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

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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/