How Pandora Avoided the Junkyard, and Found Success

Re:How Pandora Avoided the Junkyard, and Found Success by CoreDumpling on Monday March 08, 2010 @02:32AM (#1174928)

> Every two weeks, he held all-hands meetings to beg people to work, unpaid, for another two weeks. That went on for two years.

What's really astonishing is how long he managed to keep this up. He must have been an extremely good motivator and hired lots of incredibly dedicated employees. If he didn't get his eventual lucky break, these people's lives would have been wrecked.

There must be a lesson to be learned here, though I have some doubts if it is repeatable.

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Re:How Pandora Avoided the Junkyard, and Found Success by abossy on Monday March 08, 2010 @03:03AM (#1174964)

> In March 2004, he made his 348th pitch seeking backers...

I'm surprised he had so much difficulty raising VC after that. You'd think a story like that would get around. Many entrepreneurs have proven track records of success, but few have proven they can persevere against all odds.

...348 pitches!

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Re:How Pandora Avoided the Junkyard, and Found Success by davidmurphy on Monday March 08, 2010 @03:49AM (#1175012)

I love the fact he earmarked $2 mil of the $9 mil investment to then go and pay back-pay to his employees. The right thing to do.

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Re:How Pandora Avoided the Junkyard, and Found Success by sachinag on Monday March 08, 2010 @08:06AM (#1175252)

I'm astonished that the VCs were OK with this. Pandora must have had crazy-ass growth, because using new funds to pay people for past performance is very, very rare.

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Re:How Pandora Avoided the Junkyard, and Found Success by mschaecher on Monday March 08, 2010 @02:50AM (#1174951)

| There must be a lesson to be learned here, though I have some doubts if it is repeatable. |

I'd love to see a Mixergy interview!

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