At age 19, Justin Waldron built an app that would go on to have the biggest IPO since Google. That company was Zynga, and it completely changed the way the world played games.

Listen now for behind-the-scenes stories that shaped an era of social gaming, as well as Justin Waldron’s own secret for scaling up Zynga and setting it apart from the competition.

In this episode of Secret Stash, co-hosts Archie Stonehill and Justin Kan sit down with Justin Waldron to talk through:

👉 origins of Zynga and the edge they found in the market

👉 the innovative business model that helped Zynga win

👉 the company’s love/hate relationship with Facebook

👉 rise and fall of social gaming (and who’s to blame for the fall)

Read the highlights here: https://dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-ep-4-matt-ball

0:00 - Intro

1:21 - Justin’s first Facebook app

3:45 - Building Zynga Poker

6:10 - Facebook’s missing puzzle piece

9:00 - Browser power

11:46 - The winning freemium model

20:35 - Scaling horizontally

28:33 - A culture of experimentation

33:57 - Love/hate with Facebook

36:57 - The rise of mobile

38:49 - Apple as a gatekeeper

42:17 - Amazing corp dev

43:47 - Scaling organically

48:09 - The fall of social gaming

59:36 - Telegram’s killing it

1:0922 - Crypto

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Stash is the first of its kind direct-to-consumer platform for games.

Learn more about Stash here: https://dev.stash.gg/

Matt Ball literally wrote the book on the metaverse - with a new update out in late July. So who better to chat all things metaverse and distribution with? In the last several years, Matt has become known as one of the most astute writers and thinkers about the nature of business, innovation, IP, and the deep structural factors that shape the entertainment and gaming industry. He also had a frontseat to the streaming wars during his time at Accenture and Prime Video. Finally, we get a clear concise understanding of what the metaverse is (and no, it’s not just VR and NFTs). In this episode of Secret Stash, co-hosts Justin Kan and Archie Stonehill sit down with Matt Ball and discuss 👉 streaming war winners and losers (sorry, Hulu) 👉 why big tech companies never hugely invested in games 👉 what the metaverse actually 👉 and the impact Apple and Google had on mobile and gaming Read the highlights here: https://dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-episode-4-matt-ball-reveals-the-secret-to-the-metaverse 0:00 - Intro 1:55 - Wildfire fighter 3:25 - Moving to business 5:00 - The OTT streaming opportunity 8:45 - Meet Liam Bullock 12:33 - The economics of streaming 15:43 - The streaming war and Hulu’s failure 23:36 - Amazon and the video opportunity 30:08 - Why not gaming? 34:05 - The origin of the metaverse 36:12 - Fortnite isn’t unique 38:39 - What is the metaverse? 42:32 - Interoperability and standards 48:28 - Why hasn’t mobile opened? 56:32 - Changing tides 1:00:00 - The power of disconnecting 1:02:45 - A better world 1:05:00 - Games vs. social 1:07:46 - Matt’s secret Subscribe now to be the first to listen to new Secret Stash episodes! Stash is the first of its kind direct-to-consumer platform for games. Learn more about Stash here: https://dev.stash.gg/

Dennis Fong has had an INSANE career. By age 19, not only had he earned the title as the world’s first esports champion and pro gamer, but also became CEO of a 100-person gaming media company. He's even had a League of Legends character named after him. Since then, he’s gone on to found four additional businesses, all of which have majorly impacted the gaming industry as we know it. (We stopped counting how many social gaming features he invented...). In this episode of Secret Stash, co-hosts Justin Kan and Archie Stonehill sit down with Dennis and walk through a very raw chronology of his career (and life) - from young esports champion in 1996 to five-time CEO in 2024. Tune in for nostalgic stories from the early days of esports and how he got his start in entrepreneurship.

Read the highlights here: dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-ep-3-dennis-fong

0:00 - Intro

2:33 - Dennis’ start in esports

4:14 - The famous Wall Street Journal article

7:38 - Family reactions

9:05 - Winning a Ferrari

12:25 - The birth of esports

14:52 - Who’s Thresh?

15:39 - Esport rivalries

18:37 - Organic communities

22:20 - Fatality takes over

25:19 - Critical mechanics

28:05 - Struggles of a young founder

33:59 - Spinning out Lithium

39:10 - Xfire innovations

48:06 - Raptor

50:13 - GGWP and anti-toxicity

1:04:45 - Distribution

1:07:08 - RIP Avicii

Hit the Subscribe button wherever you listen to your podcasts!
Stash is the first of its kind direct-to-consumer platform for games.
Learn more about Stash here: https://dev.stash.gg/

