????Netflix首席執(zhí)行官里德?哈斯廷斯上周宣布，該公司將分拆DVD租賃業(yè)務(wù)，將其改組為新公司Qwikster。我上次查看Netflix關(guān)于此事的官方博客時(shí)，這一公告后面有27,183條留言，其中大概有27,181條是負(fù)面評(píng)論。

????華爾街也不看好這一舉措，Netflix當(dāng)前的交易價(jià)已經(jīng)跌到了兩個(gè)月前的一半以下。就連我的朋友們也大惑不解，紛紛發(fā)郵件問我，這家公司是否“快要垮臺(tái)了”？

????他們完全錯(cuò)了。

????我不僅完全支持Netflix的做法，而且還認(rèn)為它是我迄今以來見過的最明智、最自律、最勇敢的舉措。

????首先申明一下，我多年前就已不再為Netflix效力了，因此我沒有任何內(nèi)幕消息，不了解是什么具體原因直接導(dǎo)致了這一決定，也沒有跟該公司的任何人士談過這件事。對(duì)于該動(dòng)向，我了解信息的渠道與各位完全一樣。

????盡管如此，我理解他們的行動(dòng)，也完全、徹底地理解他們這么做的目的，就好像我本人就坐在那張會(huì)議桌前參與了討論一樣。顯而易見，這一舉措強(qiáng)調(diào)的是專注，永無止境的專注，從Netflix創(chuàng)立第一天起就深深植根于Netflix基因中的專注。

????舉例來說明吧。

????1998年，我和里德創(chuàng)辦Netflix時(shí)，它與現(xiàn)在公眾熟知的這家公司截然不同。隊(duì)列（Queue）、不限量租賃（Unlimited Rentals）和無到期日無滯納金模式等都還要再過一年多才會(huì)誕生，那時(shí)我們還采用標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的“照單點(diǎn)租”模式，設(shè)有到期日，超期不還要多交錢。

????對(duì)了……我們那會(huì)還出售DVD。

????事實(shí)上，我們賣的DVD還真不少。銷售額非常龐大，我估計(jì)Netflix成立之后的第一個(gè)夏季，公司總收入中有95%來自DVD銷售。盡管這確實(shí)有助于彌補(bǔ)一些成本，但對(duì)我們來說，這顯然不是一種可持續(xù)發(fā)展的業(yè)務(wù)。用不了多久，亞馬遜就會(huì)進(jìn)入DVD市場(chǎng)，這是不可避免的，然后沃爾瑪也來了，再然后是美國幾乎所有針對(duì)大眾市場(chǎng)的零售商。所有這些巨頭都會(huì)吞噬我們的利潤率，緩慢而堅(jiān)定地將我們擠出這個(gè)市場(chǎng)。

????不僅如此，盡管方向很明確，但很難避免“尾巴搖狗”的情況。盡管我們明知道公司的真正未來在于租賃業(yè)務(wù)，可多數(shù)收入仍來自零售業(yè)務(wù)，很難不花時(shí)間側(cè)重于后者的打理。

????更嚴(yán)重的是，由于我們嘗試運(yùn)作一家在兩方面都做得不錯(cuò)的公司，結(jié)果不可避免地要被迫不斷作出一系列妥協(xié)，導(dǎo)致我們最終在兩方面都表現(xiàn)平平。我們的登錄頁和注冊(cè)流程得滿足兩種不同的需求；我們的支付系統(tǒng)得處理兩種類型的交易；我們的發(fā)貨程序得適應(yīng)兩種類型的產(chǎn)品（一種有去無回，另一種還得收回來）；我們的內(nèi)容系統(tǒng)包含三種類型：有些影碟只能租，有的只能買，還有得可買也可租。

????事后看來，停止零售而專注于租賃業(yè)務(wù)顯而易見是正確的選擇，可是，當(dāng)年擔(dān)任首席執(zhí)行官的我如此年輕，要放棄貢獻(xiàn)95%收入的業(yè)務(wù)談何容易？這可以說是我這輩子做過的最艱難的決定。

