How Netflix got its name

Rent.com was too expensive at $40,000.

Netflix co-founder Mark Randolph just published a memoir regarding the firm titled That Will Never Work.

As with all startups, Randolph and his team had to come up with a name.

They started with a beta name—one that would work as a placeholder but that they all agreed would not be the final name. That name was Kibble, in part since Randolph by now owned the domain name Kibble.com (he still owns it).

As it came time to launch, the team wrestled with which name to go with. Randolph writes:

Soon following we’d moved in the building, Christina and I had written two columns on the whiteboard. One was filled with words related to the internet. The other was filled with words related to movies. We’d decided that the best name for our firm would combine two words: one related to movies, one related to the internet. The best name would combine both terms seamlessly, with a minimum of syllables and letters.

Picking a name is incredibly difficult. For one thing, you need something catchy, something that rolls off the tongue and is easy to remember. One- or two-syllable words are best…

…Too many syllables, too many letters, and you run the risk of people misspelling your website. Too few letters, and you risk them forgetting the name.

Some of the names they considered were TakeTwo, Luna, CinemaCenter and NowShowing.

Randolph really liked the name Rent.com, but he didn’t put in on the board for a number of reasons. One was that it would have cost $40,000 (yes, only $40,000 for Rent.com!) to buy the domain. If you think regarding it, it would have ended up being a horrible name. While the idea was that clients would rent DVDs, Netflix has changed dramatically in the past two decades. Rent.com wouldn’t make sense anymore.

Netflix might not be the perfect name, but they went with it. Randolph notes:

“It wasn’t perfect. It sounded a little porn-y. But it was the best we could do.”