Community Discussions
Explore the latest discussions and community conversations related to this domain.
Owner.com - Is anyone using it?
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I have a friend who owns a fast casual Greek restaraunt in CA, and is looking to move away from third-party delivery apps. The fees have gotten insane. Has anyone used Owner.com? Is the $499.99 worth it? I told him the mobile app is cool, because you could build one, but then would to deal with all the BS issues and bugs they come with.
Top Comment: I was using it. That’s wayyy too overpriced, I Got someone local to do my website and seo for less than what I paid the first month. I get more orders now than I did with them.
I am Steve Huffman, the new CEO of reddit. AMA.
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Hey Everyone, I'm Steve, aka spez, the new CEO around here. For those of you who don't know me, I founded reddit ten years ago with my college roommate Alexis, aka kn0thing. Since then, reddit has grown far larger than my wildest dreams. I'm so proud of what it's become, and I'm very excited to be back.
I know we have a lot of work to do. One of my first priorities is to re-establish a relationship with the community. This is the first of what I expect will be many AMAs (I'm thinking I'll do these weekly).
My proof: it's me!
edit: I'm done for now. Time to get back to work. Thanks for all the questions!
Top Comment: Do you plan on reviewing your policy on shadowbanning users? From my understanding this was first implemented as a measure to prevent spam bots from knowing they have been silenced, but has since been expanded to everyday users without there knowledge. Is there any new system in the works were a user being banned would be let know that they have been banned 2)what the ban was for
Why Reddit founder made nothing on $6.4 billion IPO
Main Post: Why Reddit founder made nothing on $6.4 billion IPO
Top Comment: More on this subject from other reputable sources: NPR (B+): Reddit stock slated to start trading on NYSE CNBC (B): Reddit prices IPO at $34 per share in first major social media offering since 2019 CNN.com (C): Welcome to the market, RDDT! Reddit stock jumps on first day as a public company Slate Magazine (E+): Reddit’s IPO Gamble Extended Summary | FAQ & Grades | I'm a bot
The Dark Truth About Reddit: From Faking Users To A Billion Dollar Company
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How did two broke college students with a failed business end up creating one of the most popular internet forum ever? The story of Reddit is filled with scandals, lies, money and even death - as Reddit has been involved in countless controversies, including turning against its own users. But let’s dive in behind Reddit's insane history to the billion dollar company that we know of today.
In 2001, Alexis Ohanian enrolled at the University of Virginia to study computer science. His destiny changed when he met his dorm neighbor Steve Huffman, another self-taught programmer majoring in computer science.
The two bonded over video games but Alexis felt behind his peers' skills. Fearing failure, he switched to pre-law despite his passion for coding. As he prepped for the grueling law entrance exam, visions of a monotonous future as a lawyer overwhelmed him. Mid-exam, he walked out and envisioned running his own impactful tech company instead.
Luckily, Steve already had a business idea - a mobile app for ordering food ahead from gas stations or any restaurant to skip the line. Excited, they named it "My Mobile Menu" and devoted their senior year to building the startup.
However, smartphones were still primitive with no app stores. Steve struggled to connect their SMS-based system to restaurants'. Meanwhile, Alexis struggled to sell the vision to restaurants. Their innovative idea was simply too ahead of its time.
As spring break arrived, Alexis and Steve embarked on a 500-mile trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their goal? Seeking help for their struggling business from entrepreneur Paul Graham, who was lecturing at Harvard on "How to Start a Startup."
Steve was a fan of Graham's books and hoped to get one autographed. But Alexis saw an even bigger opportunity. After the lecture, they approached Graham, bought him a drink, and pitched their mobile food ordering app "My Mobile Menu." Surprisingly, Graham liked the idea of eliminating waiting in line for food.
