Netflix's DVD business almost didn't exist. Twenty-five years on, it has transformed the media indus
- 8 months ago
#Netflix #co-founder #Quickflix #founder
In 1997, a decade before the first movie was released on Netflix, Marc Randolph put a disc in an envelope and dropped it off at his local post office in Santa Cruz, California. Netflix's co-founder was testing a theory Could a DVD rental service work? If it weren't for a blind stroke of luck, he might have given up on the Netflix idea the same day. 25 years later — and 5.2 billion red envelopes — last batch of the company's DVDs is making its way through U.S. postal system. Friday was last day of charter service, and milestone caused Randolph to consider role of wealth in company's early days. "A big part of it is being in the right place at the right time," he told ABC News. "Making sure things go smoothly." Marc Randolph looks back nostalgically on the early days of Netflix. In intervening years, Netflix inspired and then crushed Australia's Quickflix, creating the largest movie catalog to date, toppling a corporate giant and ushering in streaming era. Not bad for an experiment that almost failed. If idea of releasing a DVD in 2023 seems anachronistic, it's a testament to disruption Netflix has created over last twenty-five years and luck they've taken along way. 'We dodged a bullet there' When Randolph and his co-founder Reed Hastings came up with their revolutionary idea, neither of them had ever even seen a DVD before. He had heard it was a "thin, lightweight disc that could fit in a first-class mail envelope." This was enough to convince the duo to explore the idea, even though few Americans had DVD players at that point. That's what drove Randolph go to the Santa Cruz post office in 1997; He wanted test whether a disk could survive a trip through the US postal system. Marc Randolph stands outside the Santa Cruz post office where he mailed the Patsy Cline CD in 1997. It happened and the rest is history. At least that's what he believed for a while. When he revisited same Santa Cruz post office months later, he learned that it was only its proximity to the delivery address that saved disk from shattering. A post office worker said that if they had tried to send the disk farther, the disk, along with their nascent business idea, would probably have been crushed by a sorting machine. “We dodged a bullet there,” Randolph says. And that was just first of a series of near misses that have defined Netflix's rise to become the second largest media company in world. A tale of two lenders In a famous incident in 2000, Blockbuster rejected an offer to buy the fledgling startup for US$50 million . The dotcom bubble had burst, and Netflix, strapped for funding, made an offer to Blockbuster CEO John Antioco at the video store franchise's Dallas headquarters. According to Randolph, Antioco was so unimpressed that he had to stop laughing at the meeting . Regardless of how the interaction turned out, the shortsightedness of Blockbuster's decision became apparent within a few years. Netflix was soon le
In 1997, a decade before the first movie was released on Netflix, Marc Randolph put a disc in an envelope and dropped it off at his local post office in Santa Cruz, California. Netflix's co-founder was testing a theory Could a DVD rental service work? If it weren't for a blind stroke of luck, he might have given up on the Netflix idea the same day. 25 years later — and 5.2 billion red envelopes — last batch of the company's DVDs is making its way through U.S. postal system. Friday was last day of charter service, and milestone caused Randolph to consider role of wealth in company's early days. "A big part of it is being in the right place at the right time," he told ABC News. "Making sure things go smoothly." Marc Randolph looks back nostalgically on the early days of Netflix. In intervening years, Netflix inspired and then crushed Australia's Quickflix, creating the largest movie catalog to date, toppling a corporate giant and ushering in streaming era. Not bad for an experiment that almost failed. If idea of releasing a DVD in 2023 seems anachronistic, it's a testament to disruption Netflix has created over last twenty-five years and luck they've taken along way. 'We dodged a bullet there' When Randolph and his co-founder Reed Hastings came up with their revolutionary idea, neither of them had ever even seen a DVD before. He had heard it was a "thin, lightweight disc that could fit in a first-class mail envelope." This was enough to convince the duo to explore the idea, even though few Americans had DVD players at that point. That's what drove Randolph go to the Santa Cruz post office in 1997; He wanted test whether a disk could survive a trip through the US postal system. Marc Randolph stands outside the Santa Cruz post office where he mailed the Patsy Cline CD in 1997. It happened and the rest is history. At least that's what he believed for a while. When he revisited same Santa Cruz post office months later, he learned that it was only its proximity to the delivery address that saved disk from shattering. A post office worker said that if they had tried to send the disk farther, the disk, along with their nascent business idea, would probably have been crushed by a sorting machine. “We dodged a bullet there,” Randolph says. And that was just first of a series of near misses that have defined Netflix's rise to become the second largest media company in world. A tale of two lenders In a famous incident in 2000, Blockbuster rejected an offer to buy the fledgling startup for US$50 million . The dotcom bubble had burst, and Netflix, strapped for funding, made an offer to Blockbuster CEO John Antioco at the video store franchise's Dallas headquarters. According to Randolph, Antioco was so unimpressed that he had to stop laughing at the meeting . Regardless of how the interaction turned out, the shortsightedness of Blockbuster's decision became apparent within a few years. Netflix was soon le