Dharmesh Shah

“An engaging read that will engross any would-be entrepreneur” (Wall Street Journal), now updated with a new afterword by the author: In the tradition of Phil Knight's Shoe Dog comes the incredible untold story of how Netflix went from concept to company — all revealed by co-founder and first CEO Marc Randolph. Once upon a time, brick-and-mortar video stores were king. Late fees were ubiquitous, video-streaming unheard was of, and widespread DVD adoption seemed about as imminent as flying cars. Indeed, these were the widely accepted laws of the land in 1997, when Marc Randolph had an idea. It was a simple thought—leveraging the internet to rent movies—and was just one of many more and far worse proposals, like personalized baseball bats and a shampoo delivery service, that Randolph would pitch to his business partner, Reed Hastings, on their commute to work each morning. But Hastings was intrigued, and the pair—with Hastings as the primary investor and Randolph as the CEO—founded a company. Now with over 150 million subscribers, Netflix's triumph feels inevitable, but the twenty first century's most disruptive start up began with few believers and calamity at every turn. From having to pitch his own mother on being an early investor, to the motel conference room that served as a first office, to server crashes on launch day, to the now-infamous meeting when Netflix brass pitched Blockbuster to acquire them, Marc Randolph's transformational journey exemplifies how anyone with grit, gut instincts, and determination can change the world—even with an idea that many think will never work. What emerges, though, isn't just the inside story of one of the world's most iconic companies. Full of counter-intuitive concepts and written in binge-worthy prose, it answers some of our most fundamental questions about taking that leap of faith in business or in life: How do you begin? How do you weather disappointment and failure? How do you deal with success? What even is success? From idea generation to team building to knowing when it's time to let go, That Will Never Work is not only the ultimate follow-your-dreams parable, but also one of the most dramatic and insightful entrepreneurial stories of our time.

The new second edition of this book is now available, published by Wiley. Get the real guidance you need to create and build your first startup company from founders who have been there many times before. The Startup Playbook is our personal, how-to guide for building your startup from the ground up. In it, you ll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts we ve learned that will shift the odds in your favor. We re sharing our tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion with you. We make no bones about our bias. We re on your side, the founder s side. There is no doubt that venture capitalists, investors, and accelerators/incubators have great value in the startup ecosystem, but this book isn t about their points of view. We ll tell you where our interests as founders diverge from those on the other side of the table investors, bankers, advisors, board members, and others and what to do when that happens. Between us, we ve started over a dozen high-tech software companies, raised over $500 million in investment capital, acquired over thirty-five companies, had three of our startups go public, sold six of them, and we made billions of dollars for shareholders. We ve also advised and mentored over two hundred companies and actively worked with venture capitalists (VCs), incubators, and accelerators to help launch many other new startups. We ve had plenty of failures, too. And we ve probably learned more from those than from the successes. We share those lessons as well. The Startup Playbook is full of advice and guidance from entrepreneurs who have been in the role of the founder many times. We want to share our hard-earned knowledge with you to make success easier for you to achieve.