The pair exchanged contacts with Graham and returned to Virginia reinvigorated. Weeks later, Graham emailed about launching a new startup accelerator program called Y Combinator, inviting them to pitch for funding. Though confident, the investor panel couldn't envision their app working with current technology nor saw two college kids having restaurant connections.
Rejected but not dejected, Graham revealed he still believed in Alexis and Steve if they conceived a better idea. Literally getting off the train at the next stop, they brainstormed a new concept that would change everything.
Abandoning the mobile app, Graham advised building something web-based to solve "your problem every morning." By 2005, content flooded the internet from multiple sources needing better aggregation. Sites like Slashdot let users submit articles that moderators rated. Delicious bookmarked popular links.
But Alexis and Steve envisioned an open platform where anyone could share any content for users to upvote or downvote - a platform where content is rated by the people. After tossing names like Oobaloo and 360scope, they landed on "Reddit" - allowing people to simply say "I read it on Reddit."
Graduating in 2005 with a new company name and vision, the founders of Reddit were ready to disrupt how content spreads online.
Armed with $12,000 in funding from Y Combinator, Alexis and Steve moved to Massachusetts to work full-time on their new idea. They spent months operating on little sleep, barely leaving as they built Reddit day and night. However, Paul Graham soon emailed questioning why they hadn't launched yet, pushing them to release a bare-bones beta version immediately.
Unexpectedly, Graham then linked to Reddit on his blog, driving their first 1,000 visitors. Ready or not, Reddit was now live - but missing a crucial element: users.
Alexis tried everything to attract an audience - posting flyers around Boston, asking friends to contribute content, even pitching fellow Y Combinator founders. But without an existing userbase, there was little content.
Desperate for traction, Alexis and Steve resorted to creating hundreds of fake accounts to populate Reddit with posts, giving the illusion of an active community. "Reddit's no fun if the page is blank," Alexis rationalized their moves.
At first, there was no evident impact until they started noticing unfamiliar usernames joining the platform. By summer's end, Reddit had amassed over 12,000 daily users.
However, the homepage was simply a jumble of random links voted to the top with no categorization system. This sparked Alexis and Steve's first major clash - Alexis wanted tags for organization, but Steve opposed subjective labeling concerns.
Their compromise? Separate "subreddit" sections for every interest, becoming Reddit's backbone. The first was the not-safe-for-work subreddit, followed by science, programming, politics and many more niche communities united on one novel platform.
With this innovative structure, Reddit's prospects were looking very bright - especially after crossing paths with a pivotal new player, Aaron Swartz.
At just 18 years old, Aaron Swartz was a talented programmer also backed by Y Combinator for his startup Infogami, that built web development tools. However, Infogami struggled - Aaron hadn't launched yet and found himself broke, homeless and partnerless. Paul Graham saw Aaron's potential to help with developing Reddit and suggested merging companies.
Late 2005, around 6 months after Reddit's launch, Infogami merged into a new parent company Not A Bug Inc with Reddit. Steve, Alexis and Aaron each owned 24% of Reddit, with Paul at 7% and the rest reserved.
Alexis and Steve welcomed Aaron's coding skills. As users grew, Reddit added comment sections for discussions, plus a "karma" points system incentivizing quality contributions. The trio collaborated well initially.
However, underlying tensions brewed. Alexis and Steve felt it unfair Aaron publicly called himself a Reddit co-founder when he joined 6 months after their idea's inception. This founder friction intensified as Reddit caught the attention of media giant Condé Nast.
The multi-billion dollar publisher of Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair sought to acquire the rapidly growing, user-generated Reddit to expand digitally after acquiring Wired. Though not looking to sell their 1-year-old startup yet, the 23, 22 and 19-year-old founders entertained Condé Nast's millions.
After tense negotiations, one hurdle remained - Aaron voicing concerns over a massive corporation controlling the free user-driven platform. His antics like secretly tweaking contracts caused frustration until Steve warned him not to jeopardize the deal.
