Netflix didn’t beat blockbuster with more data—they beat them with better questions
In 1999, both companies had nearly identical business models: rent movies to people.
But while Blockbuster obsessed over store locations, late fees, and inventory turnover, Netflix asked something completely different: “Where can we use data to compete in a game our competitors can’t play?”
They didn’t try to optimize everything. They focused entirely on one transition: content-to-customer matching. That’s it. They bet that if they nailed that, everything else—retention, growth, customer happiness—would follow.
And they were right.
This is what separates companies who “have dashboards” from companies who use data to dominate: the first tries to measure all parts of the machine, the second picks one part—and reengineers it with data.