????不用說，這個(gè)決定奏效了。果斷放棄95%的收入，不僅使我們?nèi)ω炞⒂谑Ｓ嗟哪遣糠謽I(yè)務(wù)，而且在其他許多方面也顯現(xiàn)出裨益——包括許多我們意想不到的好處。

????我們的設(shè)計(jì)人員不再需要設(shè)置滿足兩種不同業(yè)務(wù)需求的注冊(cè)流程，我們?nèi)∠巳哂嗟淖?cè)步驟、理清了網(wǎng)站上的指示并簡(jiǎn)化了注冊(cè)程序，轉(zhuǎn)化率也得到了提升。

????由于我們聚焦于更小范圍的市場(chǎng)，我們得以明確自己的特色，使對(duì)外營銷更加高效，我們的用戶獲取成本有所下降。

????由于我們所需要解決的問題減少，網(wǎng)站工程設(shè)計(jì)效率大幅提高，為確保質(zhì)量而進(jìn)行的測(cè)試也更簡(jiǎn)單了，各種績(jī)效考核指標(biāo)更直觀了。它還鋪平了道路，使我們得以實(shí)行一套可迅速反復(fù)測(cè)試的流程，幫助我們進(jìn)行了重大創(chuàng)新，最終催生了隊(duì)列、不限量租賃和無到期日無滯納金模式出現(xiàn)。

????成功使我們更加大膽，對(duì)于專注策略我們更有信心了。經(jīng)驗(yàn)表明，每次收窄專注范圍，都會(huì)帶來更多機(jī)會(huì)。我或許可以舉出150個(gè)例子來證明，每一次新的成功又使我們更有信心，堅(jiān)信有時(shí)候放棄部分成功的業(yè)務(wù)可帶來更大的裨益，幫助更有前途的業(yè)務(wù)實(shí)現(xiàn)更大發(fā)展。

????每次召開產(chǎn)品會(huì)議時(shí)，除了討論拓展哪些業(yè)務(wù)之外，我們都確保留出時(shí)間來決定放棄哪些業(yè)務(wù)。我們將其稱為“清除藤壺”（一種海洋生物——譯注），與船主們一樣，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)：如果我們嚴(yán)于律己，定期把這些不可避免地會(huì)依附在船體上的小東西清除掉，我們?cè)谒嫔虾叫械乃俣葘?huì)明顯加快。

????我想，為公平起見，我現(xiàn)在也應(yīng)該承認(rèn)，并不是所有人都贊同我們擺脫這些“藤壺”的決定。比方說，考慮到早期我們四分之三顧客都是DVD買家，可以合理推斷，我們停止出售DVD的決定不會(huì)讓他們有多滿意。喜歡“照單點(diǎn)租”的顧客，想必也不愿意看到我們放棄該模式，專注于不限量租賃項(xiàng)目。在此，我想向Netflix成千上萬的早期顧客致歉，他們?cè)鴧⑴c了我們的定價(jià)策略、功能測(cè)試和其他商業(yè)試驗(yàn)，但最終我們又放棄了相關(guān)業(yè)務(wù)。可是，盡管每個(gè)決定在短期內(nèi)都是困難的，我始終堅(jiān)信，為了保證公司的長期成功，我們別無選擇。

????因此，盡管我已很長時(shí)間沒有參與Netflix的運(yùn)營，我可以很容易想象：近幾年來，他們肯定越來越感到束手束腳——在決策時(shí)，為了與DVD租賃業(yè)務(wù)兼容，往往不得不放棄對(duì)流媒體業(yè)務(wù)最有利的選擇，選擇次優(yōu)解決方案。如何制定考慮多種使用情況的定價(jià)策略？如何設(shè)計(jì)對(duì)應(yīng)兩種不同電影接收方式的通知？?jī)煞N服務(wù)可享受的內(nèi)容相差很大，如何進(jìn)行管理？如何簡(jiǎn)化登錄頁和注冊(cè)流程？

