How experiments powered Netflix and Amazon’s success

I'm not sure there was a happier person in the crowd when Marc Randolph came on stage at _SOUTHSTART and talked about the importance of experiments in Netflix's (and any businesses) success.

A lot of experiments are geared around desirability, but he referenced a great example of one to test feasibility.

In under 24 hours they validated if ordering a movie by post (rather than renting from a store) would work.

There was no fancy infrastructure built, all they did was go to a post office and post a DVD in an envelope to themselves, to see:
- How much it would cost
- How the DVD would arrive (scratched? broken?)
- How quickly it would arrive

They got the DVD the next day, unbroken, and for the same price as a stamp.

At this point, he knew he had something worth pursuing further.

Amazon's success is also built around a culture of experiments. Jeff Bezos has said:

"Our success at Amazon is a function of how many experiments we do per year, per month, per week, per day."

I couldn't be more excited about what we're creating at Archer and our mission to help all businesses adopt this line of thinking to feel confident around pursuing new paths for growth.