Alan Payne

After spending thirty-one years in the movie rental business, including twenty-five years as a Blockbuster retail franchisee, he brought firsthand experience to his writing about the company’s rise and collapse. He took over a small group of Blockbuster stores in 1993 and expanded them into one of the company’s largest franchise chains before closing his last store in 2018.

His best-known book, Built to Fail: The Inside Story of Blockbuster's Inevitable Bust, tells the story of Blockbuster from the perspective of someone who lived inside the business for decades. Rather than treating the company’s downfall as a simple battle with Netflix, he argues that deeper problems were built into Blockbuster long before streaming changed the market.

That background gives his work an approachable, insider quality: part business case study, part personal account of an industry that shaped how people watched movies for years. For listeners interested in entrepreneurship, retail history, or the changing entertainment business, his writing offers both context and lived experience.