Stories from the origins of Netflix

Marc Randolph Co-founder, Netflix

Netflix’s co-founder, Marc Randolph’s episode on the Tim Ferris show is full of interesting stories and nuggets from the origins of Netflix. I will try to paraphrase a few of them which I found interesting:

Good vs Bad Ideas

“There is no such thing as a good idea. Every idea is a bad idea. Crazy ideas that might have been Netflix: “

• Personalized Shampoo — Cut a lock of hair and mail it to us, our team of ace scientists formulate a personalized shampoo
• Personalized dog food — Formulate a custom dog food for your dog based on the breed, gender, activity level, climate etc.
• Personalized sports equipment — Skis, roller skates, bikes etc personalized for you
• And then finally one idea that seemed reasonable which was video rentals by mail. But, in 1997, VHS tapes were big and expensive so it was not cost effective to mail them so we bagged that idea.

Then one day we heard about this new technology called the DVD. The video rental idea popped in our head and instead of doing more research about it or put together a business plan, we simply tried it by mailing a DVD for the cost of a postage stamp and then it worked. And that was the way of knowing whether it is a good or bad idea!