Gibber
Head of Strategy & Product · 2021–2022
A B2B analytics platform that made sense of Twitch chat - one of the noisiest, most chaotic data streams on the internet. The tech worked. We were chasing one customer, not a market.
What I Learned
- A near-deal with one big name is not market validation. It's a single data point wearing the costume of one.
- Joining during GTM without first pressure-testing whether broad demand exists is a trap. Go back to basics before you go forward.
- Novel data is not the same as a clear buyer. You need both.
The thesis behind Gibber was straightforward: streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube Live had become genuinely important media channels, but the measurement tools for marketers were primitive. You could see view counts. You couldn't see how the audience was actually responding -- what drove engagement, what triggered drop-off, how sentiment shifted across a broadcast.
The hard part was the raw material. Twitch chat is what most people would describe as pure gibberish -- a wall of emotes, memes, in-jokes, and shorthand that looks impenetrable if you didn't grow up with it. We did an impressive job of making sense of it. The sentiment analysis layer processed live chat in real time and surfaced it as actual signals for brand marketers and content publishers. I'm still proud of what the tech could do.
I joined to help refine the product featureset while GTM was already underway -- which in hindsight is exactly where the trap was. We were deep in sales motion before anyone had properly challenged the assumption that broad demand existed. And we almost got away with it. We came close to closing a five-figure annual package with Activision -- a genuine near-miss that felt like proof the model worked. Then Microsoft acquired Activision, the deal evaporated, and we had to confront the uncomfortable reality: we hadn't been building a market, we'd been building a pipeline to one customer.
The lesson I keep drawing on: going back to basics matters, even -- especially -- when the GTM engine is already running. Momentum can mask the absence of a market. One big prospect in the room is not the same as a market that wants what you're selling.
Mixed outcome is honest. The tech worked. The market validation didn't.
Newsletter
Occasional thoughts, delivered.
Less than weekly. No noise — just the things I think are worth sharing.