha- trend, which we saw a few years ago, which was coming out of COVID. I don't know what the American expression is, but I think it's called comfort food.

   19. MMMarina Mogilko3:02

       Mm.

   20. OHOscar Höglund3:02

       As in if you're-

   21. MMMarina Mogilko3:03

       Mm-hmm

   22. OHOscar Höglund3:03

       ... if you're feeling down, you'll eat a, uh, a bucket of ice cream-

   23. MMMarina Mogilko3:07

       Yeah

   24. OHOscar Höglund3:07

       ... uh, to make you-

   25. MMMarina Mogilko3:07

       Yeah

   26. OHOscar Höglund3:07

       ... feel good. And we could literally see in the world that there was a while where the world was feeling low post-COVID, and there was a lot of comfort food going on, so a lot of music, which was very reassuring, calming, warm. Uh, classical music had a huge spike because people wanted to feel reassured-

   27. MMMarina Mogilko3:27

       Mm-hmm

   28. OHOscar Höglund3:27

       ... it's gonna be okay.

   29. MMMarina Mogilko3:28

       Have you seen any, like, zero-to-one examples where creators came with not a lot of views, then they added music, and boom, it started exploding?

   30. OHOscar Höglund3:35

       To be quite honest, we see that all the time. When there is a unique and distinct connection between what's being said visually and then what's being said from an audio perspective-
3. 3:58 – 7:47

   The "CROSS" strategy explained

   1. OHOscar Höglund3:58

      There was a story that I heard many, many years ago, which relates to the crosses, right? And so the background was that one of my co-founders was having lunch, uh, with a tabloid editor, um, and this is many, many years here in downtown Stockholm. And so, uh, the tabloid editor was eating and looking at my colleague, and he said, "Have you understood this, the crosses?" My colleagues go, "Like, the crosses? What do you mean?" And he said, "Well, humans are drawn to crosses, in the sense that if, on my tabloid, if I put a very famous, um, sports star and they talk about their sports success, nobody cares." And he goes, "Okay." "However, if I put that sports star on the front of the magazine, and they tell me about that they're battling, um, [lips smack] alcoholism or some kind of substance abuse-

   2. MMMarina Mogilko4:48

      Mm

   3. OHOscar Höglund4:48

      ... nobody's anticipating that that's gonna happen. And so people are immediately drawn to something where there's a cognitive dissonance," and so that's like-

   4. MMMarina Mogilko4:57

      Mm

   5. OHOscar Höglund4:57

      ... that- that's something about humanity and the nature of being human. And then, uh, my co-founder was like: "Wow, that's insightful. I don't know what to do with that information, but I'll save it for a rainy day." And so years passed, and then, uh, my co-founder, who's a serial entrepreneur, his name is Zach, he was running one of the biggest, uh, commercial TV broadcasters in northern Sweden, and he was their head of content. At the time, they were looking to go from being a small, insignificant player to try and break through and become the big broadcaster of their time. And they had tried many things, they'd struggled, and then eventually they decided to go all in on this one format, and the format was the most commercial TV show you can imagine. It was an entertainment show. It was designed for Saturday slots at eight o'clock, and it was all about, um, two teams battling it out together, and it had been engineered in such a way that the show was meant to be great for men, women, young, old. There was adventure. Uh, there was a com... uh, an element of competition. You could be eliminated. There was danger. There was humor. They'd basically created almost like a Frankenstein. They put together different parts, and they engineered the most commercial show you can think about. But the show needed a front-runner, somebody who was gonna be the face of the most commercial show ever, and at this-... broadcaster, their entire future was betting on this show because it was incredibly expensive. And so my co-founder, he was put back to the point in time where, like, he was thinking about the lunch that he had. Like, "I need to create a cross, something that-

   6. MMMarina Mogilko6:30

      Mm

   7. OHOscar Höglund6:30

      ... people are excited about." And he said, "Okay, what's the polar opposite of the most commercial thing ever?" And he thought about, and this was back in Sweden, and so we have this incredibly beloved, uh, cross-country skier. His name is Gunde Svan. He's from the north of Sweden, and he's about as far from commercial television as you can imagine: always wearing a hat, always in the-

   8. MMMarina Mogilko6:53

      [chuckles]

   9. OHOscar Höglund6:53

      ... in the bush, and always out skiing. And he said that, "This guy has to be the front runner of the show. It makes no sense whatsoever, but if I've ever felt a cross in my life, this is one of those." So he suggested to his boss. They all think that he's had a stroke, and they said, "This is not gonna happen." And he says, "It has to happen, or I'm gonna quit." They didn't want him-

   10. MMMarina Mogilko7:11

       Wow

   11. OHOscar Höglund7:11

       ... to quit, and so they put him on the show. This was a show that altered the course of history in Swedish TV production. It became the most popular show ever.

   12. MMMarina Mogilko7:19

       Wow.

