Growth Loop: Shazam

How Shazam acquired 500 million active users by using growth loops

Shazam, a music recognition app, has used several growth loops to fuel its growth and success. These are the key ones that led them to their growth:

1. Audio Fingerprinting Loop: Shazam's core product is its music recognition technology, which identifies songs that are playing in the environment. As more users use the app to identify songs, the app's database of audio fingerprints grows, which in turn improves the accuracy and speed of the app.

   This leads to more users having a positive experience and sharing the app with others, which helps to attract new users and increase usage.

2. Viral Sharing Loop: Shazam encourages users to share their music discoveries with their friends and followers on social media. This creates a viral loop, where new users are attracted to the app by seeing their friends use it and share their experiences.

3. Promotional Partnership Loop: Shazam has formed partnerships with music artists and labels, which allows them to promote their music to Shazam's large user base. This leads to more users discovering new music on the app and sharing it with others, which helps to attract new users and increase usage.

4. Audio Advertising Loop: Shazam has also used audio advertising as a growth loop. The app plays short audio ads when users are trying to identify a song. As more users use the app, the number of ad impressions increases, which in turn leads to more revenue for Shazam, allowing it to invest more in growth and product development.