Relenting, Condé Nast acquired Reddit for around $10-20 million, making the founders overnight millionaires. Though required to remain for 3 more years, they operated independently with resources to grow Reddit. What seemed like a dream quickly turned into a nightmare as the Reddit founders' story took a dark twist.
Everyone worked hard to impress Condé Nast, Reddit's new corporate owners - except Aaron. He had envisioned Reddit as a voice for the people against big governments and corporations. So being owned by a massive media company felt like a bad cultural fit.
Aaron rarely showed up to the office, even blogging about hating the "grey walls, grey desks, grey noise". Finally in January 2007, Alexis, Steve and Condé Nast leadership fired the problematic Aaron.
Without him, the team continued developing Reddit, rethinking core features.
Until 2008, only employees could create new topic subreddits despite increasing user requests. Their solution? Allowing any user to make their own subreddit.
This brilliant move spawned subreddits for every niche interest imaginable, from niche bands to financial advice to bizarre meme topics like "BreadStapleToTrees" with over 300,000 members. Users could now find or create communities for any interest.
Another clever tactic was to let the most active users moderate the subreddits they created for free.
Reddit's popularity soared to over 2 million users and 10,000+ subreddits by late 2008. Yet the company struggled to monetize this traffic.
So despite explosive growth, Reddit remained unprofitable, merely introducing paid memberships and awards. Meanwhile, tensions boiled over between Alexis and Steve - the former grieving his late mother, accusing Steve of mismanagement while Steve felt Alexis schemed behind his back. Sharing an apartment worsened their explosive office fights.
By 2009 when their Condé Nast contracts expired, the fractured co-founders both abandoned Reddit just as a new Congressional bill threatened the site's very existence.
In 2011, Congress proposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would hold platforms like Reddit responsible for all user-generated content on their sites - even content they didn't publish themselves. For a site with millions of users freely posting, copyright owners could sue Reddit, potentially leading to massive fines, legal fees or even a shutdown.
At the time, Reddit had over 46 million users but only 20 employees, making it impossible to monitor all content for compliance. Reddit publicly declared SOPA an "all-out war against the internet" they wouldn't go down without a fight.
Many tech giants like Google and Wikipedia also lobbied against the law amid intense public backlash. On January 18, 2012, Reddit took the dramatic step of shutting down for 12 hours in protest, stating in a blog post: "We wouldn't do this if we didn't believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to Reddit and the internet as we know it."
Days later, Congress abandoned SOPA after succumbing to public pressure. One key leader emerging from this internet freedom battle was none other than Aaron Swartz. After leaving Reddit, he had become an activist fighting internet censorship and campaigning for an open internet.
But his activism landed him in serious legal trouble in 2011 when arrested for illegally downloading millions of academic journals from MIT to make them freely accessible online. He faced up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.
Aaron was offered a plea deal of just 6 months if he admitted guilty, however he rejects it to avoid being a lifelong felon. As his case lingered, the depressed Aaron became isolated, not wanting to burden others. Tragically, his girlfriend found him dead by suicide weeks before the trial.
Tributes poured in across the internet, hailing Aaron as using "his prodigious skills not to enrich himself, but to make the internet and world a fairer, better place." Though inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for co-founding Reddit and creating RSS feeds and Creative Commons licenses, Aaron's pivotal role has largely been erased from Reddit's official history.
In March 2012, Yishan Wang from PayPal became Reddit's new CEO as the site reached billions of monthly pageviews and gained cultural relevance. Even President Barack Obama did an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") Q&A on the site's popular subreddit.
However, this immense growth caused problems. Since anyone could create subreddits, many disturbing communities proliferated from watching people die to cannibalism forums. Reddit's anonymity made it ripe for abuse by extremists, hate speech, and controversies.
One tragic example followed the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings killing 3 and injuring hundreds. A "FindBostonBombers" subreddit emerged with thousands speculating and sharing unauthorized personal information against site rules. They falsely accused missing student Sunil Tripathi based on resemblance, leading to vicious harassment of his grieving family before authorities identified the true perpetrators.