   13. OHOscar Höglund7:19

       It still runs 10 years later, and it's one of those, is crosses. And I bring it up because I think that that's the role that music can play as well. I think that when music really sets something apart, and when you see huge engagement, virality, and things exploding, it's when music can play the role of a cross. You can tell a visual story and a different-

   14. MMMarina Mogilko7:39

       Yeah

   15. OHOscar Höglund7:39

       ... audio story. Building out crosses, I think, is incredibly important when you build businesses, when you build podcasts, when you tell stories.

   16. MMMarina Mogilko7:46

       Absolutely,

4. 7:47 – 11:09

   The AI сontent revolution

   1. MMMarina Mogilko7:47

      and you're-- are you building a tool for that? I was talking to your CTO, and I think he mentioned something, if you can talk about it, because this is fascinating for me, 'cause we still can't [chuckles] figure out music progression. I have amazing editors, but I feel like we have to have an additional person on the team, which, you know, is, is expensive. But if we could have a tool-

   2. OHOscar Höglund8:05

      Mm

   3. MMMarina Mogilko8:05

      ... that could analyze the video and tell us, like, "Hey, this is where progression needs to start-

   4. OHOscar Höglund8:10

      Yeah

   5. MMMarina Mogilko8:10

      ... this is where you pause."

   6. OHOscar Höglund8:11

      So if I were to frame it, I'd say the following: What we're trying to do is we wanna try and usher in a new world where everyone who's a storyteller, whether or not you're a 200-person editing team and a full production, or if you're a solo entrepreneur, we feel that it's about time, such that everyone gets access to the same kind of tooling-

   7. MMMarina Mogilko8:34

      Mm

   8. OHOscar Höglund8:34

      ... and a level playing field, such that you would want recommendations, like a music super survi- a supervisor, somebody who can help you edit, somebody can help you understand when music makes sense, when it doesn't, sound effects, how you master, how you make it all come together. Historically, that's been incredibly expensive and difficult to pull together, but we've found that we've come to an inflection point now, where we have the roster of music, the roster of catalog, customers, and the understanding of the platforms out there, such that we're very, very confident now that we think that AI has an incredibly important role to play here, such as an unlock. It's never gonna be the case that AI could or should replace the human connections, but it can play a crucial role in facilitating that.

   9. MMMarina Mogilko9:23

      Yeah.

   10. OHOscar Höglund9:24

       And so what we're able to see now is we can accumulate huge amounts of data in terms of, this is the music that we have at hand, these are all the artists, this is all the art that we work with, and we've known historically over time, this is how it's performed. This is where there's engagement, this is where there is feedback, and we can start to play that back individually to content creators-

   11. MMMarina Mogilko9:44

       Mm-hmm

   12. OHOscar Höglund9:44

       ... such that we're gonna be in a position where basically everyone has access to all of these insights. And so you can start to utilize services which were previously only made available if you had huge budgets. And so this is gonna help you analyze: How is my own video performing?

   13. MMMarina Mogilko10:03

       Yeah.

   14. OHOscar Höglund10:03

       The music that I've used, what are my peers using? What are the different platform trends?

   15. MMMarina Mogilko10:08

       So when is it gonna happen?

   16. OHOscar Höglund10:09

       So, um, this is something that we are working on as we speak. We've already started to release-

   17. MMMarina Mogilko10:14

       Mm-hmm

   18. OHOscar Höglund10:14

       ... quite a few tools within this area. So we released AI Voice a few months ago. We've released the opportunities to, uh, alter the length, uh-

   19. MMMarina Mogilko10:22

       Mm-hmm

   20. OHOscar Höglund10:22

       ... of the track, such that that was actually a pretty big breakthrough because historically, the way that an editor has had to work is, if you found a track that you liked, you would typically have to re-edit your content, your story, to fit the track.

   21. MMMarina Mogilko10:35

       Yeah.

   22. OHOscar Höglund10:35

       Because it was very cumbersome to try and do it the other way around. We've now gotten to a point where we can actually do the opposite, such that you have an edit, you're super happy, the story works, you've cut it any way you want. You have this incredible track, but it turns out it's one minute too long or it's, uh, a little bit too short.

   23. MMMarina Mogilko10:54

       Mm-hmm.

   24. OHOscar Höglund10:54

       Well, you can now use our AI tools to use that track, so allow for the artist's track and vision to be slightly adapted such that it fits better-

   25. MMMarina Mogilko11:03

       Mm-hmm

   26. OHOscar Höglund11:03

       ... to the actual, uh, stories that you're looking to make and that you have in your head.

   27. MMMarina Mogilko11:08

       So can you give advice

5. 11:09 – 12:20

   Content framework 2026

   1. MMMarina Mogilko11:09

      to a creator or maybe a small business owner who is doing some content for their business? Uh, what are the steps that they should take to increase the views, to create this emotional connection with their brands?

   2. OHOscar Höglund11:20

      I think the first job to do is, okay, let's establish: What would I like to sound like? What are the values? What are the core stories I'm trying to tell?... and then using that insight, that's when you come to Epidemic, right?

   3. MMMarina Mogilko11:32

      Mm-hmm.

