How the hell do you pitch Reddit
I, like a lot of other people, spend a lot of time on Reddit. More then I would like to acknowledge, to myself or to others. It’s a great community in which you can have fun, get inspired, learn and get informed. Despite the productivity loss, I feel that my life is richer because of it.
While I understand the value of the community it has gathered, and the advertising model of creating revenue, I can’t help but wonder how it all started, and especially, how they received their first funding.
Reddit was founded by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. They got a spot in the highly coveted Y Combinator startup accelerator, and the site has had massive growth since then. However, I’m interested in their pitch. How do you get funding for a site which is is basically an internet forum where you can upvote and downvote other users’ links and comment on them - features I don’t think were revolutionary even in 2005. Even the Wikipedia article has a bland description of the site:
Reddit is a social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of either a link or a text (“self”) post. Other users then vote the submission “up” or “down”, which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site’s pages and front page.Content entries are organised by areas of interest called “subreddits”.
Reddit’s biggest value comes from the community itself. The technology stack, design or marketing strategy don’t matter much. The guys on the team have done a great job of keeping their business aspects open and transparent. They have built a great community and I’m thankful to them for it.
I would, however, like to know, as my title suggests, how the hell do you pitch something like Reddit? I doubt they came and gave the same introduction as the aforementioned wiki article. Did they put a special spin on it? Did pg like the founders’ passion and energy? Did they have previous experience in community building or an existing community?
What ever it was, it seems to work, and there is probably a thing or two to learn from the story.
