Entrepreneur Olivia Humphrey on building Kanopy from nothing 13yrs ago, into a global empire: how she created a small DVD business, & transformed it into a massive independent film streaming service, accessible with just a library card swipe.

Build It. They'll Come.

While Netflix, Stan and Disney streaming services are the dominant juggernauts in the on demand, online entertainment world, a young Australian entrepreneur, Olivia Humphrey has quietly built a smaller, but no less significant player that has managed to match the big guys at their own game. What she started from the front room of her house in Perth 13 years ago, as a small, arthouse film DVD service, selling to university libraries to help improve their film collections, Olivia proceeded to build into an online streaming service that now includes 30,000 independent, foreign and arthouse film & documentary titles, available through university and local public libraries across the United States and Australia.

It took years of hard slog -- Olivia even moved her young family to America to better manage the rapid scale-up of her business -- struggling to survive the cut-throat competitors in the tough US market who wanted to crush her out of business. But Olivia Humphrey succeeded in building a multi-national empire.

And the beauty of Olivia’s Kanopy product? These thousands of films cost nothing for the end customer, and are accessible with just the swipe of a library card.

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