   4. OHOscar Höglund11:32

      And so you come to the platform, uh, you create a free account, and then you can start to use the tools to look at your videos. We would come with suggestions. You tell us, "This is my channel, this is the direction I want to go", and we then can aggregate huge amounts of data to determine that this is where we think that you're going, and then we can start to serve you suggestions.

   5. MMMarina Mogilko11:51

      Mm.

   6. OHOscar Höglund11:51

      And the more we interact with you, the more we get to know you, and the better our suggestions can become.

   7. MMMarina Mogilko11:56

      Mm-hmm.

   8. OHOscar Höglund11:56

      And then I think it also comes down to being... I love the term being a ferocious learner, and so I think as a storyteller, as passionate as you tend to be about the stories you want to tell, I think you should be similarly about, "Who do I look up to? W- who else sounds or feels or creates that emotion, that connection?" And then from that information, we can derive a lot of insights as well, and help build recommendations around that, too.

   9. MMMarina Mogilko12:19

      Listening

6. 12:20 – 13:50

   Must-Have creator tool

   1. MMMarina Mogilko12:20

      to how Epidemic Sound streamlines workflow for creators, making music licensing simple so you can focus on storytelling, it reminded me of a great tool that does something similar, but for a different part of the creator workflow that eats up just as much time. Because no matter how good your content sounds or looks, most creators still lose hours every week just trying to keep up with their audience. That's where Pop.Store, who's sponsoring this part of the video, comes in. It's designed as an all-in-one creator HQ. Everything you make, share, and sell can live in one place, but the feature that's been getting attention is their AI assistant. It scans thousands of comments and DMs across Instagram and Facebook, flags the important ones, and helps creators reply fast without burning out. According to their data, it's been shown to double engagement, and you get more reach because the algorithm pushes posts with high interaction. It's basically the assistant every creator wishes they had, one that never takes a day off and makes you look way more responsive than you might actually be. It's called ECHO, and it's designed to help you stay connected with your community without sacrificing the hours you need for editing, filming, or honestly, just living your life. So if you're trying to grow your content while juggling everything else, Pop.Store might be worth checking out. You can set up your own AI assistant and stop spending every night buried in your DMs. I'll leave Pop.Store link below if you wanna explore it. So I, I heard you say,

7. 13:50 – 20:18

   From feature to platform

   1. MMMarina Mogilko13:50

      uh, when you build a product, you start with a feature-

   2. OHOscar Höglund13:52

      Mm.

   3. MMMarina Mogilko13:52

      ... then it becomes a product, then it becomes a marketplace.

   4. OHOscar Höglund13:56

      Yes.

   5. MMMarina Mogilko13:56

      I absolutely love that-

   6. OHOscar Höglund13:58

      Mm

   7. MMMarina Mogilko13:58

      ... because as someone who loves building companies, it's really hard to start when you think about your company, "Oh, I'm gonna build the next marketplace!" But it's really easy to think about your company when you think, "I'm gonna build a feature which is going to make people's lives easier."

   8. OHOscar Höglund14:10

      Yeah.

   9. MMMarina Mogilko14:10

      Can you talk about Epidemic Sound, how you built it out?

   10. OHOscar Höglund14:13

       Absolutely. Uh, so first off, that quote's not mine. I've heard it, and I've used it profoundly, so I, I-

   11. MMMarina Mogilko14:20

       I love it

   12. OHOscar Höglund14:20

       ... completely agree.

   13. MMMarina Mogilko14:20

       I, I've heard it from you, so- [chuckles]

   14. OHOscar Höglund14:21

       Feature-

   15. MMMarina Mogilko14:21

       for me, it's your quote. [chuckles]

   16. OHOscar Höglund14:22

       Feature, product, platform.

   17. MMMarina Mogilko14:24

       Yeah.

   18. OHOscar Höglund14:25

       And so in the early days when Epidemic launched, uh, I would 100% argue that we were a feature. We were a feature in that we were a one-trick pony. We were a nice to have and not a need to have, and the initial innovation that we came up with was that we were five co-founders, we came from storytelling, we'd made TV shows, but we saw earlier than most that the internet was transforming. It was moving from a world which was initially very tech-centric. We would anticipate that there's gonna be a picture component to this, but over time, we were utterly convinced that everything online is gonna be video-centric. But we also knew, coming from traditional TV production, that most problems could be solved, bar the music one, because music was a very complex legacy business. It had evolved over time, and despite best intentions, it was a complex beast, where it was very difficult to clear music to use it in television, and bar impossible to use it online, where consumption would happen instantaneously all over the world. So we were pulling out the little hair that I had left-

   19. MMMarina Mogilko15:30

       [chuckles]

   20. OHOscar Höglund15:31

       ... uh, and saying that, "This needs to be solved." And so step one for us was a legal innovation. We took a step back, and we said, "The traditional music industry hinges on representation, such that a track that's created has multiple interests." There's a producer, there's an artist, there's a songwriter, there are label, there are publishers, there are PROs, and they all contribute with fractional pieces of value. They all feel entitled to the upside, but nobody has, like, final say. Nobody can determine how or where this track gets used, and they have two things in common: They all sort of hate each other with a passion, quite often [chuckles] because they have very competing views in terms of who's contributed most value, and they all have veto rights, such that if one party was unhappy with any commercial deal, the track was made void, and you couldn't use it in your video.

