Justin Kan is an American entrepreneur, investor, and web developer that was born on July 16, 1983 in Seattle, Washington. Kan was a former partner of the seed incubator Y Combinator, and has founded several successful technology companies that include Atrium, Twitch, Justin.tv, Socialcam, and Exec. He has also founded his own startup incubator called Zero-F.
Justin Kan attended Evergreen Middle School in Spokane Valley, Washington.
Justin Kan attended Yale University from 2001 to 2005. He graduated with a bachelor of arts double major in physics and philosophy.
In 2003 Justin Kan and Emmet Shear founded an online calendar web application called Kiko. The company received $70,000 in funding from investors after the founding of the company, and in 2006 Justin Kan decided to sell the company on Ebay for a final selling price of $258,000. The company shutdown operations in May 2008, and was headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
On October 1, 2006 Justin.tv was founded in San Francisco, California by Justin Kan and Kyle Vogt. Justin.tv was an online community for broadcasting its users livestreams. The platform originally only had one live streaming channel for several months with a webcam attached to his head following the launch of the company. The channel focused on a 24/7 live stream, or 'lifecast', of the companies co-founder Justin Kan, and is responsible for popularizing the term 'lifecasting'. Justin.tv's second live stream channel, called iJustine, launched on April 18, 2007 and was for a popular video blogger named Justin Ezarik. The company shutdown on August 5, 2013 for the founders Justin Kan and Kyle Vogt to focus on pivoting the companies focus towards growing Justin.tv's parent company Twitch; a social live streaming service dedicated to gaming.
Justin Kan, Emmet Shear, Kyle Vogt, and Omar Javed founded Twitch in 2007. It is a social live streaming platform for gamers that is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company was purchased by Amazon on August 25, 2014 for $970 million in cash.
Justin Kan co-founded a social video recording, editing, and sharing mobile application Socialcam with Kyle Vogt and Guillaume Luccisano in 2011 called Socialcam. The company was purchased by Autodesk on December 4, 2018 for $60 million.
Exec is an on-demand service for the completion of simple tasks for a $25/hr flat fee that was founded in 2012 by Justin Kan. The company reportedly dropped the price of home cleaning services in each of the nine markets it was available in. Handy, a competitor of Exec, noticed the success Exec was having and purchased the company on January 14, 2014 in an equity deal worth less than $10 million.
In July 2016 Justin Kan, James Zhang, Ranidu Lankage, and Vicc Alexander founded an online question and answer (Q&A) community headquartered in San Francisco, California called Whale. The platform allows its users to engage with influencers, experts, and celebrities through an online Q&A community.
The Drop is an online community forum for helping people discover electronic dance music that was founded by Justin Kan in 2015. Kan founded The Drop with the goal "to create a constant stream of new electronic music tracks everyday", and built the music streaming service using the SoundCloud API and an open-source curation interface known as Telescope. Justin Kan told reporters he made the company for fun and admitted:
I don't think it's ever really going to make money. It's not a business, it's just a site. I don't think the music business is a very good business to be in. I'll be happy if it just sources me good music for a long time.
In 2017 Justin Kan left Y Combinator as a partner to start his own startup incubator celled Zero-F. He said the idea behind the name is to take a company from "zero to funding". The company is headquarters in San Francisco, California, and plans to incubate three new business per year.
Atrium is a company focused on automating legal workflows that is headquartered in San Francisco, California and was founded by Justing Kan, Augie Rakow, Bebe Chueh, and Chris Smoak in April 2017. Justin Kan has been the CEO of Atrium since April 2017, and founded the company to solve many problems he faced as the founder of several technology companies. Kan told reporters:
Over the years, I have been an involuntary power user of the legal industry. While I valued the counsel of my attorney, I was frustrated by the delivery of service, and there were many things I wanted to see done differently. The biggest headache for me was that no one could tell me when to use legal service [or] how much to use.
According to the companies website, Kan founded Atrium with the goal of "making legal faster and more transparent with upfront pricing". Kan's influence made the company use alternative pricing strategies to ease the concerns of its customers searching for legal guidance. The company does not charge hourly rates, instead they use a monthly subscription for their Atrium Counsel service (a service that takes care of day to day legal needs suing a dedicated attorney and paralegal team) and a flat fee for their Atrium Financing service (a service that takes care of legal advisory for startups during their venture capital fundraising).
