The richest man starts with a blind box

Chapter 866

The meaning of Hastings is actually not difficult to understand, because many Internet companies in later generations have done this, and there is a proper term called big data killing.

This kind of thing is difficult for many normal-thinking people to understand. What kind of benefits and benefits does this have, and it should be distributed to those loyal old users who continue to generate income.

This is like respecting the elders and filial piety to parents, it is a matter of course.

But ironically, in the eyes of those big manufacturers, old customers are not important, and new customers are the most important.

This is actually easy to understand. For these large companies, especially those Internet companies, their most important task is to continuously increase their product traffic, continuously increase the total number of users, and then demand from investors and the market. Money, let the stock price rise, this is the core demand they really need.

So if a company wants to increase the total number of users, the most important thing is of course not to reward old customers, but to constantly attract new customers to join, so they naturally have to use many very attractive benefits to integrate these new customers. Customers are drawn in.

This is also an important reason why all products on the market give new customers a lot of novice benefits, while old users often get nothing.

This is why Hastings asked to use these Internet boxes to attract new customers. As long as they are operated properly, the 50 boxes can instantly attract 50 star users, making the total number of Netflix users from 600 to 650. Ten thousand became [-] million. This is the data growth that Netflix needed to work hard for half a year before. This year's performance will be quite good.

But if these boxes are given away for free to those old users who have been for more than three years, then it is impossible to get any new users. The total number of users is still 600 million. How can you make Hastings stand it.

That's why Hastings clearly opposed Boss Huang's request. I plan to use these TV boxes to attract new users.

After thinking about this point, Huang He really hesitated for a while, because he felt that Hastings's consideration was indeed reasonable. If Netflix could add another 50 new users, it would be a big deal for him. Also a good thing, it's all understandable and profitable.This is the correct decision a normal capitalist would make.

But do you really want to do this?
Huang He thought of his past experiences, time and time again being cut by those Internet giants with familiar methods, and remembered that he was 100 yuan more expensive than those newcomers, or more than a dozen yuan more expensive The cost of Didi Taxi.

Huang He finally said, "My idea remains the same. The 50 boxes of Internet TV boxes should be given priority to the old members who have subscribed for three years!"

"Mr. Huang, why can't you figure it out?" Hastings couldn't suppress his anger and said, "These old members who have been subscribing for three years are the least of them!"

"Since these old members have been subscribing for three years, more than 90% of them will continue to subscribe even if they don't get this free TV box, and there will be no change!"

"And almost all of our members have activated the credit card automatic payment function, and our membership fee will be automatically deducted from the credit card every month. Many members are no longer even renting discs, and we still deduct the membership fee on time every month. , They are pigs that can be harvested casually, why do you provide these free boxes to those pigs that will not bring us any additional benefits?"

"As long as we use these boxes to attract 50 new users, even if only 50 of these 10 new users will open a continuous subscription, it will continue to provide us with a membership fee of 12 US dollars every month in the future, and 144 US dollars a year. New piggies with membership fees, don’t you understand the benefits here?”

Hastings felt that he was already quite earnest and explained the truth so clearly, but Huang He on the other side shook his head and said, "Sir, if you are our old member, then you find that only newcomers can get it." A free TV box, but you get nothing, will you feel comfortable?"

"If our competitor Blockbuster Online offered them an olive branch at this time, inviting them to become Blockbuster members and abandon Netflix, would you agree?" Huang He asked very simply.

"Blockbuster doesn't have this ability. If Harding was still there, he would be an opponent, but their stupid controlling shareholder actually refused to pay Harding's bonus because of various internal struggles and dictating the company. Run away alive."

"And the new president who took office now stupidly proposes to abandon the online leasing business, and at the same time restart all closed stores, so that Blockbuster can rebuild its great offline business!"

"This company is hopeless, and they are no longer qualified to be my opponents!" Hastings said proudly, and at the same time stressed the pronunciation of words such as controlling shareholder and gesticulation, which are very obvious reminders of another How should a controlling shareholder behave?

