Justin Kan, of justin.tv fame, stopped by the Zillow offices to give a short presentation about the many ideas he and his co-founders entertained before they landed on the “right” product — that is, something that had market value and market traction.

Justin gave a nod to the story of how three entrepreneurs from Japan turned Mieple — initially an online dating site — into Anyperk, a service that provides employees with travel, entertainment, fitness, and telecom discounts.

And then he talked about the projects that he and his team personally pivoted on — from Kieko (YC 2005), which turned into SocialCam, which turned into justin.tv, which turned into Twitch, a video platform for gamers who want to watch other gamers in play. Now he’s working on Exec, an online booking service that hires cleaners.

The summary of the presentation?

Don’t be afraid to pivot.

I should probably mention that I had no idea Justin (just like Macklemore, I found out recently!) originally hailed from Seattle until I read the introductory text on the Hacker News meetup page.

I also got the chance to meet a couple of cool people, including two freelancers, a Starbucks developer, and an Amazon developer. Half of them grew up in Seattle. Way to represent!

This meetup is just another plus that endears me to Seattle.

Photo: the presentation slides, aptly titled “Pivoting: Only for Newbs??”