   21. MMMarina Mogilko16:20

       Mm.

   22. OHOscar Höglund16:20

       It couldn't go on YouTube-

   23. MMMarina Mogilko16:21

       Mm-hmm

   24. OHOscar Höglund16:21

       ... or on TikTok and other places. And so at, at its core, our initial, uh, like, big innovation was, "Let's move away from a model of representation to one of ownership," and the only way of doing that is by doing right by artists. So we said, "We'll start to pay handsomely upfront and acquire all of the rights." We make sure that we keep the artist whole because we think that if we can build a huge, compelling catalog of amazing music made specifically for soundtracking content-

   25. MMMarina Mogilko16:50

       Mm-hmm

   26. OHOscar Höglund16:50

       ... bringing stories to life, we think that will be a huge breakthrough.

   27. MMMarina Mogilko16:54

       Mm-hmm.

   28. OHOscar Höglund16:54

       Because we can then be the only provider in the world which has a complete catalog, where we can reach out to storytellers and say, "Hey, this is similar from everyone else. We have 100% of all the rights here, so we can indemnify you and say you can use this for all of your content-

   29. MMMarina Mogilko17:08

       Yeah

   30. OHOscar Höglund17:09

       ... across all platforms, across all of the world." And Epidemic exploded. Like, it was instant product market fit. But we were a one-trick pony, and that's what I mean by sort of we were a feature. We were nice to have, but we were more like a vitamin, which is great if you take your vitamin in the morning-
8. 20:18 – 23:03

   Value chain leverage

   1. OHOscar Höglund20:18

      important things that we ever did was trying to understand value chains.

   2. MMMarina Mogilko20:24

      Can you explain value chain?

   3. OHOscar Höglund20:25

      Before we had a product which was good enough for online creators, we started in our local vicinity, which was broadcasting in the Nordic. We realized that there were roughly about 5,000 freelance editors in Sweden 16 years ago when we launched the company. No matter how hard we racked our brains, we couldn't come up with a plan to reach, let alone persuade, 5,000 freelancers to use our music instead of-

   4. MMMarina Mogilko20:56

      Yeah

   5. OHOscar Höglund20:56

      ... everything else out there. And so we needed to understand, like, what was the ecosystem, and it turned out the following i- was true in Sweden back then. We realized that, yes, there are 5,000 freelance editors, but they're freelancers, and there are a total of 50 production companies that produce the vast majority of all the TV shows in Sweden. And we said, "Okay, can we, can we entertain the idea of reaching out to 50 production companies and trying to persuade them?" And the answer was still no. Like, we don't have enough clout. And then we took another step in the value chain, and we said, "Okay, of the 50 production companies, who do they work for?" And it turns out that there were four major broadcasters who were commissioning the vast majority of all the shows from the 50 production companies and from the 5,000 editors. And we said, "Okay, can we pull together four meetings with four major broadcasters?" And the answer was, "Yes."

   6. MMMarina Mogilko21:53

      Mm-hmm.

   7. OHOscar Höglund21:53

      "Of course we can." And because we understood their pain points, the following happened: like, all of the four deals, within, like, weeks, as I remember it, was probably a month, they all closed-

   8. MMMarina Mogilko22:04

      Wow

   9. OHOscar Höglund22:04

      ... and they said that, "You've understood where we're heading."

   10. MMMarina Mogilko22:07

       Exactly.

   11. OHOscar Höglund22:07

       "We're on the journey."

   12. MMMarina Mogilko22:08

       Yeah.

   13. OHOscar Höglund22:09

       Our catalog at the time was tiny, but the vision was right. The empathy and the customer centricity was there, so we signed multi-year deals with all of these broadcasters.

   14. MMMarina Mogilko22:18

       Fascinating.

   15. OHOscar Höglund22:19

       Day number two, what they did is they said that because all of the revenue from the production companies come from us, they called a meeting the day after, and they summoned 50 production companies to come and meet Epidemic.

   16. MMMarina Mogilko22:32

       They did the work for you. [chuckles]

   17. OHOscar Höglund22:33

       And then the week after, the 50 production company booked 50 separate meetings, where they summoned 5,000 editors-

   18. MMMarina Mogilko22:40

       Ooh

   19. OHOscar Höglund22:40

       ... and say that, "If you wanna make any of our shows, you have to come meet Epidemic, 'cause they're a new kid in town."

   20. MMMarina Mogilko22:45

       Wow!

   21. OHOscar Höglund22:46

       And so, like, that's how I came to understand the power of understanding. If you understand the value chain you are in, you can get leverage, and leverage, in my world, is, like, with a small amount of input, you can get a huge amount of output.

   22. MMMarina Mogilko23:01

       I love this story.

