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The first 6 months of Reddit (YC S05): "Entrepreneurship is a bipolar existence"

51 points by g0atbutt 16y ago

g0atbutt 16y ago
Highlights of this video: 1. Initially the Reddit team was rejected by YCombinator. Paul Graham then followed up with them via a phone call and said “as long as you ditch your original idea, you can come be a part of YCombinator”. This is a great reminder that investors often care more about the team then they do the product. 2. Alexis also talks about how Reddit was able to get new users by creating fake accounts to simulate an active community. 3. Alexis talks about a meeting they had with Yahoo, but he felt that the meeting sucked because Yahoo was more interested in the traffic they were generating then the actual mission of the site. 4. Met with Google, and things went really well. This was a huge boost of confidence for the Reddit team as “some very smart people at Google were interested in our product”. 5. Alexis also reminisces about doing “digital grunt work”. Alexis attributes a lot of Reddit’s success to doing things that aren’t glamorous. Great reminder that entrepreneurship is all about “the hustle”. 6. Entrepreneurship is a Bipolar existence. Sometimes you feel like you’re building an online empire, and other days you feel like a nobody. This is completely normal. 7. A tip that Alexis shared for other startups was to “celebrate quick and easy wins” (especially in the first 6 months). This helps to build momentum, and establishes comradery on your team.
dustingetz 16y ago
"Alexis also talks about how Reddit was able to get new users by creating fake accounts to simulate an active community." "simulating" is probably too strong a word. the early adopters didn't care if it was the team posting or other people; they liked the content and the discussion.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  Not discussion. Reddit didn't get comments until much later.
deleted 16y ago
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noahc 16y ago
What I love about this video is at the end it repeats the introduction again. It's super awkward, but it shows how unpolished something can be and STILL be useful/valuable. The take away lesson: Do something publicly and reap the reward. Keep it private as you perfect it and loose big time. Andrew Warner has competition now!
chr15 16y ago
I don't think pg is given enough credit for his hand in reddit. I wonder how many redditors have heard of him and/or YC.
- jedberg 16y ago
  It's funny you mention that. Just yesterday I made a graph of how many accounts were created each day since the beginning of reddit. It's very clear which day Paul mentioned reddit in his essay, because there was a 3x jump in signups that day. More importantly, it never receded from that level. I like to think this is because people kept finding his essays.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  Most everyone in the technical subreddits would know about pg and YC. After that, most people who identify strongly with the community would probably know its history.

51 points by g0atbutt 16y ago

Highlights of this video: 1. Initially the Reddit team was rejected by YCombinator. Paul Graham then followed up with them via a phone call and said “as long as you ditch your original idea, you can come be a part of YCombinator”. This is a great reminder that investors often care more about the team then they do the product. 2. Alexis also talks about how Reddit was able to get new users by creating fake accounts to simulate an active community. 3. Alexis talks about a meeting they had with Yahoo, but he felt that the meeting sucked because Yahoo was more interested in the traffic they were generating then the actual mission of the site. 4. Met with Google, and things went really well. This was a huge boost of confidence for the Reddit team as “some very smart people at Google were interested in our product”. 5. Alexis also reminisces about doing “digital grunt work”. Alexis attributes a lot of Reddit’s success to doing things that aren’t glamorous. Great reminder that entrepreneurship is all about “the hustle”. 6. Entrepreneurship is a Bipolar existence. Sometimes you feel like you’re building an online empire, and other days you feel like a nobody. This is completely normal. 7. A tip that Alexis shared for other startups was to “celebrate quick and easy wins” (especially in the first 6 months). This helps to build momentum, and establishes comradery on your team.

dustingetz 16y ago

"Alexis also talks about how Reddit was able to get new users by creating fake accounts to simulate an active community." "simulating" is probably too strong a word. the early adopters didn't care if it was the team posting or other people; they liked the content and the discussion.

redthrowaway 16y ago
Not discussion. Reddit didn't get comments until much later.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

noahc 16y ago

What I love about this video is at the end it repeats the introduction again. It's super awkward, but it shows how unpolished something can be and STILL be useful/valuable. The take away lesson: Do something publicly and reap the reward. Keep it private as you perfect it and loose big time. Andrew Warner has competition now!

chr15 16y ago

I don't think pg is given enough credit for his hand in reddit. I wonder how many redditors have heard of him and/or YC.

jedberg 16y ago
It's funny you mention that. Just yesterday I made a graph of how many accounts were created each day since the beginning of reddit. It's very clear which day Paul mentioned reddit in his essay, because there was a 3x jump in signups that day. More importantly, it never receded from that level. I like to think this is because people kept finding his essays.
redthrowaway 16y ago
Most everyone in the technical subreddits would know about pg and YC. After that, most people who identify strongly with the community would probably know its history.