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eCommerce - Wednesday, November 24, 2004

GreenCine - Profile

HQ: San Francisco, CA

Founded: 2002

Management: Founded by Dennis Woo and Andrew Sullivan - who we know are tech geeks and movie buffs.

Investors: Bootstrapped.

Business Model: Alt Netflix where you can find independent films, Iranian new wave, anime and Hong Kong action flicks. If you are not familiar with the model: pay a monthly subscription, get unlimited DVDs via postal mail, no late fees, huge selection. GreenCine copied Netlfix' system, made it more hip, more community oriented, and stocks more offbeat movies. Suprisingly the company has jumped into the streaming movies field already - ahead of Netflix and others. Company gets alt cred by donating proceeds to charities and posting marketing statements like: "Fascism sucks." Ironically, under the 'Banned Films' category, members can find cool Nazi films.

Competitors: Netflix, Blockbuster.com, Walmart.com.

Dirt: A problem for Netflix is that they had to trailbaze a challenging model, then spend a fortune to educate the marketplace. Wallstreet gets nervous about Netflix's stockwhenever Amazon looks like it will enter the game, but we suspect companies like GreenCine might become as big a headache as they cherry-pick Netflix audiences virally. Netflix has to be all things to all people while GreenCine knows its hip Mission district and Brooklyn-based target markets. Surely there are other segements to compete against Netflix: senior citizens, gays, Christians, etc. Given that Netflix doesn't offer porn or video games, other companies will eat into their market there as well. According to reviews we have seen, the one area where Netflix maintains a sizeable advantage is with distribution. GreenCine distrubutes just from San Francisco at this point. Creating other centers is expensive but neccessary to get DVDs to people quickly.