Inspiring talk by Kyle Vogt, co-founder of Justin.TV/Twitch.TV

Truly inspiring talk -- especially where he dives into the trough of sorrow. Here are the notes I took in regards to the 16 lessons learned:

1. Buy catered lunch -- employees would be waiting at long lineups or walking far just to get lunch -- Keep them at the office so they can socialize.
2. Use Google Apps -- Simplifies email, calendars, and document sharing.
3. Use data-driven development -- metrics on new features / AB Test
4. Use hiring screeners
5. Keep your job interviews short
6. Don't hire a PR firm -- Marketing associate instead, leveraged his own connections..full time thinking about the product
7. Put one guy on fund-raising -- This should be a focused initiative
8. Work from home -- You don't need an office nowadays, keep costs down... need one room for a separate phonecall
9. Use the cloud while you're small -- don't buy actual hardware unless you're a hardware company.
10. Listen to your users the right way -- Users can tell you what's wrong..not what they want, observe the pain points
11. Use a .com -- .tv was a marketing failure because people would go to justintv.com.
12. Be transparent with employees: how much longer can the company survive with current funding?
13. Don't outsource your core components
14. Hire specialists when needed (if no one has domain knowledge, build or buy decision)
15. Hire people smarter than yourself
16. Have a plan for actually making money

Cheers,

Jaime