#550: Andrew Chen — Metaverse, Metrics, and Meerkats

Twitch started as ‘JustinTV’ named after the founder, Justin Kan. Every day he would live to stream his life. Expanded to allow anybody to stream but the ‘everyday life’ content wasn’t gaining traction.

Pivoted towards gaming and a creator-supported model rather than a viewership model. Incentives to create content drastically improve when the creator has clear income opportunity rather than creating for views/engagement. The market wasn’t huge for gaming at the time but the engagement and participation was extremely high within the niche

Many games (like Axie Infinity) are a natural way to ease casual people into crypto.

Roblox is an example of what the next generation of social networks could look like. Multiplayer and deep network effects embedded in the VR/AR metaverse experience. 

You work, organize, and gather in this digital reality. Empowering reward and ownership to these realities will be the next interesting layer to this technology. 

Ready Player One is a movie that captivates what the metaverse could be but is ultimately dystopian under monopolistic control. Andrew hopes the metaverse is a genre rather than a company.

-- What types of questions does Andrew ask to understand a founder’s growth mindset?

• What happens when you internet search for something?
• How would you 10x a current startup?

-- What are the right metrics to use?

Understand what people actually use your product for – define your high-value users. Pick your strategy first (product vision); Identity what retains and generates business value; Set metrics to validate if your strategy has causation. 

-- What are common errors among founders?

Brand marketing is overused in customer acquisition.