   23. OHOscar Höglund23:02

       Mm.

   24. MMMarina Mogilko23:02

       Uh,

9. 23:03 – 23:59

   Hiring A-Players secret

   1. MMMarina Mogilko23:03

      is that also how you hire people? 'Cause your team-

   2. OHOscar Höglund23:06

      Mm

   3. MMMarina Mogilko23:06

      ... is amazing.

   4. OHOscar Höglund23:08

      Thank you.

   5. MMMarina Mogilko23:08

      So your product officer used to-

   6. OHOscar Höglund23:10

      Mm

   7. MMMarina Mogilko23:10

      ... build the initial Amazon app.

   8. OHOscar Höglund23:13

      Yeah.

   9. MMMarina Mogilko23:13

      You have ex-co-CEO of Klarna.

   10. OHOscar Höglund23:16

       Yeah.

   11. MMMarina Mogilko23:16

       I was, like, reading through the list, and I'm like-

   12. OHOscar Höglund23:18

       Yes

   13. MMMarina Mogilko23:18

       ... "This guy knows how to hire." [chuckles]

   14. OHOscar Höglund23:20

       Yes.

   15. MMMarina Mogilko23:20

       Can you, uh, give us a little secret?

   16. OHOscar Höglund23:23

       Well, first off, thank you. Uh, I tend to agree. Um, I have a very strong belief in-... uh, a few things, obviously. But in terms of philosophy when you hire, I only believe in hiring people smarter than myself, because I fundamentally want to hire smart people to tell me what to do. Again, taking impressions from others who've said this before me, [chuckles] but I strongly feel that if I'm the smartest person in the room, we're all doomed. And so I need to make sure that I have other people-

   17. MMMarina Mogilko23:50

       Mm-hmm

   18. OHOscar Höglund23:50

       ... who are way smarter than myself.

   19. MMMarina Mogilko23:52

       And then you find the-

   20. OHOscar Höglund23:53

       Yes

   21. MMMarina Mogilko23:54

       ... cross -

   22. OHOscar Höglund23:54

       And then you find the crosses. [chuckles]

   23. MMMarina Mogilko23:55

       Cross people. [laughs]

   24. OHOscar Höglund23:55

       Exactly.

   25. MMMarina Mogilko23:56

       And you hire them.

   26. OHOscar Höglund23:56

       And then you find the crosses.

   27. MMMarina Mogilko23:57

       Love it.

   28. OHOscar Höglund23:58

       Mm.

   29. MMMarina Mogilko23:58

       Uh,

10. 23:59 – 27:51

    Why hustle fails

    1. MMMarina Mogilko23:59

       and you don't believe in hustle culture-

    2. OHOscar Höglund24:01

       No

    3. MMMarina Mogilko24:01

       ... as a Swede, right?

    4. OHOscar Höglund24:02

       No.

    5. MMMarina Mogilko24:02

       'Cause what I've seen from the last weekend when we spent time with your company, we were doing snaps, [chuckles] we were eating crayfish.

    6. OHOscar Höglund24:08

       Mm.

    7. MMMarina Mogilko24:08

       So you're proving it's actually possible to build a billion-dollar company without having to hustle all the time-

    8. OHOscar Höglund24:14

       Mm

    9. MMMarina Mogilko24:14

       ... and everyone is relaxed.

    10. OHOscar Höglund24:16

        Mm.

    11. MMMarina Mogilko24:16

        Um, what do you think is wrong, then, [chuckles] with American culture? Why is in the US, you're gonna have to hustle?

    12. OHOscar Höglund24:22

        I love the US, uh, I deeply respect US culture, and I take a lot of inspiration. I try and mix the best of as many worlds as I can. I studied at Wharton in the US, and I... There was this term I learned, which is, uh, being a ferocious learner.

    13. MMMarina Mogilko24:38

        Mm-hmm.

    14. OHOscar Höglund24:38

        And I really took that to heart, so I try and, try and learn as much as I can, read as much, study as much as I can. And so where I come down on hustle culture and, and basically what you need to succeed, 'cause it's not as clear-cut as I don't believe in, in hustle culture. I think that in order to be successful as an entrepreneur in general, and as a storyteller in particular, my current best thinking, until I come up with something better, is that there are four components. I think it starts with talent. And I'm gonna... As a hot take, I think this is the least important. And so you need to have talent when you start, but talent isn't enough. Talent is a ticket to ride, and it allows you to participate. And it's less about talent in absolute terms, but more talent relative to your competitor set.

    15. MMMarina Mogilko25:29

        Mm-hmm.

    16. OHOscar Höglund25:30

        Like, do you have an edge from a talent perspective? But that's just a starting point. Point number two, I think, is grit. Like, if I ever were to get a tattoo, Swedes are the most tattooed people in the world.

    17. MMMarina Mogilko25:43

        Really? [chuckles]

    18. OHOscar Höglund25:43

        Um, fun fact.

    19. MMMarina Mogilko25:44

        [chuckles]

    20. OHOscar Höglund25:45

        Uh, I have zero tattoos as of yet. I'm 47, it's not too late.

