Streaming for Seniors
Many of our Denver and front range customers are over the age of 55. In fact, over 11% are seventy five years or older. And guess what…they have more advanced WiFi and save more money every year than most of the people in the United States.
It is absolutely fascinating to hear the stories they tell from family gatherings. In many cases, kids and grand kids will come over and our customer set ups are far more advanced than those of their kids and grand kids. They teach their kids and grand kids about Pluto and how not to overpay for internet. Stories like this make us really happy.
As we try to expand our business we talk to a lot of Silicon valley investment types. They are interested enough to talk to us because television in America is changing rapidly. But when they hear that we transform the lives of older citizens with new tech, they quickly lose interest.
Why do they lose interest? It all comes down to a single metric they hammer into you at business school. That metric is Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV for short. Basically, they would rather invest and lose billions on apps for younger people because those younger people have a higher probability of living longer. They also know that as we grow older, we tend to be more loyal to the brands we trust. So, the whole goal is to grab them when they are young and get them to pay for the rest of their lives.
It is slightly more complicated than that but this lack of faith in the tech abilities of older citizens is its own form of ageism. For many in the tech world, the idea of a mature citizen navigating Sling or YouTubeTV is impossible to imagine. At StreamWise Solutions we know this is complete BS. We have eighty year old customers zipping between Netflix and Sling and an antenna with very few problems.
Now don’t get us wrong. There is a slightly steeper learning curve the older you get. This is completely natural. Heck, I am forty seven years old and my kids teach me something new about tech every day and I am really techy. In fact, I find myself keen to go back to grade school so I can learn about new tech. But keep in mind that kids who have grown up with iPads are accustomed to navigating through different apps and the different layouts in apps.
When we started this business we thought our customers would be a lot like us. We belong to Generation X and we live busy lives with kids and concerts and sports and business trips. Our first customers were just like us. However, as we grew and our customers introduced us to their parents we found that more and more customers were baby boomers or from the silent generation.