Spotify, which has tripled its losses in two years, has one mission now: to show it hasn't blown its lead.
The good news is that Spotify has 15 million paying customers, making it the biggest subscription music service in the world. Its brand is synonymous with the modern music world. It generates valuable data about its listeners that can be used to identify the next big artists.
Now, the bad news.
Despite its market-leading position, the company is in a tough spot. It isn't making a profit. It's getting attacked by artists like Taylor Swift and Jay Z. And soon, it will be competing with companies like Google and Apple in what is becoming a very competitive and crowded market.
So what does Spotify have to do from here to succeed? With its big event looming, let's run through Spotify's to-do list - the major initiatives the company needs to work on to keep its position as a leader. Running in place won't work. Here's where Spotify is slipping, and how it can gain a stronger footing.
Video
Spotify's (assumed) entry into video puts it in a position to bring in a lot more ad revenue while also adding in a feature that could bring in more people.
But they're also entering one of the most competitive markets on the Internet, and one that is only growing more crowded. In video, Spotify will be squaring off directly with Google (via YouTube), Facebook, upstart Vessel and even, conceivably, Netflix.
It's also a relatively risky proposition. Video, especially the high-quality sort, is expensive. Netflix is expected to drop $450 million on original video in 2014.
Spotify won't spend anywhere near that much, but any video spending is going to be a little tough on a company that lost $197 million in 2014.
Be different
Spotify didn't have to do much to differentiate itself when it was competing with other upstarts like Deezer and Rhapsody. Now, it faces growing competition from major companies that will be able to use their size as a major advantage.
Spotify has a nice head start that should remain a good foothold, but to compete with offerings like Google's YouTube service and Apple's Beats, it will need to have content that differentiates itself from the others. It's competition with those companies will only increase if/when it introduces streaming video.
To its credit, it has done some of that with things like its "Spotify Sessions," live recordings of up-and-coming artists. Add in original, high-quality video and it could begin to standout among the heavyweights.
Better public relations
It really doesn't seem like Spotify had ever been the same since pissing off Taylor Swift, the princess of pop.
Spotify suffered a bout of bad publicity starting in November 2014 when Taylor Swift pulled her entire catalogue of music off of Spotify. The move crystallized what many artists had long-claimed -- that the streaming music service was not adequately compensating artists.
Spotify has yet to fully recover its image. The idea that it's bad for artists is a cloud that continues to sit over the company despite its best efforts to alleviate that. Most recently, a copy of Spotify's agreement with Sony was leaked (with plenty of conjecture that Spotify let it out on purpose) that seemed to indicate that it was the label's fault that its artists weren't getting more money from the service.
Become Netflix
Let's put this plainly: Spotify needs to become like Netflix.
Netflix has done a great job becoming a borderline necessity for anybody with even a passing interest in pop culture. Like Netflix, Spotify has made its foothold on other people's content. In Netflix's case, it was movie and TV rights. In Spotify's case, it was music rights.
Now, Spotify needs to turn the same trick as Netflix and introduce enough original content and differentiation from other services to trump its powerful competitors.