    21. MMMarina Mogilko25:49

        [chuckles] It's coming. [laughs]

    22. OHOscar Höglund25:49

        If I get one, my favorite word, all categories, is relentless.

    23. MMMarina Mogilko25:55

        Mm.

    24. OHOscar Höglund25:55

        Like, I have it on sweatshirts because it just reminds me. It's, it's cousin to the word grit, and I think it's such an important component. So you need to start with talent, but then you need grit, and you need to be relentless. You need to acknowledge and be willing to sacrifice. It's probably gonna take 70, 80-hour weeks for many, many years before you even lift. Like, that-

    25. MMMarina Mogilko26:17

        Did you have those weeks in your life?

    26. OHOscar Höglund26:19

        Oh, yes.

    27. MMMarina Mogilko26:19

        Okay.

    28. OHOscar Höglund26:19

        Very much so. I co-

    29. MMMarina Mogilko26:20

        So witnessing, like, fast-

    30. OHOscar Höglund26:23

        Yes
11. 27:51 – 29:30

    Give more than you take

    1. OHOscar Höglund27:51

       to grow. And the only way I've come up with to do that is to make sure that you are a person who is, uh, like a, a net provider. In that, when I'm dead, on my tombstone, I think there's one phrase: "This was Oscar. He gave more than he took." And I use that phrase all the time. I think as an individual, you should conduct yourself where you wanna make sure that you're always giving more than you're taking off the table.

    2. MMMarina Mogilko28:15

       I absolutely love that.

    3. OHOscar Höglund28:16

       So if you-

    4. MMMarina Mogilko28:16

       Mm-hmm

    5. OHOscar Höglund28:16

       ... push that out there... And it's deeply selfish, because if you do that, it makes you feel good in the moment, because it feels good to give, much more so than to get. It's, it's selfish because it scales so incredibly well, such that I try and... Like, often when people reach out to me, like, one way to prime yourself is that when I'm introduced to somebody that I've not met before, I just- the first thing I say is, "Hey, how can I help?" It's just a reminder, not a, "Hey, how are you?" or "Who are you?"

    6. MMMarina Mogilko28:41

       Mm-hmm.

    7. OHOscar Höglund28:42

       But, "Hey, how can I help?" And invite them to ask me to do something. Because if I can be helpful in any way, like, not only will that compound, because suddenly... Oh, that compounds over time, so I'll have hundreds, and eventually thousands, of people who are indirect backers of me and my colleagues and my company, 'cause I've helped them. Because when they, when they mention us, like, "He's always so helpful. Yeah, they helped me do this. They didn't have to. They opened the door, they made an intro." If you do that enough times, there is gonna be... And you never know where it comes from, there are always opportunities when they have the, the chance to reciprocate. "Can you recommend anyone?" Like, "We're doing this new Netflix show. Who should we reach out to?" "Like, Epidemic is great. I, I've spoken to them so many times."

    8. MMMarina Mogilko29:20

       Yeah.

    9. OHOscar Höglund29:20

       "I can only endorse them." And so I think that you need to really sort of lean into that point. And it's, it's great because it gives you also a sense of...

12. 29:30 – 31:10

    Oscar's network strategy

    1. OHOscar Höglund29:30

       I'll give you another example, like a, a concrete way of doing that, is introductions. Um, I pride myself in doing great introductions. I don't do them often. I do them about once a week, but if somebody wants an intro, I always do an open intro. So let's say that you wanna meet, uh, a friend-... mine here in the industry, and I, of course, I'll reach out, "Are you okay?" And then, "Are you okay?" I'll do a little bit of homework. You can use ChatGPT or something else to just sort of read up online, and then I take what I know, and I do, like, two paragraphs. So I explain you in a serious but also, like, a fun fact about you.

    2. MMMarina Mogilko30:01

       Mm-hmm.

    3. OHOscar Höglund30:01

       And I'll take the other person, also serious, and then a fun fact, which I somehow weirdly relate to your-

    4. MMMarina Mogilko30:06

       [chuckles]

    5. OHOscar Höglund30:06

       ... first fun fact.

    6. MMMarina Mogilko30:06

       Nice.

    7. OHOscar Höglund30:07

       And then, "You should meet," and then I also tend to write in there, like, I love introducing smart people to each other because two things happen: one, the world is a better place when great people know each other, and two, when two smart people know each other, and I'm the source of that, your genius-

    8. MMMarina Mogilko30:25

       [laughing]

    9. OHOscar Höglund30:25

       ... I, reflects positively on me-

    10. MMMarina Mogilko30:26

        Yeah

    11. OHOscar Höglund30:26

        ... 'cause you think about me i- in a better way.

    12. MMMarina Mogilko30:29

        Yeah.

