NewTV, a new company focused on short-form video, just raised $1 billion dollars. That’s on top of the $750 million that its parent company, WndrCo, has raised for the venture. NewTV is the creation of Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose track record includes head of production at Paramount, chair of Walt Disney Studios, and cofounder of DreamWorks. Katzenberg recently hired Meg Whitman, the ex-CEO of HP and eBay, as CEO of NewTV. Their idea is that consumers will want a subscription service for short-form entertainment for mobile rather than full-length movies. The plan is to create 10-minute programs; think YouTube meets Netflix.
NewTV Is the Antithesis of a Lean Startup. Can It Work?
How entrepreneurship changes when cash is abundant.
August 20, 2018
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Summary.
Jeffrey Katzenberg’s NewTV, a company focused on short-form video content, is an almost $2 billion bet based on a set of hypotheses. But NewTV doesn’t plan on testing these hypotheses. With fewer than 10 employees but almost $2 billion in the bank, it plans on jumping right in. It’s the antithesis of the lean startup. And it may work. Why? Because the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital.
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