SC

Strategy Canon

Netflix: sourced choices

34 product and go-to-market choices, oldest first. Back to the case study

  1. 1998Go_To_Market · Sales exit Stopped selling DVDs in a single day, giving up most revenue, to avoid competing with Amazon on a commodity. NF25
  2. 1998-04Product · Origin Website launched in April 1998 renting and selling DVDs one title at a time; revenue came mainly from individual rentals through January 1999. NF38
  3. 1999-09Product · Service design Members keep discs at home with no due dates or late fees; a queue sends the next disc on return. NF25
  4. 1999-09Go_To_Market · Subscription price $15.95 a month for four titles from September 1999; unlimited titles for $19.95 from February 2000. NF38
  5. 2000Go_To_Market · Studio terms Revenue-sharing agreements with more than 50 studios and distributors; equity issued to five studios in 2000 and 2001. NF38
  6. 2002Product · Recommendations In-house recommendation service built on member ratings; members chose 97 percent of more than 14,500 titles in Q4 2002. NF38
  7. 2002Go_To_Market · Free trial 14-day free trial with about 90 percent conversion; inserts in DVD player boxes and Best Buy point-of-sale. NF38
  8. 2003-03Go_To_Market · Delivery 18 shipping centers; one-day delivery targeted for about 70 percent of subscribers by end of 2003. NF38
  9. 2006Product · Recommendations About 1.7 billion ratings; the service creates a customized store for each subscriber and demand for the entire library. NF13
  10. 2006Product · Netflix Prize $1 million offered for a 10 percent improvement on Cinematch; two methods later put into production. NF29
  11. 2006-12Go_To_Market · Plans Plans from $4.99 a month with no due dates, late fees or shipping fees; 6.3 million subscribers. NF13
  12. 2007-01Product · Instant viewing Instant viewing on Windows PCs with about 1,000 titles. NF24
  13. 2007-01Go_To_Market · Bundle terms Instant viewing free to DVD subscribers with hours tied to plan price ($18 plan, 18 hours). NF24
  14. 2007-12Product · Own player declined A Netflix-built streaming player weeks from launch was cancelled and its team spun out as Roku. NF31
  15. 2008-05Product · Television player Netflix Player by Roku at $99.99 streams the instant queue to the TV. NF14
  16. 2008-10Go_To_Market · Content license Starz Play: about 1,000 films a year at no extra cost to subscribers. NF21
  17. 2010-02Product · Device reach Streaming through Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, internet TVs, Blu-ray players, TiVo and Roku. NF22
  18. 2010-02Go_To_Market · Content terms Streaming content generally licensed for a fixed fee for the term of the license. NF22
  19. 2010-09Go_To_Market · Canada Streaming-only service in Canada at $7.99 a month. NF37
  20. 2010-11Go_To_Market · Streaming-only plan $7.99 US streaming-only plan; streaming-plus-DVD plan raised to $9.99. NF15
  21. 2011-03Go_To_Market · Original series Two seasons of House of Cards committed without a pilot; Netflix takes streaming rights. NF26
  22. 2011-09Go_To_Market · Supplier exit Starz ends renewal negotiations; its content leaves Netflix on February 28, 2012. NF20
  23. 2011-10Product · Product boundary Qwikster separation abandoned; DVD and streaming kept on one website and account. NF16
  24. 2011-10Go_To_Market · International pacing Latin America launched; UK and Ireland planned; new markets paused until global profitability. NF18
  25. 2012-04Product · Streaming recommendations Personalized homepage rows; recommendation shifted from predicting ratings to ranking for immediate viewing. NF29
  26. 2012-06Product · Delivery network Open Connect announced: a single-purpose Netflix CDN with free appliances for ISPs. NF32
  27. 2012-12Go_To_Market · Exclusive window Exclusive Pay 1 home for Disney theatrical releases from 2016. NF40
  28. 2013-02Product · Release format All 13 episodes of House of Cards released at once in every Netflix territory. NF11
  29. 2015-12Product · Recommendation value About 80 percent of hours from recommendations; personalization valued at more than $1 billion a year in retention. NF30
  30. 2016-01Go_To_Market · Global launch Service launched in 130 additional countries at once. NF5
  31. 2016-03Product · Delivery network Open Connect delivers 100 percent of video traffic from close to 1,000 locations; server throughput from 8 to over 90 Gbps since 2012. NF3
  32. 2017-03Product · Global recommendations Members grouped into about 1,300 taste communities by viewing behavior, not region. NF36
  33. 2022-10Go_To_Market · Ad tier Basic with Ads announced for November 2022. NF9
  34. 2023-05Go_To_Market · Paid sharing US household-sharing rules with paid extra members. NF10