“That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea”—24 Reasons Why I Love This BookClassics 

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to get an early release of the book That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea by Marc Randolph. Marc and I grew up about 2 miles away from each other and went to the same high school. He was a very good guy and while we were friends, by the time high school arrived and after, we traveled in different circles. I had heard he was a co-founder of Netflix but it was hard for me to visualize how that happened and while curious, I certainly did not know the story. He had done all of this on the West Coast. When I heard he was coming out with book about his experience, I was intrigued. When I sat down and read the prerelease copy not only did I like it, I was blown away. It is fantastic.

I found it to be not just honest and super authentic but also intelligent in how it described the right way to think about entrepreneurship (without all the pomposity – that did not go down very well in our neighborhood). Plus, it was extremely readable. Using the power of the narrative and sublimating his ego, Marc was able to tell the story the way it really happened rather than rewriting it to make himself seem like a superhero. As a result, I found it very helpful as an educational book … but it is also so entertaining and fun to read. I kept thinking of the word “binge reading” while I was reading it as I found it hard to put the book down.

There are so many great points and as I went through, I found myself using the Disciplined Entrepreneurship Canvas to check off the problems the team was solving as they took Netflix from an idea to a juggernaut.

Rather than claim that there is a singular insight to making a successful entrepreneurs, it is clear that it is a complex system and getting many things right in balance and at the right time – and not getting the things wrong that will kill you – is the real key to success. It is not simple but it also has to be manageable and you must be systematic about it.

As such, I am going to highlight 24 reasons (consistent with the 24 step theme) of why I found this book so insightful and a must read for entrepreneurs looking to up level their game.

