Featured Image Credit: Yevhen Shkolenko / H. Mark Weidman Photography / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Film and TV, Money, TikTok
Gabriella Ferlita
Topics: Film and TV, Money, TikTok
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Except, when it means you could have made some serious money, in which case, it’s pretty damn annoying.
But those interested in investing might be intrigued to know that if they invested just $1,000 into Netflix 20 years ago, they could be raking in a pretty nice amount of cold, hard cash. Check out the video below:
Thanks to the video by Sigma Finance, we're now kicking ourselves, too.
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Although we associate the streaming platform with our favourite binge-worthy series and movies, Netflix was actually originally launched in 1997 as a video-rental company by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph.
Their subscription-based service was simple. Users simply paid $19.95 per month and were able to access unlimited content, with no due dates or late fees, which were physically mailed to them in the iconic red envelopes.
The old-school subscription service also had a ‘queue’ that subscribers could use to identify the order in which their chosen DVDs should be sent to them, as well as an automatic delivery system which sent out their next DVD as soon as their previous tape was returned.
That’s right - there was no simultaneous starting of different TV shows and movies in the 90s! What a time to be alive.
After they reached just under 300,000 subscribers in 2000, Hastings setup a meeting with former Blockbuster CEO John Antioco and proposed that he buy Netflix for $50 million.
Antioco turned down the offer and even went as far as to laugh at Reed and the team. I’ll bet any money he has some regrets about that.
But fast forward a couple of years, and in 2002 - which is now 20 years ago - and the company went public in May, where the company was valued at $309.7 million.
It also opened its regional warehouse, where overnight delivery options were rolled out in response to subscriber complaints that it was taking too long for viewers to receive their DVDs in the post.
Four years later in 2006, the Netflix team became profitable, having generated over $80 million - while subscribers increased to 6.3 million.
In the year following, Netflix would start to become the platform we know and love today. The company started to roll out streaming content to TVs, computers and tablets (can you believe we had those back in the day?) through a service they dubbed as Watch Now.
The first trial began in Canada with just 1,000 titles and was originally included for free with the $5.99 subscription tier for physical DVDs.
It wasn’t until 2010 that Netflix decided to focus more on streaming.
Reed told investors: "Three years ago we were a DVD by-mail company that offered some streaming. We are now a streaming company which also offers DVD by mail."
As of last year, Netflix reached 209 million subscribers in over 190 countries - a pretty amazing feat for a company that was laughed at by a former rival video businessman.