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Greetings dear all! I hope we are all doing fine! Today, I bring to you all the lessons we should learn from the life of Netflix's Co-founders. As you read this article, I hope you get inspired!!!
Netflix- a subscription streaming service and production company was founded by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings in 1997. Just two months after the official launching in 1998, its co-founders- got a call from Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. Randolph, who at the time, was the company's CEO and Hastings-were excited to meet the Amazon founder. Unfortunately when they got there, Randolph says it didn't take long for him and Hastings to figure out that Bezos wanted to buy Netflix. After their meeting was concluded, Amazon’s team offered to acquire Netflix “somewhere between $14 million and $16 million."
Considering Netflix was only two months old, that was a pretty significant number for a short amount of work. At that time, Randolph owned 30% of the company, while Reed owned 70%. If they sold the company, both of them would have walked away with several million dollars.
On the plane ride home, both Randolph and Hastings discussed the pros and cons of selling Netflix and their biggest pros were that the company wasn't yet making any money; it didn't have a repeatable, scalable or profitable business model; and while they were doing plenty of business (most of it through DVD sales), their costs were high.
But in spite of that, both Randolph and Hastings also knew they were "on the brink of something." Netflix had a working website, a smart team and deals in place with a handful of DVD manufacturers. They had also figured out how to source virtually every DVD on the market and Netflix was "unquestionably the best source on the internet for DVDs.” After their discussion, they finally declined Amazon's offer.
Fortunately, two decades after, Netflix has become the biggest movie streaming platform that earns billions in revenue annually.
From Randolph and Hastings’ life, we should learn not to accept all offers, some offers comes to shatter our dreams. Randolph said- their decision back then taught him that when an opportunity comes, you don't necessarily have to open your door, but you owe it to yourself to at least look through the keyhole.
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