The Secret to Finding Your Co-Founder: Justin Kan, Robin Chan, Dan Borstelmann
May 14, 2024
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Justin Kan and Robin Chan share their journey from meeting in 2007 to becoming co-founders of Goat Capital and Stash. They discuss team building, pivoting, and product excellence. The podcast dives into their unique dynamics, career paths, and anecdotes, revealing the secrets to successful entrepreneurship.
Successful co-founder partnerships require trust, shared values, and complementary skills for startup success.
Startups must pivot strategically by assessing market viability, team proficiency, and aligning with a fitting market proposition.
Navigating startup challenges involves assessing market shifts, team competencies, and aligning with opportune sectors for success in the gaming industry.
Deep dives
Building the Right Team and Leveraging Individual Strengths
Finding the right co-founders is crucial for the success of a startup, akin to a marriage where trust, shared values, and complementary skills are paramount. Justin excels in idea generation, investing, fundraising, and storytelling; Robin stands out in recruiting talent, generating creative ideas, and scoping out new innovations; Dan is indispensable for executing tasks, managing teams, ensuring timely progress, and handling diverse responsibilities, making their partnership efficient and productive.
Adaptability, Data-Driven Decisions, and Pivoting Strategies
Startups entail testing hypotheses and adapting to feedback, where honesty about success and customer data are essential. When faced with challenges like in the fractal to Stash transition, evaluating the market viability, recognizing team proficiency, and aligning with a fitting market proposition prompted a strategic pivot. The process involved analyzing core assets, market dynamics, team capabilities, and the decision to pivot towards potential success within a larger target audience.
Navigating Startup Dynamics and Strategic Direction
Navigating through startup challenges involves assessing market shifts, team competencies, and aligning with opportune sectors. The team considered various pivot options, including a web3 focus or pure gaming direction, yet anchored decisions on team expertise and market demands. Evaluating DNA and historical success factors led to the strategic alignment with Stash, leveraging product-oriented engineers' prowess to capitalize on overlooked market needs and product innovation.
Building Team Alignment and Customer-Centric Approach
The podcast episode highlights the importance of building a core team and fostering alignment within the team to drive success. By focusing on customer needs and creating a customer-centric approach, the team morale is boosted, validating the team's efforts. A key lesson learned from previous experiences was to identify the primary customer and orient the entire company towards serving them, as demonstrated in the success of Twitch by prioritizing streamers.
Navigating Industry Dynamics and Innovation in Gaming
The conversation delves into understanding macro trends and strategic positioning within the gaming industry. The discussion emphasizes the necessity of combining external expertise with industry-specific knowledge to develop innovative solutions. The episode underscores the complexity of the gaming industry, requiring a balance between technological advancements and deep understanding of the gaming landscape to provide tailored solutions for game developers. Additionally, the importance of fostering close relationships with game developers to deliver exceptional experiences and drive mutual success is highlighted.
It was 2007 and Robin Chan was running the mobile data business at Verizon while Justin Kan was rolling out JustinTV’s first prototype - a camera strapped to his head (literally). It was the perfect meetcute: Justin needed inexpensive mobile data to livestream his day-to-day and Robin had access to tons of it (In fact, Robin was the first one to put YouTube on a cell phone!). Turns out the deal didn’t go as planned though, and the two went their separate ways.
Then nearly fifteen years later, in 2021 they reconnected, teamed up as co-founders, and created their investment fund Goat Capital. Since then, they’ve founded and invested in dozens of companies - including Stash.
In this episode of Secret Stash, co-host Archie Stonehill and Stash co-founders - Justin Kan, Robin Chan, and Dan Borstelmann - share stories on each stage of gaming entrepreneurship:
- how the founding team got together and why it’s stuck
- creating hypotheses and knowing when to change gears
- doubling down on macro market trends
- establishing a defensible product strategy
- executing on product excellence
Read the highlights here: https://dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-ep-2-justin-kan-shares-the-secret-to-finding-your-co-founder
0:00 - Meet the Stash co-founders
2:02 - How Justin and Robin met
8:21 - Justin gets arrested
10:11 - Justin and Robin reconnect
11:07 - Bringing on Dan
12:18 - Two types of product people
15:34 - Promoting Dan to co-founder
17:40 - Different career paths
20:18 - Justin’s job as a stockroom attendant
22:07 - Complementary skill sets are key
26:57 - How to find a good partner
29:17 - Pivoting JustinTV and tips
31:24 - Pivoting Fractal
36:41 - Macro vs micro investments
40:32 - How JustinTV beat out a competitive market
53:28 - Swapping entrepreneur secrets
Hit the Subscribe button wherever you listen to your podcasts! Stash is the first of its kind direct-to-consumer platform for games. Learn more about Stash here: https://dev.stash.gg/
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