I’m Justin Kan, former co-founder of Twitch, co-founder of Fractal, and now co-founder of Rye! AMA!
Justin Kan
124 replies
I cofounded and recently launched Rye - an eCommerce API that lets developers add new revenue streams for their products by adding eCommerce and checkout into any app or website.
Ask me anything about Rye, entrepreneurship, eCommerce, and crypto.
I'll be answering questions on Friday, the 14th of October!
Replies
Joshua Dance@joshdance
Summer Bod 2020
How do you feel about crypto and NFTs?
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@joshdance NFTs are going to be an important way that we determine ownership of things online. Crypto is here to stay.
Summer Bod 2020
What are your thoughts about AI?
@joshdance It is here to stay and will impact our society in ways we don't even understand now. But we will always find more things for humans to do, don't worry.
Conversational Form 1.0
How is Rye leveraging the blockchain? What can you do with it that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise?
(Honest question. Love Rye, and I'm genuinely curious)
@daniel_friis we were very inspired by my friends at Braintrust, who built a protocol that enables freelance engineers and designers to work for companies. If you are like I was initially, you probably are asking yourself: doesn't Upwork do that? Why does this need to be on the blockchain?
But Braintrust realized that the next wave in marketplace is giving control and ownership to the people who actually make the market. By doing this, they were able to onboard >100k freelancers in under a year, as workers realized it was a fundamentally better deal that other work marketplaces.
Our goal at Rye is to reward the people who create applications and sell products with control of the protocol. We also want to robustify the protocol as a truly open protocol that cannot be controlled by a central authority. I could promise all day that I never will sell it, etc, but what if Amazon comes and says here's 10 billion dollars? By making this an open protocol project, it makes it impossible for us to sell it and sell out our vision of a network that is controlled by the participants.
How does Rye compare to Bolt and fast?
What are your expectations on VC activity in the next 6-12 months?
@aleksanshrestha Rye is an API for e-commerce entrepreneurs to search and get inventory data from a global product catalog, and allow their customers to check out. Our goal is to make the true open marketplace for e-commerce, and reward the merchants and developers who make that marketplace with ownership in and governance of the protocol.
I think VC investment into e-commerce infrastructure will continue as it was pre-pandemic, and e-commerce will continue to take market share from offline retail slowly but steadily.
Long time follower here, thanks for taking the time Justin.
Q. What chain are you building Rye on?
Q. What’s Rye’s take on secondary sales?
@bhaskerkode we haven't fully decided what chain to build on yet.
Not clear what you mean by secondary sales?
What's your overall marketing strategy?
eCommerce is a crowded space. How are you planning on attracting the right customer? Where are you planning on spending your ad dollars?
@wade_burrell our customer is the developer building an e-commerce experience (and they in turn market to the end buyer). Our goal is to be a great API that makes it super simple to build something, and make content around how to build e-commerce apps.
@justinkan I love it. It's a great initial strategy. Show the value, show the ease-of-use. Best of luck to you and the team!
Hi! Question about managing storefronts built using your API platform. Is it clear to end users/shoppers that items they order will ultimately be fulfilled by a 3rd party (Amazon, Shopify store, etc.) and not by the developer who launched the storefront?
How would customer support issues be handled when the storefront isn't the one fulfilling orders? Must the developer act as a customer support in-between?
I have some questions for the startup I am currently with it is a digital platform as a application and website that supports nail technicians and customers
Why has Operator become Rye? Operator’s vision and branding were so inspiring!
@sebastiensikorski it's the same vision (and mostly the same branding). We liked the shorter domain.
Gling AI
Who edits your YouTube videos?
Congrats on the launch!
Product Hunt
Hey Justin! Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA. My question is kind of basic but where did the idea for Rye come from?
@aaronoleary I wanted to create a marketplace in crypto and e-commerce is the biggest and made the most sense
Hi Justin, what's your favorite thing about the web3 community?
@cindyqiu8 WAGMI attitude
Hey @justinkan! I remember that a couple of you years ago, you said, "first-time founders are obsessed with the product; second-time founders are obsessed with the distribution." Curious to know what're your current obsessions :)
Undefeated Underdogs Podcast
What is your current habit stack?
What major trends are you seeing as an investor at YC vs as an individual angel? Any stark differences in your investment approach now vs then?
@shubham_dhawan I think COVID has actually been a huge boon to YC, as it was forced to go remote only, which really unlocked YC's potential to be the #1 startup accelerator globally. Previously founders had to choose whether they really wanted to move to California to do YC. The pro argument was that it unlocked access to Silicon Valley investors, gave you access to a global community of other founders, and helped you build the DNA of discovering Product-Market Fit. The anti argument was that often these founders' businesses were local to their country and very difficult to run remotely for 3+ months.
Now, founders don't have to make that choice, because they can attend YC from India or Africa or any other time zone and get all the advantages. I think this will lock in YC as THE place to go for entrepreneurs forever.
As an angel investing in YC companies, the trends follow this: the companies are much more global, the founders are more dispersed all over the world. Lots of founders becoming interested in starting climate change related companies, which is top of mind for many younger founders.
My investing approach remains the same as always: invest in founders who look like they will run through walls and are constantly learning, in areas that are interesting to me personally.
Hey Justin,
My friend tried reaching out to Y and heard “crickets” , what are the best avenues for reaching out to Y? He invents the future at Google.
www.GotWonder.com , is my friend’s new thing and it will make the web a safer place for kids.
@joshua_logan just apply to YC. The beauty is you don't need to have any connection there.
Would it be possible to build Rye without crypto? What does crypto enable for the product/company that wouldn't otherwise be possible?
I am imagining an on-chain matching engine for orders/inventory, similar to a decentralized token exchange, but I am not sure if this is an accurate mental model.
Product Hunt
Congrats on the launch, Justin!
You've cofounded multiple companies in the last few years. How do you approach incubating?
(I've had multiple conversations about this topic with some friends recently)
Product Hunt
@justinkan how dare you *like* work. 🙌🏼