Episode #263 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Jenny Qian - Co-Founder & CEO of NEWNESS.
Through the years, many successful businesses have been born from unbundling CraigsList with stand-alone companies from different categories across the site. I’ve recently read articles about how the same could be said for Google and internet search with more of a curated web approach which makes me wonder if the same opportunity exists to unbundle YouTube into different streaming platforms for a targeted audience.
Twitch was obviously the home run in this category, as it proved that there was a large enough audience and interest to build a business around livestreaming videos games. Well, did you know that, according to Jenny, the beauty market is five times larger than the gaming industry.
Based on this massive opportunity, Jenny has taken her experience, knowledge, and passion to build NEWNESS, which is the livestreaming platform built specifically for the beauty community. The company is venture backed by Sequoia Capital and other leading VC firms and angel investors.
In this episode of our podcast, we cover:
- A very open discussion about imposter syndrome and advice on how to overcome it.
- Jenny’s background story in terms of starting her career in investment banking and why she made the transition to the tech industry.
- Her experience at Twitch right before the acquisition by Amazon and her different roles there, plus some key lessons learned from working under the Amazon umbrella.
- All the details on NEWNESS and how she got the business started in terms of raising funding (where she shares a very unique tip), building out the tech, identifying creators, and growing an audience.
- Her thoughts about the future of livestreaming.
- And so much more.