UpTrajectory Review

Marc Berman's piece for Inc. uses Netflix's recent move to expand its kids and family business beyond streaming as a jumping-off point for a broader argument: most companies misidentify who their customer actually is. The article's central claim is that Netflix, long perceived as a platform for adult binge-watchers, is increasingly treating children and families as a distinct strategic market rather than a content category. That shift, Berman suggests, carries a lesson for entrepreneurs about rethinking customer identity, product design, and growth strategy. The available text is brief, so the full piece likely explores specific examples of how Netflix is executing this pivot, but the headline alone signals a framework worth taking seriously.

For a small-business operator, the relevance is immediate. Most independent businesses define their customer by who walks through the door or clicks buy, not by who actually drives the decision. A toy store's customer is the parent, not the child. A B2B software tool's customer is often the manager who approves the budget, not the employee who uses it daily. Netflix's move is a reminder that the person consuming the product and the person making the purchase decision are frequently different people with different motivations, and that conflating the two leads to misallocated marketing spend, poorly designed products, and missed revenue opportunities. Recognizing the distinction is not academic; it changes how you price, package, and promote.

What is genuinely useful here is the framing of expansion beyond a core product category as a customer insight rather than a diversification play. Netflix is not simply adding kids' content; it is acknowledging that families represent a distinct economic unit with different consumption patterns, loyalty dynamics, and growth potential. We agree with Berman's underlying point that businesses often anchor too tightly to their initial customer profile and miss adjacent opportunities that are already within reach. Where we would push back is on the implication that this is a straightforward insight to act on. Identifying your real customer is genuinely difficult, especially for businesses without Netflix's data infrastructure, and acting on that insight requires operational changes that many small businesses are not positioned to make quickly.

The second-order effects of this kind of reframing are worth considering carefully. If more businesses begin treating children, families, or other non-obvious decision-makers as primary strategic customers, the competitive landscape for attention and loyalty shifts in ways that are not evenly distributed. Larger companies with data analytics capabilities will identify these patterns faster and act on them more efficiently than independent operators, potentially widening the gap between well-resourced firms and everyone else. On the other hand, small businesses often have closer, more direct relationships with their customers and may actually be better positioned to notice when the person buying is not the person using, provided they are paying attention and asking the right questions.

The practical takeaway for operators is to audit your customer assumptions deliberately and regularly. Start by mapping who initiates the purchase, who influences it, who uses the product or service, and who benefits from it, because these are often four different people. Then examine whether your marketing, pricing, and product decisions are aligned with the right person at each stage of that chain. Netflix's kids push is a useful prompt, but the real work is internal: questioning the customer profile you built your business around and asking whether it still reflects reality. That kind of reassessment is uncomfortable, but it is considerably less costly than discovering the answer after a competitor has already acted on it.

“Netflix is expanding its kids and family business beyond streaming, offering entrepreneurs a lesson in how to think differently about customers, products and growth.” — Inc. Magazine

Takeaway: Map who buys, who uses, and who benefits from your product, then align your marketing and pricing with the real decision-maker, not your assumed customer.