How Amazon Prime’s Subscription Management Service was Invented | Neil Roseman & Jorrit Van der Meulen

Invent like an Owner with Dave Schappell

Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Neil Roseman & Jorrit Van der Meulen. The discussion revolves around Amazon's DVD rental business which was launched outside of the US, the significance of the Subscription Management Service, and the transition to the Agile/Scrum product development methodology at Amazon.

Neil Roseman is the former VP for Software Engineering at Amazon. He is currently the Technologist in Residence at Summit Partners - a funding company committed to finding and partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs to help them accelerate their growth and achieve dramatic results. Jorrit Van der Meulen originally joined Amazon in 1999 and left in 2005. After working at Zillow for nearly four years, he left and rejoined Amazon in 2008 as the VP for Content Sites. He's currently the VP for Amazon European Retail.

Episode Resources:

• Neil Roseman’s LinkedIn and Twitter
• Jorrit Van der Meulen’s LinkedIn
• Find Dave on LinkedIn and Twitter

What to Listen For:

• 00:00 Intro
• 02:51 Many people who don't live in the UK or Germany weren’t aware of Amazon’s DVD rental business
• 08:13 What happened after DVD rental was launched in the UK and Germany
• 10:27 Figuring out how to ship DVD’s and then taking them back into rotation
• 12:18 The window people want to rent a DVD is super short
• 16:05 Reducing complexity by picking a market that was more solvable
• 19:35 How Jorrit joined Amazon
• 21:37 Launching the Subscription Management Service and moving to agile development
• 26:43 It was process that was both business and technical
• 28:33 Meeting with Jeff Bezos and the Subscription Service team
• 33:15 Key features of the Subscription Management Service
• 36:43 The difficult (and easier) aspects of creating Amazon Prime
• 40:52 Focus on creating an appealing pricing program
• 46:06 Integrating the business and development functions
• 49:26 Jorrit runs Amazon’s retail business in Europe
• 50:17 Neil is currently the Technologist in Residence at Summit Partners