This guide is based on Mixergy’s interview with Emmett Shear.
Emmett Shear wanted to get into the gaming space but didn’t know where to start, so he got input from content producers and built a platform that now has 17 million unique monthly viewers. It was all done by talking to prospects, so we invited him to teach you how to do it.
Emmett is a co-founder of Justin.tv and is the general manager of TwitchTV, a broadcasting and chat community which features commentary and video from top gaming personalities, players, tournaments, and leagues.
Here are the actionable highlights from the interview.
Emmett studied TwitchTV’s target users and talked to different verticals, including video on demand versus live-stream viewers, console versus PC gamers, and amateur versus professional broadcasters.
Emmett asked Justin.tv broadcasters how they used the service, which features they liked, and what they’d change about it to determine what their passions and pain points were, then built TwitchTV based on their responses.
TwitchTV users found it difficult to monetize their streams, so Emmett created the TwitchTV partner program and provided hi-res channel statistics that they could use to sell sponsorships.
Emmett listed suggestions he got from talking to prospects and asked users to vote on which ones they wanted based on how useful or critical the features were.
After users voted on the features they wanted, Emmett did a second round of interviews to get feedback on the top 10 feature ideas and decide which ones to develop for TwitchTV.
Emmett removed hurdles that TwitchTV users experienced, from configuration and audio problems to discovery and monetizing their stream.
Watch the full interview now
Written by Hazel Chua, based on production notes by Jeremy Weisz