They were rejected, got drunk, and boarded a train home. But halfway back to Virginia, Alexis Ohanian got the call that changed everything. YC still didn’t want their idea, but they wanted them. So they headed back to Boston, and joined the first Y Combinator cohort the next day.

Three weeks and a $12,000 check later, they launched the front page of the internet and reshaped how people share online. In this issue I’ll break down Alexis’s journey along with:

Enjoy this ride on the Reddit express … LG

When Alexis Ohanian was 10, his first website was a Quake fan page on GeoCities filled with rocket launchers and flaming skulls. What grabbed him wasn't the game, it was the traffic counter. Strangers were visiting something he built in his bedroom.

In high school, he was teaching himself to code through community college classes and message boards while building websites for non-profits.

At the University of Virginia (UVA), Alexis was terrified no one would play video games. On move-in day, he saw his new roommate, Steve Huffman, playing Gran Turismo 2. That moment kicked off a friendship and partnership that would last for years to come. 

Once he started taking classes, Alexis was torn on what he really wanted to do switching paths a number of times finally settling on pre-law with a focus on immigration law inspired by the fact his parents were immigrants. 

In his junior year, Alexis sat down for an LSAT prep class, flipped through the book, and panicked. He realized he didn't want to be a lawyer. He wanted to make a dent in the universe. So, he walked out mid-test, drove to a Waffle House, and ordered food while trying to figure out what he was doing with his life. 

In that Waffle House, he decided he was going to start a company instead.

Later that year, Alexis had attended a entrepreneurship summit. When he returned, Steve shared an idea for mobile food ordering called MyMobileMenu. 

Smartphones didn't exist yet, so it required deals with cell carriers and fast-food chains just to make it work. That complexity made it a hard business to build, but they started locally by talking to restaurant owners in Virginia and figured that would be a foundation to build from.

Alexis and Steve were knee-deep working on MyMobileMenu, when one day, Steve got an email saying that Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, was giving a talk in Boston over spring break. Alexis didn't know who Paul was but was excited about the opportunity so they booked a train for the 500 mile trip to Boston.

They sat through Paul's "How to Start a Startup" talk, and afterward Alexis walked up to him and asked if he'd grab a drink so they could show him what they were building. Paul was shocked they had traveled all the way from Virginia and said yes to their request. 

He listened to their pitch, but wasn’t necessarily sold on the idea. Even still, he liked their hustle and urged them to apply to Y Combinator and invited them to interview for YC’s first class the next day.

Unfortunately, the interview didn't go the way they hoped. Paul called that night and said they weren't accepted. 

They were crushed, so they got drunk, tried to shake it off, and boarded the train back to Virginia the next morning.

Halfway home, hungover on that long train ride, Alexis got a call from Paul. He shared that he didn't like the idea, but he liked them. He wanted them in YC, if they were willing to build something else.

Alexis convinced the Amtrak agent to let them turn around without paying extra and took the next train back to Boston.

When they arrived, Paul told them to avoid mobile phones since this was the pre-smartphone era and instead build a web app. He suggested a concept inspired by the "popular" tab on Delicious, a social bookmarking site. 

Paul framed it simply: build "the front page of the web." That conversation ended with a $12,000 check and a directive that would forever change how people post online. 

For Alexis and Steve, that ‘front page’ concept clicked. The internet felt like a jumbled mess, and the idea of distilling it into something useful made sense to them immediately. 

The concept reminded Alexis of Speaker's Corner in London. a public space where anyone could stand on a box and speak while crowds debated around them. 

That idea, paired with Paul's "front page of the Internet" directive, shaped the DNA of this new idea. A digital Speaker's Corner where the community, not editors, determined what mattered.

Their dream name for the site was "Snoo", short for "What's new?", but the domain was too expensive. Instead, they thought of a name that described what you did there. You “read it” there. 

Three weeks later, they launched the new front page and called it Reddit. 

When the site went live, it was nothing more than links, text, and two buttons: Interesting or Uninteresting. After arguing about it for days, they added comments. They knew the real value would come from the users, not from them.

They didn't worry about revenue in the beginning. Paul hammered home the idea that "if you make something people want, you'll figure out a way to make money." That belief gave them freedom to focus on product and community first.

Every social platform faces the same hurdle: no content without users, and no users without content. So, to get the base going, they faked it. 

For months, they posed as dozens of different users. They submitted articles, commented, upvoted, and downvoted using a roster of fake usernames and fake personalities. They pulled in friends to help seed activity too. Slowly, real people showed up and took over.

The upvote/downvote arrows became the heart of Reddit. They gave the community full control over which ideas rose and which ones disappeared. 

Just as important, Alexis and Steve refused to act as editors. That hands-off approach empowered the community and became the foundation of Reddit's identity.

Soon, they allowed people to create their own communities called subreddits. It turned Reddit from a link-sharing site into an ecosystem.

And even in those early days, Reddit's communities showed their real-world power. Users raised $65,000 in 24 hours for an African orphanage and over $20,000 for a girl with Huntington's disease who was being bullied. Community-driven action wasn't a marketing pitch. It was happening.

Months later, at a Halloween party, a chain of introductions led from a Wired freelancer to a Condé Nast exec. That chance encounter led to a $10 million acquisition only a year after they had launched.

Today, Reddit is valued at more than $10 billion and hosts over a billion monthly users across more than 100,000 active subreddits and over 500 million active users.

Alexis Ohanian’s story is a blueprint for founders who want to tell stories that attract users, build loyalty, and create momentum around their ideas. Below are three lessons founders can borrow when shaping their own story and brand:

Reddit users cast more than 70 million votes every single day, shaping what rises and what disappears across the platform’s 100,000-plus active communities. That massive volume of human signal creates one of the largest real-time story filters on the internet.

It is a living example of how people naturally and passionately respond to narratives, moments, and ideas that feel meaningful by simply giving them a way to share and react to stories. 

In this 5-minute TED Talk How to make a splash in social media by Alexis Ohanian, you get a first-hand look at how he uses storytelling to break down how a humpback whale named Mister Splashy Pants became an unexpected internet phenomenon.

Through humor and a wild real-world outcome, he shows how memes, community energy, and letting go of control can drive more impact than any polished marketing plan.