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Chapter 16 - Peerflix
www.peerflix.com
Peerflix a DVD trading platform
was founded in 2004 by Danny
Robinson and Billy McNair. The
two entrepreneurs had
previously teamed up to launch
Spinway, Inc., a pioneer provider
of e-commerce and private-label
ISP solutions for leading brick
and mortar retailers. Spinway
was acquired by Bluelight.com, the
ecommerce division of Kmart, in
December 2000.
Your name:
Billy McNair
Company name:
Peerflix, Inc.
Website URL:
www.peerflix.com
Your company / website vision
statement / goal:
To provide the infrastructure
and specialized services that enable
people and businesses to
leverage the equity in their existing
assets by driving repeated value
from a one-time purchase.
What you sell / services you
offer (brief description of your company):
Peerflix is an extensible
peer-to-peer trading platform. The first
application of the platform
enables members to get the most out
of their entertainment by
trading the DVDs they own and no
longer want for DVDs they would
like to have.
Have you always wanted to run
your own business? What were
some of your previous jobs /
companies?
I have been an entrepreneur at
heart ever since I started buying
and selling baseball cards when
I was 10 years old. However,
early in my professional career
I realized that I needed to build a
solid knowledge foundation. I
was determined to get the
education and develop the skill
sets that would enable me to
succeed in business. I also
realized that I needed professional
experience in the business world
before I could jump into starting
my own company. I hence spent
the early part of my career at
more established organizations,
including a strategic think tank in
Washington D.C., Advanced Micro
Devices, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. In 1998, I decided that I had both
the
academic and professional
experience I needed to enter the
entrepreneurship world.
In 1998, I teamed up with Danny
Robinson (co-founder of
Peerflix) to launch Spinway,
Inc. Spinway was a private label
ISP solution providing ecommerce
and ISP services to many of
the largest retailers and brands
in the world, such as Kmart,
Yahoo, ToysRUs, Barnes & Noble,
Costco, Capital One,
Hewlett Packard, Ford Motor
Company, and Ace Hardware.
Spinway was acquired in 2000 by
BlueLight, the ecommerce
division of Kmart.
From 2000 to 2003, I started two
more companies. GrayStar
Group was a consulting
organization providing strategic consulting
services to firms such as
Borland, Ariba, Fortify Software, and
Mobius Venture Capital. I also
started a real estate investment
firm.
In 2004, Danny and I teamed up
once again to launch Peerflix.
Have you got any qualifications? Please tell us about yourself
academically?
I hold a BA in Political Science
from UCLA.
I hold a MBA from Santa Clara
University.
I hold a Juris Doctorate from
Santa Clara University and am a
member of the California Bar.
How / when did the idea of your
website / company come about?
The concept for Peerflix
originated from a conversation in 2003
between Danny Robinson (Peerflix
co-founder) and me. Danny’s
daughter Emma is about one year
older than my oldest daughter,
Julia.
During the
course of a phone conversation, one day I mentioned
that I needed to buy several Baby Einstein DVDs for Julia. Danny
laughed and mentioned he had bought the same DVDs just a year earlier,
but his daughter had outgrown them and no longer
watched them. We joked that this was going to go on for the next
10 years of our lives: buying DVDs for our kids only to have them
outgrow them and find them sitting on our shelves collecting dust. At
that point, the proverbial light bulb went off in our heads and we
realized that we were not in a unique situation. Households all
across America have DVDs piling up that the owners no longer watch
and…wouldn’t it be cool if we could create a system
where people were able to trade DVDs with one another so that they
could trade away the DVDs they own and no longer want
for the DVDs they really want to watch? And Peerflix was born!
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