This post originally appeared on Tech In Chicago. Visit Tech In Chicago to listen to more interviews with Chicago’s top startup founders and venture capitalists.
Stu Grubbs is a Co-Founder and CEO of Infiniscene, a startup building the easiest way to livestream video. They enable gamers, and now Facebook and Youtube streamers, to easily create beautiful live broadcasts in their web browser without any experience or expensive hardware. As Stu mentions during the show, a lot of Chicago startups are new tech solving old problems so it is awesome to to have a startup empowering live streamers being built here. It is definitely both a cutting edge problem and solution.
In This Episode You Will Learn:
- How difficult it is to setup a lifestream today
- Why quality will always be the differentiator with content creators
- How big e-sports is today? Hint: a lot bigger than you think
- How e-gamers make more money on content then competition
- What Infiniscene got out of Techstars
- Why starting a company is the real way to see if you are good at something
- How a landlords faith in him allowed Infiniscene to survive
- What kept him going when he was penniless
- How he ended up hiring his biggest critic
- Whats the most exciting stuff he saw at E3
- How live streaming may work in virtual reality
- How they have developed culture early in the company
- The importance of one-on-one's for culture
- Why they founded Infiniscene in Chicago
- Why every call should be a video call on a distributed team
- Why he looks for cultural fit first when hiring
Selected Links From The Episode:
- 2015: The year it all blew up
- Manus VR - first consumer VR glove
- VREAL - Native virtual reality streaming
- MK Capital
- Pritzker Group Venture Capital
- Mark Achier, VC Math Ventures
- Aaron Hassell, COO and Co-Founder at Infiniscene
- Dan Trocchio, CTO and Co-Founder at Infiniscene
- Ryan Forquer, CMO and Co-Founder at Infiniscene
Favorite Books:
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- The Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook by Dan Shapiro
- Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
About Tech In Chicago
Tech In Chicago takes you inside the Chicago tech world. Each week Colin Keeley is joined by Chicago’s top founders and investors to talk about the amazing companies being built right here. If you want to learn more about Tech In Chicago, head to TechInChicago.co
I would love to hear your thoughts on the show and any guests I should have on. Please reach out @TechInChicago. You can also find me @ColinKeeley.
