Emmett Shear Quotations

A goal of Twitch is to be wherever gamers are, whether it's on laptops and handheld devices or integrated into gaming consoles and software.

I'm always impressed by how compassionate the gaming community can be when they have a cause and appreciate that they leverage our platform to raise money for those in need. We continue to encourage giving in support of important causes, including Extra Life 2012.

Our app for Xbox 360 brings Twitch video to the television and into the living room of millions of Xbox Live members for the first time. The app will let every Xbox Live gamer find and watch streams of their favorite games from their couch.

Given the huge number Xbox owners and how many of them love gaming spectatorship, its a natural fit to bring the Twitch experience to the 360.

There's no bigger gaming franchise on the console than 'Call of Duty', and we can't wait to see what the community can create with this new tool.

Given the growing popularity of pop culture conventions, many of them are selling out, leaving a lot of fans out in the dark and having to trawl the Internet for bits and pieces of news that relate to these events.

Twitch launched in June of 2011, and our growth ever since has exceeded even my expectations, which were not small. A year and a half later, the community of broadcasters and viewers has multiplied hundreds of percent.

The Twitch community loves watching video games, chatting, and broadcasting. The average viewer watches over an hour and a half of video each day. Over two-thirds of our logged-in users chat each day.

The crucial people to get your product started for the first 6 months are not who will be using it 3 years later.

People who are using your product and putting up with all these issues, means that they are not actually the biggest problems.

Who you talk to is just as important as what questions you ask and what you pull away from it.

Sales is this cure all for this problem. Get people to give you their credit card and I guarantee you they're actually interested.

The one question you can't ask is, is this feature actually good or not?

The question is, once you have this idea, is this enough? Is it something people would actually switch just to have?

Users think they know what they want, but you get the horseless carriage effect where you're getting asked for a faster horse.

You have this idea that you think is awesome. You want to have that broadest group you possibly can. You don't want to just talk to 1 type of person and learn that, you want to get familiar with the space.

Who would you talk to? That is the first question for almost any startup that you need to answer. Who is my user and where am I going to find them?

That's actually one of the most disappointing things about doing user interviews and user feedback, which is why I think... people don't do it. You're going to get negative news about your favorite pet feature most of the time.

The most common mistakes are showing people your product- don't show them your product, it's sort of like telling them bout a feature.

The pool of people you care about is going to shift over time.

People don't like silence, so they'll keep talking to fill the void.

The instant they say something you don't expect or already know, you should drop into detective mode.

The most interesting things you learn in an interviews come from the: 'interesting', 'tell me more'

Recording interviews is like magic. a) It stops you from taking notes in the middle and b) you can play that recording for people.

The other mistake I think people make is talking to who's available rather than talking to who they need to talk to.

I wish I could tell you the recipe for figuring out who the target user is for your product and who your users should be, but... there isn't a recipe. It comes down to think really hard and use your judgement to figure out who you're really building this for.

A goal of Twitch is to be wherever gamers are, whether its on laptops and handheld devices or integrated into gaming consoles and software.

If you just talk to who's easy to talk to, you're not really getting the best data.

This is true for most new products. The majority of people you're competing with are non-users. They are people who have never used your service before. And what they say is actually the most important. What they say is the thing that blocks you from expanding the size of your market with your features.

It's one of the most validating things you can do for a product is go out there and get them to commit to pay you up front.

You want to learn about what's already in their heads. You want to avoid putting things there.

Most startups are not just built for the person who is using them. When you do that, every now and then you get really lucky and... are representative of some huge class of people who all want the same thing you do... but very often that just turns into a side project that doesn't go anywhere.