Though I've only talked to Justin a few times, he is one of my favorite people to get advice from. Between his five startups and entire adult life spent building them, he has not only seen most problems founders face, he has actually experienced them multiple times. This means not only do you get excellent advice, but also that he has a lot of compassion and empathy for founders because he knows exactly what it feels like to go through them.
Here is a follow up email I sent to Justin after discussing a problem we were struggling with at the time (his advice was great as always, even better was how optimistic we felt after speaking with him - that IMO comes from him being in the same place as you in the past and being able to relate to what you might be going through).
Justin I know you're a busy guy and have no time for fluff emails, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and tell you how awesome your advice was and how great we feel after office hours with you today. As you know, startups run on morale and I wanted to thank you for topping off our tank.
I have a lot of respect for this guy. Just talk to him for a bit and you sorta get this feeling that he'll succeed no matter what he chooses to do in the future. Keep it up buddy!
Thanks, we try! Generally my philosophy is that it is important to make a place that people love to work, and in exchange people who work there take responsibility for getting things done in their domain. Pretty simple.
Also you should check out Airbnb and ZeroCater for companies that have great cultures. When you walk in those places you can tell that people love being there.
Dude, how did you build up your programming skills enough to launch an app at 20-22 yrs old? It says on wikipedia you graduated with a degree in Physics and Philosophy. I'm guessing hacking was a hobby built up from your early teens?
I had some limited programming exposure as a teen (and at Yale), but really I owe most of my programming knowledge to Emmett. Throughout the entire period of time we were working on Kiko, and then the first couple years of Justin.tv, he mentored me on programming concepts, debugged my crappy code, etc.
It really isn't that hard to pick up enough programming to build a simple CRUD app if you are dedicated enough. One great resource (although time-intensive) is Dev Bootcamp, a program based in SF that will teach you how to program in 10 weeks. I can't speak highly enough about Dev Bootcamp -- my youngest brother went through the last class with barely any programming knowledge coming in and at the end of it landed a full time programming job at a consultancy.
Alternatively, the classic method always works: just start trying to build something and google until you figure out how to do it.
Alternatively, the classic method always works: just start trying to build something and google until you figure out how to do it.
Exactly how I learned as a 10-13 year old: I wasn't writing very much code from scratch, but rather gluing together large swaths of copy/pasted example code from the internet. It was messy and nasty, but by bending other peoples' code to do what I needed I slowly came to understand it.
While I don't know the exact answer to Justin's particular case, I'll say it's not uncommon for someone to be already proficient in hacking at age 20. Zuckerberg was a potential psych major when he launched Facebook, I believe at age 19 or 20.
I would guess a lot of hackers on HN started young and already have several years of experience by the time they hit college. And by that point they might not even need to choose to study CS, instead rounding out themselves by studying other interests.
Justin didn't really know how to program much when we started Kiko, but he's smart and he learned quick. He was probably the easiest person to teach programming I've ever worked with.
I believe pg mentioned somewhere that they didn't actually make anything out of the whole ordeal after paying back their investors; fees were probably the least of their concerns ;). Still, an interesting use case of eBay.
Congrats :)! Now that you mention it, I believe I recalled incorrectly. I think PG mentioned that you guys used the proceeds to bootstrap your next business, Justin.tv, not that you guys didn't make anything out of the eBay auction (strictly speaking).
I was working on an Ajax (remember that word?) calendar app called Caladabra around the same time Justin was building Kiko. I also gave up after Google Calendar was released. Wish I had the foresight to put it on eBay! Anyway, congrats to Justin on all his ventures. Seems like a very down to earth guy.
Being cool was Justin's answer for starting up. While it may be honest, he could have added other thoughtful answers. More details on his first YC interview would also be interesting, instead of saying that he didn't say much at the interview.
If I was going to answer more thoroughly, here are my answers on why to start something:
1) you can work on what you like, and in a way that you like
2) it's higher beta, meaning the top outcomes are higher than working for others.
3) it is a chance to immediately start working on a high impact idea that could change society. There are other ways to work on high impact ideas, but often times you need to put in a lot of time paying dues to get to the point you can work on them.
4) if you are successful, it can be a source of mainstream fame (think Richard Branson) -- if you care about this at all.
Let's be honest: many of us go into startups to be cool. The common answer of being 'passionate' (about startups/entrepreneurship/tech) often comes after gaining some expertise and leveraging it to create social impact.
Here is a follow up email I sent to Justin after discussing a problem we were struggling with at the time (his advice was great as always, even better was how optimistic we felt after speaking with him - that IMO comes from him being in the same place as you in the past and being able to relate to what you might be going through).
Justin I know you're a busy guy and have no time for fluff emails, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and tell you how awesome your advice was and how great we feel after office hours with you today. As you know, startups run on morale and I wanted to thank you for topping off our tank.