From May 2005 to August 2006 (1 year and 4 months), Justin Khan was an intern at Russel Investment Group.
From March 2014 to March 2017 (3 years and 1 month), Justin Kan was a Y Combinator partner.
According to AngelList, Justin Kan has made 63 personal investments and made 9 exits (Parse, Tilt, Cruise, Freshplum, Interviewed, Kimono Labs, Listrunner, MessageMe, and Say Media).
Justin Kan has served, or is currently serving, on the board or as an adviser for the following companies: AirHelp, Kickback, Bitaccess, Screenleap, Cleanly, Founders Den, FightCamp, ResumeGem, Submittable, Monogram, Phenomenon Ventures, DoseDr, Atrium, Twitch, Seekmi, ZeroCater, and Trip Alder.
Justin Kan is married to Christine Oh.
Timeline
Atrium is a company focused on automating legal workflows that is headquartered in San Francisco, California and was founded by Justing Kan, Augie Rakow, Bebe Chueh, and Chris Smoak in April 2017.
In 2017 Justin Kan left Y Combinator as a partner to start his own startup incubator celled Zero-F
In July 2016 Justin Kan, James Zhang, Ranidu Lankage, and Vicc Alexander founded an online question and answer (Q&A) community headquartered in San Francisco, California called Whale.
The Drop is an online community forum for helping people discover electronic dance music that was founded by Justin Kan in 2015.
From March 2014 to March 2017 (3 years and 1 month), Justin Kan was a Y Combinator partner.
Exec is an on-demand service for the completion of simple tasks for a $25/hr flat fee that was founded in 2012 by Justin Kan.
Justin Kan co-founded a social video recording, editing, and sharing mobile application Socialcam with Kyle Vogt and Guillaume Luccisano in 2011 called Socialcam.
Justin Kan, Emmet Shear, Kyle Vogt, and Omar Javed founded Twitch in 2007.
On October 1, 2006 Justin.tv was founded in San Francisco, California by Justin Kan and Kyle Vogt.
From May 2005 to August 2006 (1 year and 4 months), Justin Khan was an intern at Russel Investment Group.
People
Justin Kan
Entrepreneur, Investor, Web Developer
Further reading
10+1 Lessons from a Serial Entrepreneur
Justin Kan, Andrew Chen
Web
May 17, 2019
Divine Inspiration Fallacy
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
Exec Cleaning, or the challenges scaling a real world business
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
Fake News on Facebook
Justin Kan
Web
November 17, 2016
Feeling Good: Justin's Program
Justin Kan
Web
May 26, 2019
Founder Interviews: Justin Kan of Atrium - By
Hackernoon - Davis
Web
November 8, 2018
Get anything done for $25/hour flat in San Francisco with Justin Kan's Exec (YC W12)
Garry Tan
Web
February 29, 2012
How to do anything
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
How to Pitch Your Startup On Stage
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
I've learned more this year than any other because of these 5 changes
Justin Kan
Web
July 17, 2019
Life lessons from entrepreneur Justin Kan: Being joyful, finding comfort in discomfort
Masoom Gupte
Web
July 17, 2019
Maybe we're in a bubble but it doesn't matter
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
My entire entrepreneurship story in 10 minutes
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
Resilience Is Key To Success For Most Startups, According To YC's Justin Kan
Ryan Lawler
Web
October 20, 2014
Startups Around the World
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
Survive and Thrive
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
The 99% (of startups)
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
The First Time I Used Programming At Work
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
The Founder's Guide To Selling Your Company
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
The Many Pivots Of Justin.tv: How A Livecam Show Became Home To Video Gaming Superstars
Andrew Rice
Web
June 15, 2012
The Startup Resume
Justin Kan
Web
November 12, 2016
Documentaries, videos and podcasts
10+1 Lessons from Serial Entrepreneur Justin Kan
May 17, 2019
20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup - The Twenty Minute VC
June 21, 2019
How to Build a Team, Raise Capital, and Make an Impact | Startup Q&A with Justin Kan (Twitch, YC)
April 4, 2017
Justin.tv's Justin Kan: The story of a serial entrepreneur | Wizard
October 31, 2012
Why You Should or Should Not Work at a Startup by Justin Kan
November 2, 2018