Co-Founder & President at Belong
Ash Pournouri
Ash Pournouri (LL.M., Stockholm University) is a two-time Grammy-nominated serial entrepreneur who pioneered the modern music business, co-writing the majority of Avicii's catalogue and executive-producing all releases while building one of the most recognisable global brands in entertainment. In 2014 he created and co-founded Brilliant Minds with Spotify founder Daniel Ek, a platform that has hosted the likes of Obama, Eric Schmidt, Tom Brady, Usher and Lebron James. Since exiting music in 2016, he has built a portfolio spanning 40+ companies as early active investor, including Convendum, the largest co-working concept in the Nordics, and a founding ownership stake in Antler, the world's largest venture studio. Through UNLTD.co, he forged artist-first partnerships with Ralph Lauren, Coca-Cola, IKEA, and H&M, and played a key architectural role in Triller's growth to 350 million downloads in 24 months. He was founder and GP of both Norrsken Accelerator and Norrsken Launcher, and has created the largest angel network ever in the Nordics with Nordic Angels. Also founded Super Human Network, a longevity and human performance platform anchored by profiles such as Bryan Johnson, Dr David Sinclair, Dave Asprey and partners with XPRIZE. Across music, culture, and human optimization, his operating philosophy has stayed constant: he doesn't discover movements, he creates them.
Questions & Answers
What's a memorable 'aha' moment you've had while building your startup?
It is and will always be about distribution. If the world can't find you, you don't exist to the world.
What inspired you to start your business?
Rather than taking something and make it better, we wanted to solve a problem that noone had yet found a solution for. Every day artists are frustrated they can't reach their fans even if they paid for it. And if they could reach them, they won't know anything about them - who follows them because of their music, because they like what they look like, because they like their posts, or who is a bigger fan than the other - they don't even know if every follower is real...or a bot. And lastly, even if they knew all of that - they have no way of engaging with or activating their full fan base. On the fan side, they never feel seen, they never get to interact and are never acknowledged by the artist direct. Belong solves all of these things with and within the same platform.
How is your team uniquely positioned to solve the problem you're tackling?
We are seasoned entrepreneurs who not only knows but lived the problem from multiple angles. Deeply ventured into the entertainment space, we understand how to build the solution and bring it to the right people. Merging two huge sectors , namely culture and finance, will open up a new paradigm of opportunities for us - and our partners.
