A goal of Twitch is to be wherever gamers are, whether its on laptops and handheld devices or integrated into gaming consoles and software.
You want to learn about what's already in their heads. You want to avoid putting things there.
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.
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.
If you just talk to who's easy to talk to, you're not really getting the best data.
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.
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 most interesting things you learn in an interviews come from the: 'interesting', 'tell me more'
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.
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.
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.
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.
Users think they know what they want, but you get the horseless carriage effect where you're getting asked for a faster horse.
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.
The pool of people you care about is going to shift over time.
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.