    13. OHOscar Höglund30:29

        And so I think that that's the third component. You just do that, and so we just had a great weekend together, same thing here. We just- we do great stuff-

    14. MMMarina Mogilko30:37

        Oh, yeah

    15. OHOscar Höglund30:37

        ... and then we think that over time, we don't know how-

    16. MMMarina Mogilko30:41

        Mm-hmm

    17. OHOscar Höglund30:41

        ... but this is gonna sort of play out well.

    18. MMMarina Mogilko30:42

        Quick pause here. If you're enjoying this podcast, you will absolutely love my Inner Circle newsletter. So what I basically do is I take all the tips from these podcasts, and I apply them to my personal life, to my investment portfolio, and to my businesses, this media company and my language teaching business. Sometimes we get amazing results, and I share our real tactics. Sometimes we don't, and I share that, too. Think of it as an insider version of this podcast. The link is in the description. Join my free newsletter to stay ahead. The world is crazy

13. 31:10 – 33:04

    Staying sane as a CEO

    1. MMMarina Mogilko31:10

       right now.

    2. OHOscar Höglund31:10

       Yeah.

    3. MMMarina Mogilko31:10

       You're building a company in a very competitive market.

    4. OHOscar Höglund31:13

       Yeah.

    5. MMMarina Mogilko31:13

       L- you know, all the labels are after [laughing] everything. How do you stay sane?

    6. OHOscar Höglund31:18

       If I were to boil it down into one word, it's discipline. I think that the best thing you can do in order to stay sane is be disciplined. I can give you case in point. So, uh, my wife and I have three children. They're older now, but, uh, throughout the first 10 years of Epidemic, discipline was the key. So everyone always... If you're an entrepreneur, uh, finance people always want morning meetings. I would always say no to them because it was crucial for me. I knew that the likelihood of Epidemic being successful, if I ran the numbers, was very low. Um, and so I knew that there was a chance for failure, and I said that I'm willing to bet on that, but I'm not willing to bet on my relationship with my family. And so I put guardrails in place, and I said that I never do meetings before 9:00 AM, and because I always went up and sort of took the kids to school, I had a bike. I would drive them to daycare and make sure that that was sort of, was, was done, and it would be always to, like, the detriment of, uh, financial people. But they had to adapt to me, not the other way around. So I didn't do anything before 9:00, and then between 9:00 and 6:00, I would go at it, work-wise, like a crazy person. But then 6:00, I have a function in my phone, stops working, shuts down, and between 6:00 and 9:00, I'm unreachable. I never do meetings. I never do exceptions. So, uh, Monday to Friday, that was the case. Go home with the family, have dinner, put the kids to bed, read a bedtime story. My wife is up in the morning. She's a superwoman, and then she falls, uh, uh, to sleep a- around 9:00. That's when my phone starts working again, and that's when I did my second run. So I would work from 9:00 to 1:00 in the night when the US got up or it was Asia.

    7. MMMarina Mogilko32:49

       Oh, wow!

    8. OHOscar Höglund32:50

       And so I did a night run, and then I'd go to bed. But then I would never work weekends, ever. And then I-

    9. MMMarina Mogilko32:56

       Would you travel?

    10. OHOscar Höglund32:56

        Uh, no. So I would typically travel during the week.

    11. MMMarina Mogilko32:58

        Okay.

    12. OHOscar Höglund32:58

        So I'd, I'd keep the travels Monday to Friday, and then I made a big point of taking proper vacation in

14. 33:04 – 34:33

    Oscar's breaking point

    1. OHOscar Höglund33:04

       the summer. The hardest moment in my entrepreneur- entrepreneurial journey was when I couldn't reconcile family life with business life. Our kids were young at the time. Uh, I'd been out travelling nonstop the entire year. It was probably my sixth or seventh trip to the US in that same year, and when I came back, um, my wife and I sat down, and my wife said something to the tune of, "This doesn't work anymore because our life now is better when you're not here." And that was without compromise or without any comparison, the darkest moment in my entire life. Um, day after, I called my co-founder and said, "I'm gonna quit." Uh, I get all stoked up when I talk about it. Um, and uh, we made some [exhales] like, incredible changes. Like, we rethought the business. I rethought my role. We made a, a ton of big changes, and I was super close to quitting, uh, 'cause I've always been family first. And as I said, I work to live. I don't live to work.

    2. MMMarina Mogilko34:03

       Is that when you discovered this discipline thing that works for you now?

    3. OHOscar Höglund34:08

       Yeah.

    4. MMMarina Mogilko34:08

       Especially when it comes to kids, right?

    5. OHOscar Höglund34:09

       Yes.

    6. MMMarina Mogilko34:10

       Yeah.

    7. OHOscar Höglund34:10

       But it's true for exercise, like being disciplined. It's true for food and alcohol, like, everything in moderation, but just having-

    8. MMMarina Mogilko34:17

       [chuckles] Swedes have a different understanding of [laughing] moderation and alcohol. [laughing]

    9. OHOscar Höglund34:22

       [laughing] Okay, alcohol, fair point.

    10. MMMarina Mogilko34:23

        Okay.

    11. OHOscar Höglund34:23

        Alcohol, fair point.

