That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea

by Marc Randolph

The truth is that no business plan survives a collision with a real customer. So the trick is to take your idea and set it on a collision course with reality as soon as possible.

I often counsel young entrepreneurs to start by asking people what they think, but then immediately follow up the inevitable “I love it” reply with the ask: “Can I count on you to invest a few thousand dollars?” The backpedaling is so fast and furious that it makes Lance Armstrong look like my grandmother.

I knew that I, and everyone else on that initial team, would thrive if given a lot of work to do and a lot of space to do it. That was really all our culture amounted to. Handpick a dozen brilliant, creative people, give them a set of delicious problems to solve, then give them space to solve them.

One- or two-syllable words are best—and ideally, the emphasis be should on the first syllable. Think of the most popular website names: Goo-gle. Face-book. These names open with a bang.

Most engineers can choose where they want to work, and the way they make their decision boils down to two questions: 1) Do I respect the people I’m working for? 2) Will I be given interesting problems to solve?

Focus. It’s an entrepreneur’s secret weapon. Again and again in the Netflix story—dropping DVD sales, dropping à la carte rentals, and eventually dropping many members of the original Netflix team—we had to be willing to abandon parts of the past in service of the future. Sometimes, focus this intense looks like ruthlessness—and it is, a little bit. But it’s more than that. It’s something akin to courage.