When Tripathi's body was discovered on April 23, news outlets blamed Reddit's witch-hunt. As the userbase swelled into the millions, pressure mounted on executives like Yishan to crack down on offensive subreddits. Though believing "we will not ban legal content even if odious," he eventually prohibited forums like "BeatingWomen" with graphic violence.
By 2014, conflicting views on content moderation led Yishan to resign after just two years, citing stress from the internal conflicts and negative publicity scaring investors amidst sexism claims. Ellen Pao soon replaced him as CEO to address Reddit's escalating controversies.
Ellen Pao, formerly Reddit's VP known for suing a past employer over gender discrimination, succeeded Yishan as CEO in 2014. Her hiring aimed to rehabilitate Reddit's concerning reputation.
Around this time, co-founder Alexis Ohanian also returned as executive chairman, hoping to steer Reddit clear of controversies. Shortly after, Pao implemented stricter anti-harassment policies and banned some of the most offensive subreddits.
While some lauded her efforts to clean up Reddit, many core users considered it censorship - especially after Pao stated: "We are not a completely free speech platform." Matters escalated when she fired beloved employee Victoria Taylor, who coordinated high-profile AMAs. In protest, moderators shut down hundreds of subreddits, effectively blacking out the site.
With over 160,000 petitions calling for her removal, Pao resigned after just 7 months amid Reddit's tailspin and uncertain future. The company desperately needed stable leadership after cycling through 3 CEOs in under a year.
Offering a glimmer of hope, co-founder Steve Huffman returned as CEO in 2015 alongside Ohanian's renewed involvement. The original founders' comeback reignited optimism, with design upgrades, mobile apps, and clearer direction initially.
However, in 2016 Huffman himself sparked an ethics scandal. After insulting comments on the controversial "The_Donald" subreddit, he abused admin privileges to edit them, redirecting insults towards the subreddit's moderators instead. Though calling it "trolling the trolls," many felt an admin editing user posts broke trust in Reddit's freedom and openness - severely damaging Huffman's credibility.
In April 2023, Reddit announced it would start charging to access its API - the interface allowing third-party apps and websites to pull data from Reddit. One of the most popular alternative apps was Apollo, offering a different browsing experience by freely accessing Reddit's data when the API was free.
However, Reddit's new pricing of 24 cents per 1,000 API requests meant Apollo estimated yearly costs over $20 million - forcing the beloved third-party app to shut down. Many moderator tools relying on Reddit's API to provide enhanced functionality beyond Reddit's official app were also hit with massive unexpected bills.
Many in the community felt the exorbitant pricing and lack of warning suggested Reddit deliberately aimed to kill competitor apps, not giving developers time to adapt. Outraged moderators and developers grouped together, staging a blackout where over 7,000 subreddits including major communities like r/AskReddit went dark simultaneously to protest the API charges.
With huge portions of Reddit inaccessible, the company lost substantial ad revenue during one of the biggest online protests ever. Many thought this backlash would force Reddit to rescind the changes. However, since the blackout stated a hard 48-hour timeline, Reddit simply waited it out despite some subreddits staying private longer until threatened with moderator bans.
Post-blackout, animosity towards Reddit's leadership like CEO Steve Huffman has intensified. However, Reddit argued the monetization move was necessary, as the company remains unprofitable while third-parties freely integrated Reddit's entire infrastructure and content without generating any income for Reddit itself.
While Reddit's position is defensible from a business perspective, most agree better foresight like improving their official app with requested features could have avoided controversy. Nonetheless, Reddit achieved its API paywall aims - but at the cost of worsening tensions with its very own community.
Despite nearly 20 years online and around 430 million monthly users as of 2023, Reddit incredibly still operates at a loss and has never turned a profit. However, Reddit's collective community has managed to accomplish some incredible feats.
