I’m Justin Kan, former co-founder of Twitch, co-founder of Fractal, and now co-founder of Rye! AMA!

Justin Kan
124 replies
I cofounded and recently launched Rye - an eCommerce API that lets developers add new revenue streams for their products by adding eCommerce and checkout into any app or website. Ask me anything about Rye, entrepreneurship, eCommerce, and crypto. I'll be answering questions on Friday, the 14th of October!

Replies

Shubham Dhawan
What major trends are you seeing as an investor at YC vs as an individual angel? Any stark differences in your investment approach now vs then?
Justin Kan
@shubham_dhawan I think COVID has actually been a huge boon to YC, as it was forced to go remote only, which really unlocked YC's potential to be the #1 startup accelerator globally. Previously founders had to choose whether they really wanted to move to California to do YC. The pro argument was that it unlocked access to Silicon Valley investors, gave you access to a global community of other founders, and helped you build the DNA of discovering Product-Market Fit. The anti argument was that often these founders' businesses were local to their country and very difficult to run remotely for 3+ months. Now, founders don't have to make that choice, because they can attend YC from India or Africa or any other time zone and get all the advantages. I think this will lock in YC as THE place to go for entrepreneurs forever. As an angel investing in YC companies, the trends follow this: the companies are much more global, the founders are more dispersed all over the world. Lots of founders becoming interested in starting climate change related companies, which is top of mind for many younger founders. My investing approach remains the same as always: invest in founders who look like they will run through walls and are constantly learning, in areas that are interesting to me personally.
Alex Shrestha
How does Rye compare to Bolt and fast? What are your expectations on VC activity in the next 6-12 months?
Justin Kan
@aleksanshrestha Rye is an API for e-commerce entrepreneurs to search and get inventory data from a global product catalog, and allow their customers to check out. Our goal is to make the true open marketplace for e-commerce, and reward the merchants and developers who make that marketplace with ownership in and governance of the protocol. I think VC investment into e-commerce infrastructure will continue as it was pre-pandemic, and e-commerce will continue to take market share from offline retail slowly but steadily.
Bosky
Long time follower here, thanks for taking the time Justin. Q. What chain are you building Rye on? Q. What’s Rye’s take on secondary sales?
Justin Kan
@bhaskerkode we haven't fully decided what chain to build on yet. Not clear what you mean by secondary sales?
Daniel Friis
How is Rye leveraging the blockchain? What can you do with it that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise? (Honest question. Love Rye, and I'm genuinely curious)
Justin Kan
@daniel_friis we were very inspired by my friends at Braintrust, who built a protocol that enables freelance engineers and designers to work for companies. If you are like I was initially, you probably are asking yourself: doesn't Upwork do that? Why does this need to be on the blockchain? But Braintrust realized that the next wave in marketplace is giving control and ownership to the people who actually make the market. By doing this, they were able to onboard >100k freelancers in under a year, as workers realized it was a fundamentally better deal that other work marketplaces. Our goal at Rye is to reward the people who create applications and sell products with control of the protocol. We also want to robustify the protocol as a truly open protocol that cannot be controlled by a central authority. I could promise all day that I never will sell it, etc, but what if Amazon comes and says here's 10 billion dollars? By making this an open protocol project, it makes it impossible for us to sell it and sell out our vision of a network that is controlled by the participants.
Dávid Sipos
What are your favorite cryptos? What kind of projects do you search for at YC to invest in?
Justin Kan
@david_sipos1 I'm very interested in marketplace projects that incentivize participates to make a new market. Helium, Braintrust and Audius come to mind. This is not a recommendation to invest in any of these fyi. I think the idea of a community owned marketplace is the future of the internet. When we started Twitch, we paid streamers cash for streaming but they were not able to participate in the upside of the platform, nor the governance. I think the promise of the internet is community ownership, and my hope is that there will be more consumer facing projects in this direction as crypto evolves.
Om Wow
For a non-technical founder, what do you think are some paths to building an online business on a shoestring these days? Do you see any interesting opportunities at the intersection of niche content + commerce? Any particular channels where there's still opportunity for solopreneurs?
Justin Kan
@omwow It's easier than ever to build an internet business as a non-technical founder. There are many no code tools out there to get started. I can't remember the name of it, but I saw a no code tool that demo'd an airbnb clone entirely built on top of it. Content+commerce is super interesting. I think the most interesting commerce businesses right now are creator brands (like Feastables by Mr Beast or PRIME Hydration by Logan Paul and KSI). If you can figure out how to get user attention you can usually sell them something. The lines between product, marketing and content are all blurring. Channel-wise, outside of creators, we are still figuring it out. iOS 14 destroyed DTC companies acquiring through mobile ads. There will be another wave though.
Clement Cazalot
@omwow check MakerPad.co this is the platform with the Airbnb no-code clone that Justin is speaking about. This is a platform of no-code tutorials for you to be successful
Hide Shidara
How would you market and sell a cohort-based course if you didn't have a brand or audience?
Fabio Capodagli
Will the Rye token allow to exercise of governance over the ecosystem for future decisions? What are the main utilities?
Mike Hsiao
It's a good idea, canceling the intermediate links, and the management is also very good A16z and solana venture.
Ash Rahman 🎮
Hello Justin, Rye looks interesting and congrats on the launch. Ecom is heavily dependent on targeted ads. What are your thoughts on Apple IDFA restrictions and Google retiring usage of 3rd party cookies? Ref: The First-party data madness - why it matters?
Justin Kan
@ashrahman Merchants flocking to Shopify was a reaction to Amazon's dominance in e-commerce: every vendor was looking for a new channel to access their customers. Of course, they ended up paying Google and Facebook to acquire the customers for this channel. The IDFA changes from Apple (and Google) demolished this... and now everyone out there is trying to figure out what is next. Our goal with Rye is to build a new channel that connects developers building new e-commerce modalities / experiences / stores with merchants selling product.
Jose Clause
Can I get a job at your company?
Sefi Keller
Who edits your YouTube videos?
Wade Burrell
What's your overall marketing strategy? eCommerce is a crowded space. How are you planning on attracting the right customer? Where are you planning on spending your ad dollars?
Justin Kan
@wade_burrell our customer is the developer building an e-commerce experience (and they in turn market to the end buyer). Our goal is to be a great API that makes it super simple to build something, and make content around how to build e-commerce apps.
Wade Burrell
@justinkan I love it. It's a great initial strategy. Show the value, show the ease-of-use. Best of luck to you and the team!
Sébastien Sikorski
Why has Operator become Rye? Operator’s vision and branding were so inspiring!
Jun Gong
Hey @justinkan! I remember that a couple of you years ago, you said, "first-time founders are obsessed with the product; second-time founders are obsessed with the distribution." Curious to know what're your current obsessions :)
Justin Kan
@jun_gong I'm back to obsessing about product. I was wrong. Product always is most important in the stories of the biggest companies out there (Google, Facebook, Apple etc).
Kyle Banta
Did you leave Fractal for Rye or are you trying to run two early stage startups at the same time (and if so, how do you manage it?)
Justin Kan
@kyle_banta I am working on both. I partner with a CEO cofounder who is product and management focused, and I work on what I am best at, which is sales/recruiting/fundraising/marketing.
Christina Potts
I have some questions for the startup I am currently with it is a digital platform as a application and website that supports nail technicians and customers
philgenius
What's happening with your baby Twitch?
Sima
Hi Justin, justin Kan from Justin.tv
Digital2buy
1. focuse on digital product or including physical goods? 2. any NFT publish idea to share fees or tax?