Top 110 Quotes & Sayings by Justin Kan - Page 2

I try to work the hardest I can without burning myself out. It's not that I think working all the time is the key to success. It's just the way I was raised.

I usually float between the tech and the business sides of the office.

Extrinsic motivations are like, 'I wanna get rich, I wanna be famous.'... Even missionary ones like, 'I wanna change the world with this idea.'... That's an extrinsic motivation. And when things are hard, you're going to be like, oh why am I doing this?

For gamers, I think it's very easy for people to produce content that's pretty engaging.

To me, e-sports is like poker. Twenty years ago, if someone told you that poker was going to be a massive spectator sport, you'd be like, 'What are you talking about,' right?

I've always had the theory that people like watching people.

People want to use products where they feel like the people who deliver those products are invested in making it better for them.

Companies are bought not sold, an investment banker told me that once and it is very true. Basically what it means is you can't control selling your company, you can only sell it if somebody wants to buy it, and you need someone to want to buy it.

Early-stage startups are all about the founders and team.

With Whale, I'm like the first user. My feedback is around my experience as a content creator.

Today, I have an understanding of the world, and of the entertainment and media industries, of how people consume content.

I like to have meetings in the early afternoon.

The Internet is a place that fosters creativity.

I joined YC to recover from the brain damage of starting companies.

I want money to replace mental energy and physical effort.

I don't feel productive if I'm not working a lot.

A lot of tech people are afraid to get on the phone and talk to their customers, or get on Zoom, or whatever. But I think a great place to start is just be calling your customers all the time.

The big thing was realizing for myself that I had tied my ego to the outcomes and to startups.

If justin.tv can succeed, then nobody has an excuse. It was a terrible idea.

Snapchat built an elegant, incredibly well-thought-out tool to make it fun, simple, and frictionless for normal people to share snippets of their lives in an interesting way.

Most people aren't good at creating generally interesting video.

One of the things big law partners say when they talk about Atrium is that we get people who wouldn't make partner. And I say, they're the people who are doing the work for you anyway, but they transition out because they hate the lifestyle.

I actually want to go out and try to date girls. I mean, ones who want to be on camera.

The original concept for JTV was that we would give people a window into other people's lives. The problem is that if that window is 24/7, when you look in at any random moment, odds are you are going to be bored.

When you're a startup, your edge is that you don't have that many customers. So you can build a really strong relationship with them.

I think streaming works a lot better from an app.

I feel like a lot of the technology that happens in gaming, starts in gaming and it goes broader than gaming.

There was no real plan B. It was like, I'm gonna move back to Seattle and move in with my parents.

After learning about Snapchat Stories, I've become obsessed with Snapchat.

During the pandemic, obviously gaming has become almost like a primary activity. People are at home all the time, they need to entertain themselves, gaming has seen huge growth in all the gaming companies and so Twitch is no exception.

I was always so engrossed with being successful that that was my worth and my identity. And then when things weren't going well, I felt like I was worthless.

I like the idea that I can make a big difference to a startup in a short period of time.

It helps tremendously to have operating startup experience when advising startups. It is much easier to tell people how to talk to customers, build product, manage an engineering team, raise money from investors, and talk to press when you've done it before yourself.

Twitter is a competition to write the most retweeted witticisms.

If you look at things that are popular apps, it doesn't mean it's going to stick around.

With Justin.TV, infinite people told us that it wouldn't work, and to some extent they were right. But it was still a good investment.

When we started Twitch I didn't start off as a huge eSports fan, but I am now.

I'm biased, but I see people who have great ideas and are working on things that could be successful, but they give up.

It used to be that games were more like movies where a game would come out and then people play it for two months and then it's over.

One of the ideas for Justin.tv was that it would force me to go out and be sociable and talk to people.

Remember, everything you are building today will be killed or iterated. The former is more likely than the latter. Great products are created by many incremental improvements.

I find it hard to manage somebody's work unless I have an intimate knowledge of how to do it myself.

My advice is flip a coin. If you regret the way it landed, then go with your gut.

Start-ups don't die, they commit suicide.

You need to just get started. If you never get started, you'll never be successful.

I try to keep the meetings small, especially when we're doing product design.

Many many external circumstances are outside of your control, but will affect the outcome, and you have to be OK with that.

Surround yourself with people who do what you want to do, and eventually you’ll wake up to find yourself doing the same.

My entire career has been pivoting from company to company. Some people call it lack of planning or direction, I call it flexibility and good improvisational skills.

I try to work the hardest I can without burning myself out.