
My Y Combinator Interview - justin
http://areallybadidea.com/34320844
======
pg
Wow, some of this is even surprising to me. Interviews were 40 minutes? We
only asked for 4%?

(Now that I think about it, the very first time we didn't think in terms of
percent. Instead we decided on a valuation for each company, and the percent
was whatever 6k per founder worked out to at that valuation. So it was
probably 4 point something, not exactly 4.)

I still remember meeting Emmett and Justin quite well. What impressed us most
was how good their demo looked. Also that they'd met in second grade. I
remember thinking that Justin looked as if he'd just gotten out of bed,
because his hair was standing on end and his eyes had that surprised look you
have when you've been jolted awake. I didn't realize till later that he often
looks that way.

~~~
justin
Yeah, I remember that they were based on valuations. I'm almost positive the
valuation you gave us was 300k (can't remember if that was pre or post
though), so the 12k was 4%.

I knew the demo cinched in for us (remember, this was back when people didn't
know if it was possible to write fancy web apps with things like calendar
appointment dragging). Looking back on the emails and our application (thanks,
Gmail) I was surprised how much better our application was than I had
remembered.

~~~
pg
Hmm, ok, in your case it would have been an integer percentage.

------
jeromec
Great to see some posted content from Justin, as he represents my unofficial
favorite YC company. The reason is the way justin.tv started out with him
live-streaming every moment of his life (video and audio) wearing an always on
camera. I still remember watching some of those times, with who knows how many
other thousands of viewers from TechCrunch and elsewhere... By far the most
memorable event for me was Justin, true to his commitment, taking the camera
in with him to use the bathroom, and then watching a user's text come up in
the chat room saying, "You just took a crap on live tv! That takes balls
man!!!" I'll be able to look back on that part of Internet history and smile
for a long time. :)

~~~
rms
:) I was watching when Justin.tv jumped the shark, when Justin took the camera
off just when his date was getting good.

~~~
jeromec
I remember that! :) Justin always took the camera off to go to sleep, but
still pointed it at himself. IIRC, he kept this protocol up with the date but
darkened the room...or was it putting up a sheet? Hard to remember it was so
long ago... So, yeah, a bit disappointing for the audience, but still pretty
impressive IMO. Near the beginning of the date I posted in the chat "if he
doesn't get a kiss I'm never watching again." Others concurred. Justin didn't
disappoint. He walks back into his apartment/headquarters and the room
explodes with cheers. Good times. :D

------
pmjordan
_Should Google release a calendar along the lines of Gmail, they would be the
competitor we would fear most by far._

Wow, that was prescient.

I'm curious whether this kind of application would stand a chance these days.
It's hard to say obviously, as you'd have to ignore the product-specific
answers.

~~~
justin
This is the first time I've looked at our app since we sent it in (that I can
recall), and I was extremely surprised about how prescient we were on some
things. Not only Google Calendar, but who would be potential acquirers (we
were talking to them during Kiko and actually had a verbal offer that fell
through, although that is a different story to tell), that social networking
features would be important in all web applications, that javascript client
applications would be actually a good thing to do.

The only thing we weren't good a predicting was our release schedule :)

~~~
pmjordan
The social/personalised advertising remark struck me as very forward-thinking
too. It took Facebook a couple of years to get that one right, and now it's
making them stacks of money (they may have been ignoring it deliberately to
focus on expanding; I have no idea).

------
yagibear
Business plan from around that time:
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/24386920/Original-Executive-
Summar...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/24386920/Original-Executive-Summary-for-
Kiko-from-early-2005)

------
citricsquid
"Social networks have an abundance of data which they should be using to
display context relevant advertising."

I wonder how the author feels about the way Facebook advertises, if that is
what they imagined or if it's better/worse if it isn't.

~~~
justin
We were specifically thinking in terms of time based contextual advertising.
I.e. showing you an ad for a Taylor Swift concert if you had a free Friday
night (because you didn't have any events on your calendar) and we knew you
liked pop music. In retrospect, we might have been better off just creating
the time based advertising platform and making an API available to other
calendaring services.

I still think this is a cool idea and would be excited to see someone execute
on it.

~~~
colkassad
Especially if you have a patent! I kid, I kid. I really enjoyed reading that
and I'm glad you have found success beyond Kiko. I remember when Gmail
released their calendar and everyone was talking about how it would crush your
project. If I remember correctly, someone bought your IP? I wonder what they
did with it.

~~~
abstractbill
Tucows acquired Kiko in an eBay auction: <http://gigaom.com/2006/09/05/tucows-
bought-kiko/>

------
citizenkeys
I have added this to my list of links to blog entries about YC interviewees.

The list is here: <http://ycuniverse.com/interviewees.php>

