Justin Kan strapped a webcam to his head and livestreamed his entire life 24/7.
Every meal. Every conversation. Every awkward moment.
It was 2007. The idea was called "lifecasting." It was kind of cringe.
But that ridiculous experiment became Justin.tv. Which accidentally spawned Twitch. Which Amazon bought for almost a billion dollars.
What's crazy is the gaming category they eventually built Twitch around? They basically ignored it for years.
The Original Idea (That Wasn't Really Working)
Picture this: Four founders in San Francisco with a wild idea.
The team:
- Justin Kan - The face (literally, with a webcam on his head)
- Emmett Shear - The operator who'd later become CEO
- Michael Seibel - The glue holding it together
- Kyle Vogt - The technical wizard
Their vision? Let anyone broadcast their life live online.
Sports. News. Random people doing random things. Everything.
It got attention. VCs were intrigued. Press covered it. But here's what they didn't expect: nobody really wanted to watch random people's lives.
Turns out lifecasting was more novelty than necessity.
The Category They Weren't Paying Attention To
While Justin and team were focused on making lifecasting work, something weird was happening in the data.
One category was exploding: Gaming.
People were streaming themselves playing video games. Others were watching. For hours.
The founders' reaction? Basically "huh, that's interesting" and then they went back to their main vision.
They didn't get it at first. Why would anyone watch someone else play video games when they could just... play video games?
But the gamers understood something the founders didn't:
- Gaming is social, not solitary
- Watching pros play is like watching sports
- Streamers had personalities people connected with
- Chat made it interactive, not passive
The community was building itself while the founders were looking the other way.
The Pivot That Almost Didn't Happen
By 2011, gaming was dominating Justin.tv's traffic.
The team had a choice: keep trying to make everything work, or go all-in on the thing that was actually working.
They chose the scary option. Shut down most of Justin.tv. Launch a gaming-only platform.
The risks were massive:
- Narrowing their market significantly
- Alienating non-gaming streamers
- Betting everything on a niche they didn't fully understand
But sometimes the best move is following your users, not your original vision.
They called it Twitch. Named after "twitch gameplay" - those fast reflexes needed in competitive gaming.
What Made Twitch Explode
Once they committed to gaming, everything changed.
They weren't just building a streaming platform anymore. They were building for a community.
What they did differently:
- Built features gamers actually wanted (overlays, alerts, integrations)
- Understood that chat was as important as the video
- Focused on low latency (real-time matters in gaming)
- Partnered with esports tournaments and events
They stopped trying to be everything to everyone.
They became the platform for one thing. And that one thing was massive.
The Billion-Dollar Lesson
Here's what makes this story powerful:
Your first idea probably isn't the winner. That's not failure. That's discovery.
Justin.tv was "failing" while accidentally creating Twitch. They just had to be paying attention.
The best pivots come from:
- Watching what users actually do (not what you want them to do)
- Following unexpected traction
- Being willing to kill your original vision
- Betting on the thing that's working, even if it's not what you planned
Most founders are too attached to their original idea. The Twitch team was smart enough to let it go.
From Lifecasting to $970M
Three years after launching Twitch, Amazon bought it for $970 million.
Today it's worth billions more. It's where gaming culture lives. Where careers are built. Where communities thrive.
And it started with a guy wearing a webcam on his head, building something completely different.
Your Unexpected Twitch Moment
So what's happening in your data that you're ignoring?
What's that one feature or use case that's getting traction you didn't expect?
What if your "failure" is actually showing you the real opportunity?
The next billion-dollar company might be hiding in the category you're not paying attention to.
Sometimes you need to build the wrong thing first to discover the right thing.
Ready to learn how successful founders navigate pivots? The complete story of Twitch's journey from lifecasting experiment to streaming empire is packed with insights every founder needs. Dive into the full backstory and discover how to spot your own pivot moment.