????今后就不必發(fā)愁了。不用再擔(dān)心不同服務(wù)之間的兼容問題，這一點(diǎn)肯定會(huì)使Netflix更容易根據(jù)真正有前途的業(yè)務(wù)（顯然是流媒體業(yè)務(wù)）做出最優(yōu)的決策。定價(jià)、通知、內(nèi)容、注冊(cè)流程，全都會(huì)得到改善。

????顧客是否會(huì)心生不滿？毫無疑問。我愿意做第27,184個(gè)留言的人，批評(píng)他們，因?yàn)樯婕疤醿r(jià)和發(fā)布Qwikster等事項(xiàng)的溝通顯得笨拙、粗暴，毫無疑問使公司的品牌形象受到了損害?？墒牵瑢?duì)這類后果的恐懼是否應(yīng)該使Netflix放棄這一決定，不采取措施保證流媒體業(yè)務(wù)今后擁有盡可能多的優(yōu)勢(shì)呢？當(dāng)然不是。

????里德在博客中就溝通上存在的問題致歉，而不是就作出錯(cuò)誤的決定道歉。在這兩方面，我都支持他。

????我當(dāng)首席執(zhí)行官的時(shí)候，放棄DVD銷售業(yè)務(wù)使我非常緊張，而我承擔(dān)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)不過是疏遠(yuǎn)成千上萬顧客而已；里德現(xiàn)在表現(xiàn)出，他敢于做正確的決定，哪怕這會(huì)使幾千萬顧客不滿。這種勇氣與決心讓我深感欽佩。

????正因?yàn)榇?，這家伙堪稱世界上最優(yōu)秀的企業(yè)家。

????馬克?蘭多夫是一位經(jīng)驗(yàn)豐富的硅谷創(chuàng)業(yè)家、高科技公司經(jīng)理人和創(chuàng)業(yè)公司咨詢師。他曾是網(wǎng)絡(luò)電影與電視劇流媒體服務(wù)公司Netflix的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人，并曾經(jīng)出任該公司第一任首席執(zhí)行官。他的博客地址是www.marc randolph.com。

????譯者：小宇

????Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced last week that the company would be splitting off its DVD rental service into a new business to be called Qwikster. Last time I checked their blog post on the subject, there were 27,183 comments. Approximately 27,181 of them were negative.

????Wall Street didn't approve of the move either, and the stock is now trading at less than half the price it was two months ago. Even my own friends are sending me puzzled notes, wondering if the "wheels are coming off the cart."

????They are all wrong.

????Not only am I completely in support of what Netflix (NFLX) is doing, but I think it is one of the smartest, most disciplined and bravest moves I've ever seen.

????Just to be clear, I haven't worked for Netflix for years. So I have no inside knowledge of what specifically led to this particular decision, I haven't talked to anyone there about it. Everything I know about it I picked up from the same sources you did.

????Nonetheless, I understand what they did and why they did it as completely and thoroughly as if I had been sitting around the conference table myself. Plain and simple, this move was all about focus. Relentless focus. A focus that has been deeply embedded in the Netflix DNA since day one

????Here's an example of what I mean.

????When Reed and I launched Netflix in 1998, it was a very different company from the one you know today. The Queue, Unlimited Rentals, and the No-Due-Dates-No-Late-Fees model were still more than a year away. Our rentals were standard a-la-carte rentals. They had due dates. We charged late fees.

????Oh... we also sold DVDs.

????In fact, we sold bucket loads of them. So many, that by the end of our first summer, I would guess that 95% of our revenues were coming from the sales of DVDs. Although this did pay some bills, it was obvious to us that this was not a sustainable business. It was inevitable that at some point in the near future we would have Amazon (AMZN) entering the DVD business. And then Walmart (WMT). And then just about every mass market retailer in the country. All of which would have crushed our margins and slowly but surely driven us out of business.

????Not only that, but even while the going was good, it was hard not to let the tail wag the dog. Despite knowing that the true future of the company was rental, it was hard not to spend time focusing on the area of the business where most of the money was coming from.

