you're not crazy. you're just early.
the most dangerous thing you can do as a visionary leader is need everyone to get it.
happy Monday friends!
last week while I was napping (rest ethic is strong!), I woke up to a text from a former direct report at Netflix — someone still on the editorial team we built together. he sent me an image: Happy Birthday, Strong Black Lead. One of the many editorial channels we launched while I was there. eight years later and almost 7 million people strong.
I sat there staring at my phone thinking, wow. look at it still going!
it brought me back to 2018, when we were trying to bring it to life. Most people would never know that almost everyone thought we were crazy — and nearly everyone, including the CEO, tried to stop it from happening.
bringing the unseen to the seen
When I was brought into Netflix in 2017, the mandate was clear: help us figure out how to market all these original titles coming down the pipeline. When I arrived, we had about 20 originals. That number was going to grow to 1,500 in four or five years, which was insane to think about.
early on, they asked: how are we going to market all these titles?
I said: you can’t. not in a traditional sense. there’s not enough capacity to promote each one individually. you’re going to need to build channels of distribution that aren’t based on titles — they need to be based on audiences, interests, and tastes. We’re going to have to build a media company inside Netflix to “cover” ourselves the way the press would. Think Buzzfeed meets Condé Nast, but built natively for social.
They said: you want to try and build it? Of course, I said yes.
when you’re building something new, I believe deeply in the power of a proof of concept. Us visionaries — we can see the great, grand promised land. but it requires a radical restraint to start small and go slow. You need one thing that represents what you’re ultimately trying to build. one thing to prove it’s possible.
for us, that one thing was Strong Black Lead.
we had a vision for so much more — channels for geeks, family, comedy, film connoisseurs, the hispanic community. But we had to start somewhere. I remember in a meeting, someone asked: Why the Black audience? Why not something else?
I said: Because I’m Black. I needed to start with something I knew instinctively, not just analytically.
here was the challenge and the insight: the Black audience at the time didn’t perceive Netflix to be a home for their stories. BET, OWN (Oprah — where I was before Netflix), ABC (Shondaland), FOX (Empire) — they were all beating us. But Netflix actually had more films, shows, and Black talent than everyone combined. Netflix was essentially the largest distributor of Black images on earth, but the audience didn’t feel that.
So our goal was simple: build an editorial channel that showed — in one place — the breadth and depth of our library, celebrated the talent inside our walls, kept you up to date on what’s new and Black on Netflix, and entertained the hell out of you through internet-first storytelling.
easy enough…except — audience-first storytelling had never happened at Netflix. everyone was mandated with promoting individual titles. One at a time. Start with the title, then market it to the world. We were doing the inverse: start with the audience, then think about the titles.
We soft-launched on February 18, 2018 to test our voice, try content ideas, and get the hang of things. Then we decided we needed a big coming-out moment to announce we were here.
thankfully, my two immediate bosses — Eric and Shauna — backed me (thank God for good leaders). They said: We’ll find the budget.
I said: Great. We’re going for a big :60 spot in the BET Awards, and I need something like a million dollars.
That was the great thing about Netflix — they wanted you to experiment and swing big. the team started jamming. we came up with this idea that gave us all chills. We started executing. everything was going well. And then it showed up.
Resistance. Ah. There you are.
you can see what they can’t see
First, the CMO: Hey, I heard you’re working on this brand-slash-audience-first idea. I know we say take bets, but we are a title-first marketing org. We don’t do audience work like this. It’s not a priority.
I said: I hear you. But I think this is going to be important for our future, so I’m going to keep moving forward with it.
Then, the Chief Content Officer: Hey, I heard you’re asking a lot of talent to get together for this campaign. I think it’s great, but I’m not sure it’s the right time — and even if it were, I’m not sure we have the right combination of talent.
I said: There are some people we want to get involved. Will you help me get them to a yes? He still didn’t believe it was the right thing to do.
After that, I bumped into the CEO in the cafeteria (he had no office). He said: Hey! I hear you’re spending millions of dollars on something that’s not going to work.
I said: Well… I think it’s going to work, or I wouldn’t be doing it.
He said: It’s not going to work.
Over the next few days, I couldn’t sleep. My stomach was in a knot. Netflix had said they offered freedom and responsibility for us to take our bets, but this felt like a trap. The next day, I ran into one of my bosses and told her: the top three C-level executives have told me this week to shut it down. Am I about to be fired?
She said: If it doesn’t work, you might be. But let me ask you this — are you willing to be fired for this? she wasn’t being dramatic.
And this is the moment every visionary leader has to come to terms with. there’s a moment when you know you saw something. You can see the thing that no one else can see. It doesn’t exist yet, and the reason it doesn’t exist is because you are the one meant to bring it forward.
As a visionary builder, you were created to be an answer to a problem. This is the heartbeat of visionary leadership — seeing what should exist, what’s trying to exist, and bringing it into reality. The more the resistance, the bigger the transformation.
And this moment of truth feels like torture because only you know. No one else has the vision. And you have to fight like hell not to let doubt touch it, or it becomes tainted and diminished. It can’t get into the foundation of what’s being planted.
3 things you have to understand as a visionary leader, creative or founder
if you are called to something, you have a supernatural operational capacity tied to bringing that vision forward. There’s an internal transformation and fortitude that activates in that moment — one that makes the impossible feel possible. But calling doesn’t come without cost. here’s what I’ve learned:
1. fall in love with being misunderstood.
you’re going to be misunderstood. Questioned. Doubted. And so much more. This is the nature of being a visionary — you were given a vision, not them. So you have to release the need to be understood. it’s sometimes lonely. Isolating. Unfair. You will look and seem crazy to pretty much everyone. But it’s only crazy until it happens.
2. change your relationship with resistance.
recognize resistance as confirmation, not contradiction. Increased pressure is actually evidence that the breakthrough has been activated. Resistance often intensifies right at the point of transition — not because something is going wrong, but because something is about to go very right. when it shows up, say: Hey. Welcome. I am building something extraordinary, and you can’t stop it.
At one point, I didn’t have a healthy relationship with resistance. It was something I worried about. Something I questioned. Now I know — the more resistance I experience when building something, the more it confirms I’m on the right path. That what I see is true.
3. Write the vision and make it plain — for yourself.
because no one else can really see what you see, you have to write down the vision and track your own evidence of becoming. All the time. even the strongest among us will doubt ourselves. Get confused. Sometimes say, “Why are we doing this again?” And no one will be able to confirm it except for you. so build in a practice of tracking how the vision is coming along. Big and small. Become your own witness.
it’s only crazy until it happens
Long story short? We crushed it. Strong Black Lead became one of the most successful brand campaigns in the history of Netflix and the catalyst for us to build out an entire global editorial function around the world that changed how Hollywood and entertainment marketed it’s shows forever.
I don’t think I would’ve actually gotten fired if it didn’t work. But it wasn’t really about that. It was about our belief. Did we really believe what we saw?
At the time, I never told our team that the executives were questioning it. I didn’t want it to impact their creative ideas. I didn’t want them creating from a place of striving or proving themselves. I wanted them to keep it pure.
Eight years later, almost 7 million people later, the team I no longer manage is still building what we started.
That’s the thing about something that’s real. It outlives the resistance. It outlives the doubt. It outlives the people who said it wouldn’t work. And that might be the greatest proof of a vision fulfilled — not that it worked, but that it kept going without you.
happy birthday, SBL!
sending you so much love,
m
P.S. you can watch our iconic BET Awards spot here. it STILL gives me chills.
I remember feeling so proud that Netflix did this and in awe of your team. Simply brilliant.