Users have raised massive amounts for charities and orphanages, organized the world's largest secret Santa gift exchange, and created millions of connections through niche interest communities. Reddit is undeniably useful too - its threads frequently appear as top Google results for inquiries.
But no event demonstrated Reddit's community power quite like the 2021 GameStop stock frenzy. Amateur traders on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit banded together against hedge funds betting on GameStop's decline. Redditors began purchasing the struggling company's shares en masse, driving its stock price from under $3 to an astonishing $483 peak.
This monumental short squeeze caused multi-billion losses for major Wall Street firms, while making numerous Redditors overnight millionaires simply by clinging together. While Reddit itself has yet to solve profitability, one thing remains clear - the website's most powerful asset and liability is its vast unified user base.
Despite the controversies and roller coaster ride detailed in Reddit's story, the site's populist underpinnings and harnessed collective continue redefining what an online community can achieve, for better or worse. Reddit's unconventional journey is far from over.
Top Comment: I still miss the original Digg.
What is Reddit CEO Steve Huffman doing?
Main Post: What is Reddit CEO Steve Huffman doing?
Top Comment: Decorating r/Place at the moment
Reddit was sold for $10 million dollars in the mid 2000s. One of the founders and current CEO, Steve Huffman, admitted the other day that reddit has still never turned a profit. These two facts explain almost everything about management of the site since he took control in 2015.
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Huffman is a libertarian tech bro, and probably prides himself on being a founder of one of the most popular sites on the web.
But he sold way too early before reddit blew up (I'm a near 15 year user of the site and he sold before I joined), and he only made $5 million from the sale before taxes. In Silicon Valley, that's nothing. All the other tech bro startups make the founders 10s if not 100s of millions.
So Steve, who wants to be Mr Badass Bunker Boi, is actually a poor fuck compared to his silicon valley friends. An asshole capitalist like him can't stand this. Me, poor, with my big brain? Never.
That's likely a huge motivation and reason why he came back to reddit. I would bet his number one goal since taking over was to turn reddit profitable and make the IPO so he could finally make the money he thinks he deserves.
The problem?
Reddit has never known how to make money. Huffman is a fucking idiot who lucked into working for Paul Graham and never ran reddit when it was of any actual size. u/yishan is who was at the wheel when reddit ran through its explosive growth post 2009.
Other than founding reddit, and likely only using it pre-2010, Huffman doesn't know the community or how reddit works. He doesn't know how a business works. He doesn't know how tech works. He doesn't know how to lead or manage. He's a guy who hit the tech lottery as dumb teenager.
Reddit has been desperate to try and make money in the past decade, and they have tried and failed at every corner. They've likely burned through all their VC money as interest rates have finally risen post-COVID, and Huffman must be feeling pressures from investors to make money. NOW.
A desperate man in a desperate situation, a narcissistic capitalist who thinks he's more skilled and more knowledgeable than he actually is - is it no surprise that he makes a piss poor decision to overcharge for APIs, and then double down on being a gigantic asshole in the process? He refuses to take any blame or admit fault or error, and will seemingly ride his ship into the iceberg.
Honestly insane how the reddit board hasn't fired this guy after all his gaffes and fuckups over the years. Editing user comments should have warranted a firing years ago.
Oh, and remember how he only made $5 million on the sale of reddit, and the Apollo dev jokingly said "buy me out for $10 million"?
That would absolutely drive Huffman bananas - this 3PA dev working on a reddit app was going to make more selling his product than the founder made for selling the site. The narcissist would never let that happen, even if it was in the best interest of the site to do so.
To put himself and the Apollo dev on the same wealth tier? That's not possible in the mind of tech bro like Huffman. Wealth and money are your value to society, and there's no way some dude making a 3PA should be worth as much as the founder. The Apollo dev didn't realize he had accidentally triggered Huffman's sore spot.