It was 2007 and Robin Chan was running the mobile data business at Verizon while Justin Kan was rolling out JustinTV’s first prototype - a camera strapped to his head (literally). It was the perfect meetcute: Justin needed inexpensive mobile data to livestream his day-to-day and Robin had access to tons of it (In fact, Robin was the first one to put YouTube on a cell phone!). Turns out the deal didn’t go as planned though, and the two went their separate ways. Then nearly fifteen years later, in 2021 they reconnected, teamed up as co-founders, and created their investment fund Goat Capital. Since then, they’ve founded and invested in dozens of companies - including Stash. In this episode of Secret Stash, co-host Archie Stonehill and Stash co-founders - Justin Kan, Robin Chan, and Dan Borstelmann - share stories on each stage of gaming entrepreneurship: - how the founding team got together and why it’s stuck - creating hypotheses and knowing when to change gears - doubling down on macro market trends - establishing a defensible product strategy - executing on product excellence Read the highlights here: https://dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-ep-2-justin-kan-shares-the-secret-to-finding-your-co-founder 0:00 - Meet the Stash co-founders 2:02 - How Justin and Robin met 8:21 - Justin gets arrested 10:11 - Justin and Robin reconnect 11:07 - Bringing on Dan 12:18 - Two types of product people 15:34 - Promoting Dan to co-founder 17:40 - Different career paths 20:18 - Justin’s job as a stockroom attendant 22:07 - Complementary skill sets are key 26:57 - How to find a good partner 29:17 - Pivoting JustinTV and tips 31:24 - Pivoting Fractal 36:41 - Macro vs micro investments 40:32 - How JustinTV beat out a competitive market 53:28 - Swapping entrepreneur secrets

Hit the Subscribe button wherever you listen to your podcasts!
Stash is the first of its kind direct-to-consumer platform for games.
Learn more about Stash here: https://dev.stash.gg/

Welcome to Secret Stash, the podcast spilling all the industry's secrets! Meet your hosts:

• Justin Kan, co-founder of Stash and previously co-founder at Twitch
• Archie Stonehill, head of product at Stash

Before you jump into the first episode, where we have an incredible first guest, we wanted to share a bit about who we are, why we decided to make this podcast, and what you can expect from us.

So why are we calling this podcast Secret Stash? We want to give you, our listeners, access to really deep, almost private conversations, stories, and insights with some of the most brilliant minds in gaming and tech. We want you to feel like you’re in the room with us, talking about topics that really matter and conversations that are usually discussed behind closed doors. We’re going to dig into what people were thinking when they made certain decisions and what they really think now.

We’re going to use Secret Stash to talk about everything related to Stash's mission - which is to give game developers more control. The way we see it, there have always been platforms getting in the middle of gamers and developers - first the consoles, then Steam, then the app stores. They control nearly everything a developer is allowed to do - from taking a 30% fee from IAPs, to limiting user tracking, etc. At Stash, we’re trying to build toward a future in which developers can be their own platforms for the first time - by delivering really great direct-to-consumer experiences.

So on the podcast, we’ll talk about things like the driving forces behind major success stories, changing platform dynamics, new gaming tech, antitrust regulations, and more.

No matter the episode, you’ll always come away having learned something new you can take back to your studio.

See you in episode 1!

Hit the Subscribe button wherever you listen to your podcasts!
Stash is the first of its kind direct-to-consumer platform for games.
Learn more about Stash here: https://dev.stash.gg/

Welcome to Secret Stash's first-ever podcast episode, hosted by Justin Kan and Archie Stonehill. Today's guest - legendary investor Mitch Lasky!
Since the mid 1990s, Mitch Lasky has been building and investing in some of the biggest game companies in the world. He was one of the first, if not the first, investor to take game developers seriously as a venture-backable business. He helped build Activision, was CEO of Jamdat (one of the first mobile game studios, which he took public before selling to Electronic Arts for $680M), and was an early investor at Riot Games, helping turn League of Legends from a rough wireframe to the sensation it is today.
Suffice to say, Mitch has been around the block and has some secrets to share - specifically the importance of GTM and how to innovate in it. While the game industry is quick to attribute some of the biggest successes to groundbreaking product and design, Mitch says there’s more to the equation - that distribution and GTM is arguably the most important element.
Read the highlights here: dev.stash.gg/blog/secret-stash-ep-1-mitch-lasky-reveals-the-secret-to-gaming-gtm
0:00 - Meet Mitch Lasky
1:45 - Mitch reveals why he didn't invest in Twitch
5:56 - Some business models are gross
12:06 - How Riot innovated their GTM
17:37 - Mitch's practical advice on GTM
21:13 - Regulations are opening up mobile and Steam
26:04 - Is AAA bad at direct-to-consumer?
28:57 - There's room for innovation in funding
35:02 - How thatgamecompany and Jenova Chen innovated GTM
40:09 - The AAA business model is gross too
41:51 - Looking ahead
48:13 - Mitch's biggest secret from his Riot days

Hit the Subscribe button wherever you listen to your podcasts!
Stash is the first of its kind direct-to-consumer platform for games.
Learn more about Stash here: https://dev.stash.gg/