However, Boss Huang does not understand English, and these words were translated by his secretary Hu Jing, so Huang He seemed not to have heard Hastings' off-screen voice at all, but insisted on saying, "Without Blockbuster, the future There’s going to be Disney, there’s going to be Time Warner, there’s going to be Google, there’s going to be Microsoft, there’s going to be Amazon, they’re all staring at our market, and they’re all going to want to enter this market!”

"If everyone uses this kind of madness to subsidize newcomers and completely ignore the practice of old users, then once another platform that gives more subsidies to newcomers appears, do you think these old users will be willing to stay on the Internet? Fei, will you be your piggy?"

"This is impossible. How could these big companies compete with us across borders? You are worrying unnecessarily!" Hastings was already very irritable, so he continued, "Sir, I am a professional. Having made Netflix so big, from a small website to a business with 600 million users, I know and know all my users, and I know what to do with them!"

"Please believe in my ability and stop interfering with us!" Hastings said with a cold face.

"Oh, but how do I remember that the person who really added Netflix from zero to 600 million users was actually President Randolph?" Huang He said coldly, and Hastings' eyes instantly became extremely sharp. , staring at Huang He stubbornly, as if he was going to kill someone.

"Sir, that's a traitor to our company, please don't mention this person again!" Hastings gritted his teeth and said.

It can be seen that Hastings is very angry with Randolph, so what did Randolph do to Hastings?

The story goes like this, 8 years ago, that is, in 97, Randolph rented a movie video tape from Blockbuster, and then paid a full $40 late fee for returning it overdue.

So Randolph was very angry, and at this time, the video tape in DVD format was launched. Although it was not popular in the market, it was his turn to realize that DVD would replace the future of video tape sooner or later.

So Randolph came up with, why not start a company that specializes in renting DVDs?

At this time, Bezos' Amazon became the darling of the stock market, and e-commerce, which sells goods by mail, also became the focus of the market, so Randolph combined the two, and the idea of ​​Netflix was born.

Then Randolph found his former boss. Hastings was a shrewd investor. After he analyzed it, he felt that this matter was indeed profitable, so he invested 200 million U.S. dollars in Randolph. A hand-off shopkeeper, but took 70% of the company's shares.

And Randolph is solely responsible for the company's operations, occupying 30% of the company's shares.

I won’t say much about the subsequent stories. Anyway, under the operation of Randolph, Netflix overcame various difficulties in the early stage, set the basic format of the website, invented Netflix’s unique mail sorting method, and recruited various All kinds of professional talents have created a professional algorithm for the first time, which is specially used to calculate what kind of DVD discs their customers like, and then give priority to recommendations based on the inventory.

And that groundbreaking wish list model, all invented by Randolph.

But around 02, because Blockbuster also entered the game, and at this time Blockbuster had tens of millions of users in the United States, this had a severe impact on the entire Netflix, and Netflix was on the verge of bankruptcy. At that time, Hastings held a dinner at home, and then invited many investors to the dinner, trying every means to give Netflix the reason for the investment.

It was true that Netflix could no longer sustain it under the fierce competition at that time. If it weren't for the huge financial support that Boss Huang gave at the end, Netflix would have... got investment from another big boss.

However, Boss Huang is far more generous than the other boss, so Netflix has no financial concerns and can develop as much as it wants.

But at this time, Hastings, who had originally agreed not to intervene in the company's operations, decided to directly intervene in Netflix's operations because his business went bankrupt and he had nothing to do.

His excuse was that Randolph had caused huge and irreparable losses to the company, and Hastings, who had received investment from Huang He, easily let Randolph agree to end the previous agreement and let Hastings fully enter the company. He himself became the chairman and president of the company and was fully responsible for the company's operations, so he continued to serve as the company's vice president.

After that, Hastings launched a series of layoffs, downsizing, and then recruiting new jobs.

With Boss Huang's huge amount of money and Blockbuster's own stupid infighting, Netflix has come out of the trough and ushered in a huge victory, while Randolph has been marginalized to investigate the automatic DVD player business went.

As a result, the hard-working research plan was directly rejected.

In the end, Randolph felt extremely desperate, and directly sold all the shares of Netflix in his hands to Hastings, and then went to work on his automatic DVD player alone with a few old employees of the company. Being completely cleared from Netflix, Hastings has complete control over the entire company.

Well, Randolph was such a traitor.

(End of this chapter)