????Most importantly, by trying to run a business that did two things well, we inevitably were forced to make an endless series of compromises that resulted in us doing neither of them well. Our landing page and sign up flow had to accommodate two different paths. Our checkout process needed to handle two types of transactions. Our shipping process had to accommodate two different types of products (one that had to come back and one that didn't). Our content system had to accommodate titles we could only rent, ones we could only sell, and ones where we could do both.

????In hindsight, it seems like such an obvious decision to stop selling and focus on renting. But wow – for a young CEO like myself — turning away from the source of 95% of our revenue was just about the hardest thing I had ever done.

????Needless to say, it worked. Not only did walking away from 95% of our revenue have a way of focusing the mind on the remainder of our business, but the benefits began showing up everywhere – even in places we never suspected.

????By freeing our designers from having to create a sign-up flow that accommodated two types of business, we were able to cut out steps, clarify instructions and simplify the process. Conversion went up.

????By spotlighting a narrower benefit, we were able to clarify our positioning, resulting in more effective external marketing. Our acquisition costs went down.

????By focusing on a narrower set of problems, it made engineering much more productive. It made QA testing simpler. It made metrics more intuitive. And it paved the way for us to implement a process of rapid iteration and testing that ultimately uncovered the big innovations that ultimately led to the Queue, Unlimited Rentals and No-Due-Dates-No-Late-Fees.

????The success emboldened us and we gained confidence in this approach, each time finding that narrowing our focus expanded our opportunities. I could probably come up with 150 examples, with each new success giving us renewed confidence in the benefits of folding partially successful hands in order to double down on more promising ones.

????At every product meeting, in addition to figuring out what to do, we made sure to devote time toward deciding what not to do. We referred to it as "scraping the barnacles," and, like boat owners, found that if we had the discipline to regularly remove all the small things that inevitably accreted to our hull over time, it would have a noticeable effect on how fast we could move through the water.

????I suppose it's only fair to mention at this point, that not everyone liked our decisions to get rid of these "barnacles." For example, since early on nearly 3/4s of our customers were buying DVDs from us, it probably is safe to say that they were none-to happy that we stopped selling them. Ditto for the customers who loved renting a-la-carte only to see us drop it and focus on the all-you-can-eat program. While I'm at it, I'll throw in an apology to the tens of thousands of other early Netflix customers who were part of price programs, feature test, and other business experiments that we ultimately decided to discontinue. But as hard as each decision was in the short-term, I never questioned whether it was the right thing to do for the long-term success of the company.

????So even though I haven't been at Netflix in a long time, I can easily imagine the growing frustration they must have felt these last few years as they made decisions they knew were suboptimal for the streaming business in order to maintain compatibility with the DVD business. How to work out pricing that covers multiple use cases. How to come up with messaging that embraces two different ways to receive movies. How to manage the significant differences in the content available between the two services. How to simplify the landing page and sign up flow.

????Well no longer. Not having to worry about compatibility between the services makes it infinitely easier to optimize every decision around the real prize, which is clearly streaming. Pricing. Messaging. Content. Sign-up-flow. All better now.

????Are customers upset? Undoubtedly. And I'll be the 27,184th to say that the communications surrounding both the price increases and the Qwixter launch were ham-handed, tone-dea, and have unquestionably damaged the brand. But should fear of either of these things have prevented Netflix from taking this step and ensuring that their streaming service has every possible advantage going forward? Absolutely not.

????In his blog post, Reed apologized for not communicating well, not for having made the wrong decision. I agree with him on both counts.

????But what is truly mindblowing, is that when I was CEO trying to screw up my nerve to walk away from selling DVDs, I risked alienating tens of thousands of customers. Reed is showing that he has courage and conviction to do the right thing despite having tens of millions of them.

????This is why this guy is the best entrepreneur on the planet.

????Marc Randolph (@mbrandolph) is a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, high tech executive and startup consultant. Most recently Marc was co-founder of the online movie and television streaming service Netflix, serving as their first CEO. He blogs at www.marc randolph.com