{"id":43382,"date":"2023-10-20T15:28:10","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/netflix-launches-in-australia-are-free-trials-a-good-strategy-for-your-startup-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:28:10","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:28:10","slug":"netflix-launches-in-australia-are-free-trials-a-good-strategy-for-your-startup-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/netflix-launches-in-australia-are-free-trials-a-good-strategy-for-your-startup-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix launches in Australia: are free trials a good strategy for your startup? – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Netflix has officially launched in Australia, offering users a one-month free trial to scoop up customers amongst fierce competition<\/a>, including Australian rivals Presto and Stan, in the on-demand streaming space.<\/p>\n

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However, is giving away your product or service for free \u2013 even if it is only for a limited time \u2013 a good idea for Australian startups?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Niki Scevak, managing director and co-founder of Blackbird Ventures, told StartupSmart<\/i> a free trial is \u201cnearly a universally good idea\u201d when dealing with content or an information-based product.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople\u2019s willingness to pay goes way up when they\u2019ve experienced the product,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have a very hard time evaluating it from the outside \u2026 that\u2019s why a free trial is a very good idea. Obviously informational goods have near-zero marginal cost \u2013 Netflix has some cost in content delivery fees and bandwidth \u2013 but where it is rather miniscule or minor you\u2019re not going to go out of business for giving your product away for free in the first 30 days.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Scevak says while different models will work best for different businesses, bundling different options together or having different pricing tiers is something founders should actively consider.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you bundle products together, the willingness to pay goes up because there\u2019s probably a thing you want on Foxtel or the movie channels and you\u2019re willing to pay a little bit of money for the other stuff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at bundled products, Netflix is obviously a great example of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, Scevak also points out that the Netflix launch has another lesson for startups \u2013 how to scale rapidly while not losing control of the business.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAs Netflix gets bigger they become more vulnerable to the content owners upping their prices and throwing their weight around,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThings like House of Cards<\/i> and their own initiatives become more important. As you get bigger, if you\u2019re distributing other people\u2019s products, you probably need to build your own products as you scale \u2013 otherwise all the negotiating power goes to the people you are distributing.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adding Australia and New Zealand brings the number of countries and territories in Netflix\u2019s stable to 50.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/i> Facebook<\/i>,<\/i> Twitter<\/i>, and<\/i> LinkedIn<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Netflix has officially launched in Australia, offering users a one-month free trial to scoop up customers amongst fierce competition, including<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}