Top Comment: Of course it didn’t turn a profit, he sold the direction rights to a news company while all the employees especially the top receive most of the profits in their salaries 😑
Consider who owns Reddit and then ask yourself….
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Am I being lied to ? What’s not allowed to be said on here ? Who gives anyone the right to block or censor ? How does information being censored or blocked keep me from knowing valuable information in order to control me ?
"In 2011, Reddit was fully transferred to the ownership of Advance Publications, which is the parent company of Condé Nast.
Advance Publications is a prominent media company that has holdings in several industries, including cable television, newspapers, and magazines.
Through its holding companies, Advance Publications has significant ownership in companies such as Charter Communications, Discovery, and Condé Nast. Reddit is one of its more prominent digital media holdings.
The acquisition of Reddit by Advance Publications had a significant impact on the platform. The company has been instrumental in providing the resources necessary for the platform to expand and evolve.
Under its ownership, Reddit has continued to grow into one of the largest social media platforms on the web."
If you think your tv cable news is telling you the truth or allowing anyone on it to tell you the truth, then you might think you’re getting an accurate depiction of society and some kind of truth here on Reddit. But you are not. We live in a country ran by corporations that do not want certain narratives being shown for what they are, false and misleading, and purely disinformation. Your tv or some of us like to call it “the dumb box”, has been pedaling lies about wars and politics your entire lives. Reddit is no different. Just like Boomers who get their info from Fox or CNN, Millennials have their version of corporate owned lies as well, it’s called social media. The majority of what I see in this group is careful manipulation and the whole way Reddit interacts with the up vote down vote exists to keep you in the group.
Anyone see that video of the girl on the elevator and they did an experiment where they had a group get on and all face the opposite way to see if she would turn around even thought she was facing the correct way ? Yea, thats reddit.
Top Comment: It's hard to understand people who call msm fake or think they are always lying to you. For some reason they hear a opinion and confuse it for the news. Or they watch a news program and again confuse that with "the news" While all have somewhat a Bias. Where some stories are promoted over others. Only on the right. Will they completely misinform, ignore, or play victim to a event that should be apart of the news. The news bias toward the left. Might not tell the story every ten minutes. But they will at least tell it. Which comes back to your secondary point about reddit. I agree. Somewhat. As the manipulation of the up/down arrows, the Karma stuff, is made for the mods and the more connected to get there point shown and at the top of all opinions. Any system that can be manipulated to favor those that know how to manipulate it. Is indeed rigged.
The Story of Reddit | First Time Founders
Main Post: The Story of Reddit | First Time Founders
Top Comment: Great insights about Reddit
The founding story of Reddit
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I know we all hate self-promoting people on Reddit.
I'm not attaching any kind of link to this post.
This was a post for my newsletter and the only reason I'm sharing it is in case someone here finds it valuable / interesting.
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Reddit is the platform we're all on right now and likely use almost everyday.
But have you ever wondered how it all began?
The 10+ billion dollar company was built by two young college kids.
Here is their Unheard Roots 🙌
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The college days 🎓
Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, the founders of Reddit, both studied computer science at the University of Virginia.
Their dorms were across from each other which led to them becoming good friends.
One of the things they bonded over was their shared desire to potentially pursue entrepreneurship after college.
During their senior years, they decided they wanted to start a company together.
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The first startup 📱
The first idea the duo had was an app called Mind Bubble Menu that would allow people to order food from their cell phones.
“I had a lot of ideas at the time. Just like I do now. Little frustrations in life where you think you can do better and make this better. One of the ideas I had was for ordering food from your cell phone.” - Steve Huffman, Co-Founder of Reddit
On spring of the duos senior year in college, March 2005, Paul Graham, the founder of Y-Combinator, was scheduled to give a talk at Harvard about building startups.
Steve Huffman, one of the Reddit co-founders, thought it would be cool to meet him and pitch Paul their new app idea.