24 Reasons Why I Loved This Book

1. Raison d’être: It was not clear from the book to me what the exact the “raison d’être” or driving vision why the world would be such a better place because of Netflix but there was something special in the air. They got people to work there for less money and work relentlessly through difficult problems. They made it about much more than the money. They got people who bought into their entertainment mission … with both feet in.
2. Focus, Focus, Focus: There are really two underlying themes above all else in this book that come through loud and clear – and should. Focus and culture. They are not different swim lanes from the rest of the business but rather integrate into everything. Focus is how they survived and, in the end, thrived. At one point, Marc refers to focus as the secret weapon of entrepreneurs. I like that. When he talks about the necessity of focus, he writes “At a startup, it hard enough to get a single thing right, much less a whole bunch of things. Focus is imperative. Even when the thing you’re focusing on seems impossible. Especially then.”
3. Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast: Marc owns from the very beginning that Netflix legendary culture (there are 19 million views of their culture deck on SlideShare) is fundamental to its success (and not necessarily for everyone). He describes how it got started and how their Chief People Officer, Patty McCord, got pulled in to central core of the founding team very early. They also were very thoughtful and intentional about how they made sure their culture could scale. I won’t repeat what I have written elsewhere on this subject but merely say that Dharmesh Shah has it right when he says that enduring companies thoughtfully build two products: (1) A product for its customers, AND (2) A product for its people (i.e. culture).  There are great insights on how this happened by design and then grew via continued commitment.
4. The Original Idea Doesn’t Matter That Much: As I have mentioned in The Most Overrated Thing in Entrepreneurship article, this book brings the point home in spades with some great caveats (see next point). The original idea needed to morph extensively and there were probably lots of people with the same or similar idea to make an online movie store but Netflix jumped in and figured out the details and executed. That is what matters.
5. However, There are Bad Ideas; You Just Don’t Know Until You Test Them: A key mantra of Marc, especially at the end is that “Nobody Knows Anything”. Sometimes this is taken too far for my tastes but the author’s point is that nobody knows if something is a good or bad idea until it is tested. The name of the book is “That Will Never Work” because that is what Marc’s wife told him about the Netflix idea. In fact, it would not have worked as originally envisioned but after experimentation and implementation, it was clear what would NOT work and then adjustments were made to find something that did work. When the experiments and data show that it is not a good idea, then it is a bad idea and this must be acknowledged and appropriate subsequent actions taken.
6. Entrepreneurship is a Team Sport: To succeed you need to have a team with a of diverse team members – common vision, shared values, and complementary skills. It is so interesting to hear how he built the team that not only succeeded but scaled a pretty good distance. Of course, the intense relationship with Marc and Reed is gripping reading as well but it is not the only key relationship at all. This was truly a team with a common vision and complementary skills.
7. Luck is When Opportunity Meets Preparation: Disruption is overused term but Marc and Reed looked for an opportunity where there would be a market dislocation in the future. Online stores, video viewing, DVDs, constant consumption – a convergence of these was destined to happen in the not too distant future. The Netflix team got to work and were fully committed to lead in this space.  They arrived ready before anyone else so when the opportunity finally arrived, because they had their “10,000 hours of preparation” under their belts to seize the moment.
8. Super Valuable Tests Can be Very Simple & Low Cost: One of the turning points in the story is when Marc mailed a CD in the US Postal Service normal mail delivery to see if would be successfully delivered without damage or significant costs. This was a key hypothesis and easy to test. It worked. This shows that simple, low cost tests can be done to validate key assumptions and they are better than debating competitions.
9. What is Your Core? It is great if you can create value for a customer but you have to think multiple moves a head strategically. You don’t want to incur the expense and effort of creating a market only to have someone else (Amazon?) comes in and reap the rewards of this new market and leave you on the sidelines. If Netflix did not think strategically, this would surely have happened. The story shows how they were constantly anticipating and working this intellectual challenge very hard issue even when it ran counter to their short term interests. Their strategic instincts were excellent.
10. What are Your Moats to Develop Your Core? Along the way, to develop their core (a rental business), but that was not enough. There are were a lot of other things they had to excel into for survival. We call these moats but you can also think of them as necessary capabilities which offer short term competitive advantage. Logistics? They needed to be excellent (and they were) but they knew this was not sufficient to beat Amazon and others. It would not be their core. Comprehensive Library? An excellent short term special feature but again, but not a long term defensible core. Reviews? They must also be excellent in this dimension of allowing people to create them and developing a community but it alone would not be a sufficient to be a defensible core.
11. DVD Sales = The Volvo: In my courses and videos, I usually start with the Lamborghini and Volvo story forcing the class to make a choice.  Do you get distracted and take a customer who has cash and wants you to service her Volvo? People often over simplify that lesson and say you should never take the Volvo. Not true. Sometimes you have to take the Volvo to stay alive for another day but you must understand it is temporary and potentially very distracting short term solution. You have to know it is not a long term strategy and wean yourself off this bad drug as soon as possible. You must have a long term strategy and just use the Volvo, very, very carefully if necessary, as a bridge.
12. Window of Opportunity and Triggers: In the DE Workbook, I have a whole chapter on Windows of Opportunities (WoO) and Triggers.  Without knowing those words, Netflix realized that they had a WoO when a consumer bought their DVD hardware.  They smartly designed a trigger (a marketing campaign and give away) within that Window of Opportunity to capture a customer that would be very difficult to reach otherwise. They had to work hard but they were able to partner with the major (at that time) DVD hardware manufacturers and partners – Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic – that got them their initial lift.
13. CoCA/CAC to LTV Ratio: Again, back to the DE Canvas systems model, once they had figured out who their customer was, how they could produce value, especially uniquely in the long term, and they were starting to get traction in the market, the big question is, “do the unit economics work?” As Reed says so bluntly on page 156, “It’s like a taxi driving all the way to another state just to pick up a four-dollar fare.” Wow, that pretty well captures the essence of unbalance unit economics from a misaligned CAC/LTV ratio. They do get it fixed but first you have to define the problem and have people really understand the issue.
14. Relentlessly Focused to Get to Rentals and Not be Satisfied with the Volvo (DVD Sales): To the point above (#11) about have had the strategic insight to know that they would never beat Amazon if they stuck with DVD sales, you still have to admire their execution. They showed extraordinary intestinal fortitude to get out at the right time and in the right way. This required enormous discipline because it is very hard to give up a cash cow today. But they stuck with it.
