

How Reddit was created: ‘I wanted to make the world suck less’  - johnkoetsier
http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/28/the-inside-story-on-how-reddit-was-created-i-wanted-to-make-the-world-suck-less/

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leak
So, I'm a bit confused. How is Reddit considered a success story by it's
founders? Wasn't it sold off really early to Conde Nast? Didn't it only start
to blast off into success-o-sphere like right after Digg started dying? Wasn't
Conde Nast not providing resources to the team which, forced them to ask for
_donations_ (reddit gold) from the community to build more servers/hire? I
mean, it all sounds like a big barrel of luck that it even survived.

~~~
SwellJoe
It was sold quite early, but for a double digit million dollar pay out. For a
while, it was the biggest YC exit. It has been spun back out into an
independent subsidiary, which Alexis is involved in again in an executive role
(Steve could have been, too, I'm sure, but he's working on Hipmunk).

What do you consider success for fresh out of college 20-somethings, if having
a few million bucks in the bank, and having built one of the biggest sites on
the Internet, isn't success?

~~~
leak
I guess I was saying that a lot of things happened that were indicators that
the site may have not been what it is today. I don't know how much money they
have in their bank accounts but I'll bet all mine it's not millions from the
reddit sale. I just get annoyed by the hype of a vision and someone be
responsible for something that can't really be explained. If it really was
that for them, as jay-z put it, they could create another one.

~~~
SwellJoe
That would be a foolish bet. The value of the acquisition is known to have
been in the low double digit millions. Probably 12-15. There were two
founders, plus a third member of the team at the time of acquisition, and very
little dilution from investment...the math is pretty easy.

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hayksaakian
I wonder how much those fake users really did towards pushing reddit to it's
growth spurt.

~~~
double051
They spent their time populating the site by hand because ultimately they knew
that's how their users would do it.

The accounts they used weren't fake, they were just the two guys building a
site with a lot of test accounts.

~~~
kami8845
>The accounts they used weren't fake

Uh, yeah, they were. They intentionally created _false_ accounts of people
with different names to give the impression that a lot of people were already
submitting content to the site.

~~~
SwellJoe
Unlike all those novelty accounts on reddit. Or, for that matter, unlike your
username here, "kami8845", if that is your _real_ name rather than a _false_
name.

The accounts were real enough. They were people (Steve and Alexis) posting
interesting stories to their own site. They just happened to give the illusion
of lots of people doing it...which is kinda mandatory for a new site, if you
want to kickstart it.

~~~
dnlhoust
Do you not find that misleading to the other users on the site? People come
along expecting links chosen by the wisdom of the crowds and end up just
getting things two guys find interesting?

~~~
SwellJoe
I was a reddit user back when they were populating it themselves. I was not
offended to learn later, after meeting them, that they'd made up accounts to
populate the site.

I enjoyed the really high quality links they posted; that was the only
"contract" I felt like I had with reddit at that point. There was no
discussion in the beginning, so the links were all there was, and they were
high quality (i.e. I enjoyed reading the linked stories). Faking a community
would be much harder, so it's lucky they didn't have to. By the time comments
were a part of the experience at reddit, there were enough actual users to
make it happen.

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dreamdu5t
What are we supposed to learn from this?

I love Reddit, but I find their story depressing. Everyone has fun personal
projects that they make, but a lucky few will have them become wildly popular
without much planning for reasons they can't foresee. I don't feel like I can
learn anything from that, and it makes me feel very unlucky and that fate is
largely out of my control.

~~~
tomhoward
Did you watch the video? If you watch it through to the end, you see the
determination, conviction and sincerity that these guys have, which would have
put them ahead of anyone else trying to do something similar (eg, Digg, in the
long run).

No one denies that luck plays a big part in how successful any given startup
will turn out to be.

But everyone can do things to make their chances of success higher, and the
magnitude of that success greater, through the way they conduct themselves and
the decisions they make about what they do.

~~~
dreamdu5t
You're implying that projects that aren't successful lack determination,
conviction, and sincerity. This is not the case at all.

~~~
tomhoward
I didn't imply any such thing; I said luck plays a big role.

Luck was a big factor in Reddit's early success. But luck wouldn't have helped
them if they didn't have a good idea ans put in the work.

And luck, as they say, is something you can make, by spending enough time
operating with determination, conviction and sincerity, and by learning enough
about the world to pick projects that will have a higher chance of success.

But from your comments in this thread, you seem like a pretty cynical,
defeatist person, which could be a pretty big handicap in your quest for
success - if indeed that is something you really want.

