Reddit co-founder inspires students

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the popular website reddit, joined students to discuss his new book, Without Their Permission, as well as his experience with entrepreneurship and the role of the Internet Wednesday night in the Seeley G. Mudd Auditorium.

 

Though he is best known for reddit, Ohanian also helped to launch the websites Hipmunk, an online travel search agent, and Breadpig, a “sidekick-for-hire” that, according to the website, assists creators with funding and success.

Ohanian, who is not only an entrepreneur himself but also an investor in more than 60 tech companies, is currently on a North American college tour promoting his new book and encouraging young entrepreneurs everywhere to start building their next company “as soon as they leave this auditorium.”

The founder of reddit.com, not surprisingly, is a huge proponent of utilizing the Internet and taking advantage of the current generation’s constant interaction with digital media.

“We have a certain amount of fluency the incumbents do not have,” Ohanian said.

In addition, Ohanian emphasizes that the Internet is an even playing field, in that everyone has equal access to every link and the Internet is currently “the world’s largest stage” for one to begin his or her own company.

Ohanian described his first startup, My Mobile Menu, as a bittersweet experience. When he and co-founder, Steve Huffman, were called in for an interview by startup financier Y Combinator, they left confident, only to have their idea crushed hours later. Y Combinator, however, was interested in the two recent college grads, and months later the idea of reddit was born.

Ohanian displayed the very first reddit design, which he described as “jenky” and reminded students that every entrepreneur and successful business has to start from somewhere.

“At the end of the day, sucking is the first step to being sort of good at something,” Ohanian said.

Though Reddit’s initial designs were less than extraordinary, the website had more than 100 million page visitors just this past month.

One of Ohanian’s friends, USC alum Ross Boucher, also stepped in to provide students with advice of his own. After working at Apple, Boucher created 280 North, a successful startup that was bought by Motorola.

Like Ohanian, Boucher emphasized spending as much time as possible as soon as possible working on your first start-up.

“If you can devote any amount of time to working on something, that’s great and that’s important,” Boucher said.

At the end of his presentation, Ohanian put up his email address for students to contact him for internship opportunities or any business questions they might have.

“If you all are Lewis and Clark, I’ll be your Sacajawea,” Ohanian said. “I will help you explore this new frontier.”

Several audience members at the event were eager to hear Ohanian in person.

“Alexis has this amazing capacity to instantly connect with his audience when he speaks,” said Stephen Chen, a sophomore majoring in jazz studies. “I’ve watched his videos on YouTube and on the Google for Entrepreneurs channel before, so it was great getting to hear him speak in person at USC.”