15. Ultimately a Business Model and Process Innovation Solves the Riddle: It is ironic that the breakthrough for Netflix was not a technology or a marketing innovation, it was a business model and process innovation. They had thought of themselves as a store and that created limitations in their mental models for solutions (e.g., they carried the inventory like a store). When force to deal with this impossible problem of creating a rental base of customer with a customer base that was conditioned by the Blockbuster brick and mortar model, it took something very creative. Essentially, Netflix had to change customer habits – not something easy at all. (See book The Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg.) Ultimately, it was a combination of three elements (see page 206-207): (1) Home Rental Library (with no late fees) of Four DVDs, (2) Serialized Delivery from a Customized List, (3) Subscription Business Model. It was this completely disruptive approach that finally got Netflix to achieve its goal of being a movie rental company for the first time. It is interesting to note that technology is not always the answer and often is not the best answer when it is.
16. Impressed that Marc and Reed Had the Guts, Smarts and Attitude to Dance with Amazon and Blockbuster – And Come Out Stronger: Some of the most interesting parts of the book are the dances Netflix had with Amazon and Blockbuster when they could easily have been crushed and how they came out better afterwards. I have to say, in my businesses, I steered clear of these meetings and I generally advise others to do so as well until they have some leverage. The fearlessness of Marc and Reed to do this, and how they came out stronger afterwards, is inspirational but I am not sure how to duplicate. They are truly anti-fragile people and they made Netflix in that image as well. Kudos to them.
17. You Have to Keep Doing Your PMR (Primary Market Research): Netflix was never satisfied to stand still and they knew the consumer was not going to either. That was what created the opportunity in the market for them to displace the immensely bigger Blockbuster company. It is fascinating to read in the book how they are constantly trying learn what they don’t know (remember “nobody knows anything”) through testing. They systematically studied the consumer behavior (habits) on an ongoing basis by continually running experiments
18. Surprise! Next Day Delivery Slightly Improves Churn but the Real Value is Bringing Down CAC and Driving Market Penetration: On page 219 and 220 there is a discussion of how Netflix experimented to see the effect of next day delivery. They felt it would have a very positive impact on customer retention but when they ran the experiment, they were confused. They did not see an appreciable improvement in reducing churn for their customers. Then they realized that they were looking at the wrong metric for success for this experiment. They saw that while churn was slightly materially affected, new signups were surging! The program was creating happier customers (essentially, a higher NPS – Net Promoter Score) which created much stronger advocates for their offering in the community which brought down CAC.  The geographic concentration and focus on next day delivery allowed them to improve unit economics and dramatically drive up market penetration. Lesson: You have to measure the right things in your experiments and be open to surprises.
19. The Canada Principle: This is directly related to the focus theme mentioned in #2 above that permeates the whole story but it is still worthy of its own point for the clarity it provides with a specific example.  On page 216, expansion into Canada was considered and it seemed like an easy victory to pick up for Netflix. It would be undemanding to expand there from the US and Netflix would have gotten an instant revenue increase of approximately 10%. Being disciplined and analytic, they did not do it for two reasons. First, it would be more complicated upon a clear minded analysis with currency exchanges, languages differences (they speak French in Quebec) and other logistical and cultural issues. Secondly, the opportunity cost was high. To quote Marc, “If we took the amount of effort, manpower and mind-power Canada expansion would require and applied it to other aspects of the business, we’d eventually get a far greater return than 10 percent.” This phrase (“The Canada Principle”) became one of the mantras and an explicit example for the company of keeping focus. It became a touchstone story to create guard rails when other projects had to be killed that were not the “main thing” (i.e., core business). Having a clear illustrative story like this has power much like urban legends do (see book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath) has real value.
20. Scaling is Hard and Often Involves Two Steps Forward and One Step Back:  Even as Netflix began to succeed and move toward an IPO, that failed the first time, you can see the challenges.  With success, there are more resources and new reasons to get distracted. It is very interesting and common how Netflix essentially over expanded and then had to contract again to back to becoming a high performance company again. This is brilliantly described, starting on page 255, where they have to hit the brakes and then ruthlessly start cutting programs and people that were not laser like focused on the core business. Again, the rich and very specific description of this is powerful as it the metaphor of “scraping barnacles off the hull”. Focus is not just essential at the beginning but also to create profitable and sustainable growth.
21. Two Dreams in Conflict: On of the most powerful points in the book is around the personal narrative when Marc talks openly about the pressure for him to step down as CEO.  He has to sublimate his ego and then intellectually realizes there were two dreams at play in this situation. First was the dream of the company and secondly was his dream running it. These two can by full aligned but as the company grows, it is increasing unlikely they will stay full aligned and then there have to be tradeoffs. For great companies, the team dream must come before the individual dream, obviously, but to start a company successfully takes a significant personal ego by a small number of individuals (called founders). You must take it personally to be great. If you don’t, you will not be as successful as someone who does. Ultimately, as Marc explains on page 185-189, he comes to peace with stepping down as the CEO and teaming with Reed Hastings. It all sounds so logical but I can assure you from having been in this situation and seen many others, it is not simply logical. It is extremely emotional. It takes immense personal maturity but it does start with logic.
22. Take the Business Very Seriously, But Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously: Not only for the decision in item #21 above, but also throughout the book as Marc jokes around with others and is able to honestly assess himself.  It is yet another example of where you see how important it is for an entrepreneur to use humor, self-effacement and general empathy to be successful.
23. Managing People – Freedom and Responsibility: I love specific examples to illustrate fundamental truths and there is a gem on page 195. Marc talks in many places about the principals of effectively managing and motivating people with a fundamental guiding principal of freedom and responsibility. The example is an engineering manager who asks if he can reduce his hours to support a budding relationship – by increasing his remote work time while still managing a group. Rather than paraphrase, here is the excerpt:
    

    “I don’t care where you work, or what hours you work. Work from Mars, for all I care. If all you’re asking me is about when you work and where you do it, that is an easy answer: it makes no difference to me.” He then continued, “But if what your really asking me is whether I’m willing to lower my expectations for you and your group so that you can spend time with your girlfriend? Well that answer is an easy answer too. No.”

    Well said. As a good leader/manager, you give people direction but don’t tell them how to do the job but also set high expectations and communicate their accountability to the group. It is then their job to execute against this. It is your job as the leader to protect, resource appropriately, reward and hold accountable your people.

24. What really is success?: I won’t ruin the book’s final scene, but let me just say that Marc and his son experience success in the most subtle (and New York City) way. It is not about money. Success is something much more. Money is not the way to keep score.

I could go on and on but you get a sense of the value of the book. It is a rare, honest, entertaining and educational look at what getting a high quality startup off the ground is like. Data shows that the more times you do entrepreneurship (like many other things), the better you get. This is a chance for you to get another experience in a few days (if you binge read) and you will be better off for it.

The book is available immediately for pre-order and starts shipping September 17, 2019 at the latest. It will be available in all kinds of formats and languages.