That will never work

The birth of NETFLIX and the amazing life of an idea

credits: simplylifeindia.com

Has this blog got to do anything with travel, tourism or technology?
NO!

This is a story of founders of Netflix, a story of grit, determination, thinking out of the box without the fear of making mistakes.

As Mark says: “ If you are unwilling to disrupt yourself, there will always be someone willing to disrupt your business for you.”

This I think resonates very well for any entrepreneur, more so someone from the travel industry. I think and hope you all agree that the travel space is something very tough & there are so many ups & downs through your journey. Each one of us would have an interesting journey to narrate.

Here is one incident that Mark narrates:

In 2000, at the depth of the dot com crash, Reed Hastings and I tried to sell Netflix to Blockbuster for $50 million dollars. They laughed us out of the room. Today, the company they could have bought for $50 million has a market cap north of $150 billion. And the company that once had 9,000 stores, is down to a single one. But what lesson to take from this? That it’s possible for a handful of people, with no prior experience in the video business, to take down a 6 billion dollar category leading company? Sure. But I think the more important lesson - a lesson that Blockbuster learned too late - is simply this: If you are unwilling to disrupt yourself, there will always be someone willing to disrupt your business for you.

They launched Netflix 25 years ago this week. In celebration, he would be sharing some of his favorite memories—from the initial idea through the years he spent at the company.

‘We’ll start with the question I get asked more than any other: where did the idea for Netflix come from? When people ask me this question, they want an “epiphany” moment. They’re looking for the story about two guys who can’t make their rent, and… boom! There’s AirBnB. They want the guy who can’t get a cab on New Years Eve and… aha! There’s Uber. Or the guy who gets stuck with a $40 late fee on a movie, and… eureka! There’s Netflix.”

To read more of the Netflix chronicles, click here:

https://twitter.com/mbrandolph/status/1645598698347585536?s=20

Were you inspired reading a bit about Marc’s story? I certainly am inspired and just ordered his book:

Share your thoughts or your story, I would be very interested.

Best,

Narayan