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Meeting Paul Graham 🤝
During the event, Steve had one of the books of Paul Graham on coding using Lisp and wanted Paul to sign the book.
Alexis, the other founder, got Paul Grahams attention and started chatting him up at the event to help Steve get his book signed.
Right after getting the book signed, Alexis decided to ask Paul Graham if they could buy him a coffee to get his feedback on their startup idea.
“And then I said Dr.Graham it would totally be worth the cost of buying you a drink to get your opinion on our startup. We have come all the way from Virginia.” - Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder of Reddit
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Validation & Despair 🧑💻😥
Alexis and Steve ended up meeting with Paul Graham at a cafe and pitching him their startup idea.
“Paul sits down and says let me hear your pitch. So I just pitched him and he interrupted before I could get too far into it and was like this is awesome.” - Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder of Reddit
Soon after the pitch, Paul announces a new project called Y-Combinator and invites the duo to apply to the program.
The idea behind Y-Combinator is startups apply and if their ideas are good enough they get in to get funding and mentorship from Paul Grahams team.
Even tough Alexis and Steve are invited to apply, they are rejected after pitching the program directors.
Despite their idea being great, the timing was off. This was the early 2000s and the iPhone wasn’t even out yet. Therefore it would have been incredibly difficult building that sophisticated of an app.
While on the train back to Virginia, Alexis receives a phone call from Paul Graham about their YC application, he says the team likes both of the entrepreneurs but hates the idea.
Paul Graham goes onto suggest the duo apply with another idea that can work with the existing technologies.
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Reddit is born ✨
The one rule Paul Graham gave the two was to not build something on mobile phones.
“And he just said listen don’t do mobile phones. At the time there was no app store, you would have to go through carriers.” - Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder of Reddit
The two entrepreneurs come up with the idea for Reddit in June of 2005 and began working on it. The idea was to build the front page of the internet.
There was an increasing amount of content being created on the internet and no central place where users could find and access all of the content.
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Growing Reddit 🧑💻
What makes building any form of social media difficult is getting early users to generate content that can attract more users.
In order to work around the problem, Alexis and Steve created fake accounts and made fake posts to make it seem like people were using the website.
Old version of RedditAt some point, Reddit was put on the radar of other internet users and Reddit co-founders started to notice real accounts making real posts.
“The day I woke up and Reddit was working on its own was just the most incredible feeling. It was like holy shit we’ve got this thing that is making a difference in peoples lives.” - Steve Huffman, Co-Founder of Reddit
As users started to create and engage the founders started adding new features like subreddits, tags, flairs, etc and the rest, as they say, is history ✨
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Lessons from the Reddit story 📚
There are a couple of remarkably important lessons in the Reddit story.
- Timing matters
Whatever you create if you don’t get the timing, it won’t work. The duo came up with the idea of mobile food delivery in 2005, 2 years before the iPhone and app store.
If they had come up with the same idea in 2013, they could have been the ones to build Doordash.
- Find mentors that can help you
We didn’t go into detail about Paul Grahams involvement in Reddit but he had a tremendous role to play in getting the company to where it is today.
Steve Huffman at some point said building Reddit felt like homework due to just how much Paul Graham was micro managing the young founders.
- Be perspicacious
Being observant is perhaps one of the rare uniting trait of all successful founders.
Paying attention to things going on at the time led to the Alexis and Steve building Reddit.
P.S If you do like this post, you can ask me for the link for the newsletter :)
Top Comment: Why isn't Aaron Swartz mentioned in this? If Swartz hadn't ported Reddit from Lisp to Python, making it simpler and faster, it may not have succeed.
First Time Founders with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman
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Ed will be interviewing Reddit CEO/Founder Steve Huffman next week for First Time Founders, and they'll be taking listener submitted questions exclusively from this subreddit. What would you want to ask Steve? Drop your questions below!
Top Comment: Why the blanket censorship around Luigi/United Healthcare content?