Idea Development #3: The Netflix-Effect

However, if you realize that private broadcasters or streaming providers in particular are dependent on meeting the tastes of their audience as best as possible, then you quickly realize that there is certainly very good market research going on in the background of these providers. The end result is that films and series with potentially thematically interesting content and stories are selected or, in the case of Netflix or Amazon, produced themselves.

So if you are looking for a good product idea, for example, it might be worth to keep an eye on the series that are currently being "hyped" and whether this hype could be reflected in a certain product.

The Queen's Gambit - Chess as Hype

A good example of such a hype is the Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit" (Fig. 1). The series is set in the 1950s and focuses on the path of an orphan girl to the world championship in the strongly male-dominated chess world. From a product point of view, the focus is clearly on the chessboard. The first broadcast of the series took place worldwide from 23.10.2020.

From the beginning of the first broadcast, a significantly increased search volume for the word "chess" could be noted in Google Trends in Germany (but also in the USA, for example) (see Fig. 2).

Further research then additionally reveals an already increased demand for chess games due to the Corona pandemic and increased numbers of members in chess clubs.

How can this knowledge now be used? If one thinks about how the product "chess board" can perhaps be combined with the interesting topics of today, then one quickly comes up with the idea of "somehow digitizing" the product.

A founding team had exactly this idea in March 2021 and started a campaign on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter with a corresponding product (this includes a training AI, an associated app etc.).

The funding goal was 30,000 US dollars. This was reached within 25 minutes of the campaign launch. The campaign ended a few weeks later with a funding amount of 1.7 million US dollars (see Fig. 3). The product is scheduled to be delivered from November 2021.

Harnessing the Netflix effect

Consequently, this founding team did a lot of things right: they observed the market (in this case, the "series market"), identified the opportunity for a product idea, then used the technical means available today to make this product idea more attractive compared to competing products, and then tested the actual market demand with a prototype using the Kickstarter campaign. A successful path from "Netflixing" to business.

I'm going to watch some TV now ...