    12. MMMarina Mogilko34:24

        [laughing]

    13. OHOscar Höglund34:25

        But otherwise, I think that, um, I think that discipline is the unsexy answer to success.

    14. MMMarina Mogilko34:31

        I love it.

    15. OHOscar Höglund34:31

        I think that's how you get somewhere.

15. 34:33 – 35:30

    Top AI tools Oscar uses

    1. MMMarina Mogilko34:33

       What are your top three favorite AI apps?

    2. OHOscar Höglund34:35

       Ooh, so I'm a huge user of the default G- Google Suites within Gemini, ChatGPT, use, uh, all the time. I think I'll stop there 'cause I said these are the two where I'm investing most of my time now to make sure that I understand them, and more importantly, they understand me, so I get more and more value from them.

    3. MMMarina Mogilko34:50

       Are you playing with anything right now, like vibe coding or...?

    4. OHOscar Höglund34:53

       Uh, yes, so I, I can't disclose too much, but from a vibe- vibe coding perspective, um, we think that there's a huge opportunity to be the default provider of music to vibe coders. Like, if you think about vibe coding-

    5. MMMarina Mogilko35:06

       Mm

    6. OHOscar Höglund35:06

       ... I think it's a beautiful thing because roughly, what, 1% of the world's population can code, and what vibe coding is, is looking to try and solve for is: how can you get the other 99% of the world's population to code? We think that within that world, like, all of what they're building is currently muted. Like, there's no music component to that. We think that that needs to change.

    7. MMMarina Mogilko35:29

       For someone

16. 35:30 – 38:27

    The three WHY framework

    1. MMMarina Mogilko35:30

       who's willing to start a business using AI-

    2. OHOscar Höglund35:32

       Mm

    3. MMMarina Mogilko35:32

       ... what would be your one advice that they should stick to?

    4. OHOscar Höglund35:35

       One of the best frameworks I ever learned was when I was a mediocre management consultant. I worked for BCG for a few years, and it was not my calling. Uh, I got the job. I did it. I learned a lot, uh, but ultimately, it wasn't for me. But they taught me a framework in terms of-... uh, do you know when you're allowed to call something an analysis, when you've analyzed something? It's when you ask the question why three times. And so the example is the following: There's this company that doesn't make money anymore. You need to understand, like, why is that? Analyze it. And the only time you can call it analysis is if you've dug down into why three times. Okay, so why is the company not making money anymore? You look at the revenue numbers. Have they gone down? The answer is no. You look at the cost numbers. Have they gone up? Yes. Okay, so it's a cost question. Like, the costs have increased, that's why we're not making profit. That's the first why. So why have the cost numbers gone up? You look at the inputs. Are they at the, the same amount? Like, are we buying the same amount of, uh, input? And the answer is yes. And you look at the unit cost. Is the unit cost the same? And you go, "Ooh, no, the unit cost has gone up quite a bit." Ah, okay, so it's not about the materials per se, it's about the unit cost having gone up. And then you ask the question, like, the third time, "Why have the unit costs gone up?" And you go down and you analyze, and you ask a number of questions, and you realize that, well, we used to have three providers, and we would play them out towards each other such that we were the market maker. But then one of our suppliers went into bankruptcy, and the other two suppliers acknowledged that, and they merged.

    5. MMMarina Mogilko37:07

       Mm.

    6. OHOscar Höglund37:07

       So we have one supplier, and they dictate the price. And so the answer is, like, the reason why we're not making any money is because there's a cartel going on down here. And the, the solve is, let's do a tender. We invite five other suppliers, and we introduce competition, and then we'll start making money again. But you have to ask the question why three down-

    7. MMMarina Mogilko37:29

       Yeah

    8. OHOscar Höglund37:29

       ... three times down, and that's when you have an analysis. So in the age of AI, I think that, like, as the, as the name implies, like, you have artificial intelligence, uh, which is in abundance. I think you need to be really good at asking ... like, making an analysis of di- different situations, like going down three steps. Why, why, why? Why is this gonna work? Why isn't it? Why is this? If you can understand that root cause, and then you can deploy AI around that in order to help quickly serve or understand and build things. So complement the human condition, being curious and being rigorous and having, uh, discipline, and then unleashing AI tools to help you understand and answer these questions as soon as possible to find inefficiencies and market opportunities.

    9. MMMarina Mogilko38:12

       Yeah, before just sort of rushing into an idea, just dig deeper into the why.

    10. OHOscar Höglund38:15

        Don't, don't just go why. Go why, why, why, and then-

    11. MMMarina Mogilko38:18

        Love that. Thank you so much, Oscar. Oh, my-

    12. OHOscar Höglund38:21

        Thank you.

    13. MMMarina Mogilko38:21

        That was amazing.

    14. OHOscar Höglund38:23

        Thank you.

    15. MMMarina Mogilko38:23

        That was so good. Thank you.

    16. OHOscar Höglund38:25

        I hope so. [chuckles] I hope it was okay.

    17. MMMarina Mogilko38:26

        Thank you. It was great.

Episode duration: 38:27