Access Podcast here

Occasionally we like to pull in a guest from outside of the Southeast, and today’s guest has a very compelling story to tell indeed. What is an Internet music entrepreneur to do when, after surviving the dot com flameout, his company is faced with potentially crippling fees from the RIAA? In this show, we sit down with Pandora founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Tim Westergren, for a great chat about Pandora, the Music Genome Project, the RIAA, their shelved plans for international expansion (thanks to the RIAA), and what the future holds for Pandora!

As an added bonus we throw capital brokers and people who charge money for networking and capital introductions “under the bus” as we continue to bring you truth & justice … the StartupLounge.com way, baby! We also give a nice update on our upcoming first-ever quarterly Capital Connections event here in Atlanta (now featuring 75+ early-stage Georgia companies and 30 angels and venture capitalists representing over $1B in capital.)

http://www.startuplounge.com/sl-11-pandora-a-dot-com-survival-story/

This was a very strong show with a compelling guest. What was it like in the early days of building Pandora? What was it like raising capital during the bubble? What lessons were learned in the process? How did the company manage to survive the fallout from the bubble? What impact will the new Internet music licensing and royalty fee structure have on Internet broadcasters such as Pandora? How are they fighting back? More importantly, from an entrepreneurial perspective, how does a company overcome such a hurdle as it tries to expand?

We've got a number of great shows coming up, including Jason Caplain (Southern Capitol Ventures), Larry Villanueva (Gardner Groff), Andy Monin (Vendormate), and Reggie Bradford (ViTrue).

Please help us spread the word! If you know an early stage entrepreneur who could benefit from our programming and support community, we would certainly appreciate you sending them to our site at startuplounge.com, where they can get the (free) help they need in building their business.