#62 Building Epidemic Sound into a Billion-Dollar Company with Oscar Höglund

Oscar Höglund, Co-founder and CEO of Epidemic Sound, is leading one of the world’s largest music and sound effects libraries. The platform's music now soundtracks videos that amass a staggering 2.5 billion views daily on YouTube and TikTok alone. Oscar's innovative approach has not only empowered creators worldwide but also attracted substantial investments, such as a $450 million funding round in 2021, valuing the company at $1.4 billion. In this episode, Oscar shares the journey of building Epidemic Sound, touching on the challenges of entrepreneurship, the role of curiosity and collaboration, and the power of diverse life experiences in shaping leadership. We explore the importance of music in content creation, and how AI is transforming the industry. Episode 62 Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:08 Oscar Explains How Problem-Solving Is Attached to Curiosity 00:08:43 How YOU Can Use Problem-Solving to Build Companies 00:10:15 How Military Service Shaped Oscar's Life 00:13:17 From Military Instructor to Ski Instructor (BIG TWIST) 00:14:51 How Oscar Finally Got into Business School & Found His Path 00:20:40 How Traveling Can Make Your Extremely Valuable 00:24:03 THIS Was Oscar's Bad Decision 00:28:16 Oscar Explains How Being Different Led to His Success 00:32:45 Understanding the Super-Power of Diversity in Your Team 00:35:13 Oscar Reveals the Secret for Trusting Your Gut (Never Fail Again) 00:40:20 The Origin of Epidemic Sound 00:44:07 How the Music Industry Actually Works (SECRETS) 00:50:05 This Is How Epidemic Sound Revolutionized the Music Industry 00:54:58 The Real Mission of Epidemic Sound (Core Values) 00:58:20 How Epidemic Sound Changed the Content Creation Game 01:03:36 How Working with Epidemic Changed EVERYTHING For Artists 01:05:32 How Epidemic Changed Artist Compensation Forever 01:11:48 Understanding the Internet's Sound 01:14:55 Integrating AI Into Epidemic's Ecosystem 01:17:24 Oscar Talks About the Future of AI In Music Creation 01:26:38 How to Build a Team & Create Company Culture 01:38:16 Steps to Build a Truly Successful Business If this podcast is helping you, please take 2 minutes to rate our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, It will help the Podcast reach and help more people! Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/12jUe4lIJgxE4yst7rrfmW?si=ab98994cf57541cf Apple Podcasts (Scroll down to review)- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bad-decisions-podcast/id1677462934 Find out more about Epidemic Sound: https://www.instagram.com/epidemicsound/ Join our discord server where we connect and share assets: https://discord.gg/zwycgqezfD Bad Decisions Audio Podcast 🎙️: Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcast https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/badxstudio If you wanna see us to do cool things follow us here too: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/badxstudio/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/badxstudio TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@badxstudio LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/badxstudio Our personal handles: (if you wanna stalk us) https://www.instagram.com/farhad_baddecisions/ https://www.instagram.com/faraz_baddecisions/ https://www.instagram.com/farhad_sh/ https://www.instagram.com/farazshababs/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/farhadshababi/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/farazshababi/