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Alexis Ohanian 🇦🇲 Profile picture
@alexisohanian
Jul 19, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
That time I walked in on @jackconte who just happened to be playing piano, of course. Amazing to see how much @Patreon has grown over the years since that 1st check, my friend. Congrats to you and your team and there's still SO much more to be done to bring on the #2ndRenaissance
Recently reminded of this.. back in June 2012, I was helping a variety of creators run kickstarter campaigns (publish books, merch, etc) and I realized there needed to be a platform for RECURRING revenue and mocked this up feat. the great @Zachanner ImageImage
Look familiar? I spent 6 mos begging every talented dev I knew to build and found a patronage platform for creators so I could led a seed investment in it (I wasn't married to the name, lol). Then kismet happened....
I got an intro in Jan 2013 to @jackconte + @samyamiam
who had first-hand experience with the problem + built an MVP. Fastest yes I've ever made.. and the largest investment I'd ever written. Now they've paid out $2B+ to creators and are a Billion dollar company themselves...
But I never would've been in that mindset if I hadn't spent time with friends who were active creators, webcomic artists, to be exact. It's one professional example of why I've been so lucky to never been pigeonholed to one physical location or community...
The job of the investor is to always be learning. Look at the diversity of VC teams, the diversity of their experiences, the diversity of their geographies, etc... + you'll see the story of missed opportunities b/c we can never fully understand our blindspots, but
we must work every day to push ourselves to understand more, learn more, be uncomfortable more... to that end, one of my favorite hiring questions is around love / experience of travel. I love people who have travelled extensively, lived abroad, or are immigrants themselves
because their iron, sharpened by different experiences and acclimation to the unknown, sharpens my iron -- and everyone else's iron -- best. ⚔️
Needless to say, I'm still learning a lot as an investor and recognizing this FEELING and then helping coach others to see it (and getting them the reps - key! - to see enough deals to know the feeling) is where I'll make my professional legacy.

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More from @alexisohanian

Alexis Ohanian 🇦🇲 Profile picture
Apr 1
In the last year, @sevensevensix has made it a priority to build the tools that help scale the services we know our founders need most.

One of the biggest? Distribution.

Our founders are shipping great product and getting great feedback, but no distribution = no impact.
Now across everybody in @sevensevensix we have millions of followers across a half dozen channels.

So how do we connect our founders to that kind of distribution power?

How do we help their content be seen?

Well, we built a tool. We call it... Amplify. Image
Amplify uses AI to help founders draft instant content around product announcements, press releases, tweet storms, IG captions – whatever they need.

That content gets sent to our team, where it's edited and approved, then pushed out on our accounts, on the founder's schedule.
Read 6 tweets
Alexis Ohanian 🇦🇲 Profile picture
Mar 14
Today's founders sometimes need different types of support and expertise than I did as a first-time CEO (back in 2005!), but certain things are always going to be the same.

The biggest thing that's still true?

The value of having the right person, with the right expertise, in the room with you at the right time.
What happened to me with @Reddit is a good case study on the "why":

I was a first-time CEO in college. I was young and dumb, but I had a pretty good idea and a lot of organic growth with Reddit. I started with $12K from YC, a little bit of advice, and that was it.

16 months later, Condé Nast offered $10M for the company and I said "Yes."

This was the WRONG thing to do.
I know why I said yes, though.

At the time, it was inconceivable to get paid that much money for 16 months of work. Why would I ever say no? I didn't have the sophistication to understand the moment.

The right person in the room with me, at that moment, would have told me to say NO. They would have known that $10M was just the start. They would have told me to take that offer and use it to raise more money for *me* to keep running my own company, and to keep it growing.
Read 5 tweets
Alexis Ohanian 🇦🇲 Profile picture
Nov 14, 2023
How to turn $4,000 into $100,000,000+ 💸

They couldn't get a single investor to take them seriously...

That's when 4 friends decided to each invest $4,000 of their own savings to launch Chubbies.

(a 🧵 for DTC founders 👇) Image
One day... 4 friends noticed that there was a lot of room for opportunity in men's fashion.

They asked themselves the following question:

What if we reinvented men's shorts... and made them *gasp* VERY SHORT?

They pitched the idea to multiple investors... 👇 Image
"Picture this - tiny men’s shorts as far as the eye can see…and we’ll call it Chubbies." 🩳

5 minutes into their pitch, they were politely asked to leave.

They couldn't get a single investor to take them seriously... 🙃

But that wasn't going to stop them. Image
Read 13 tweets
Alexis Ohanian 🇦🇲 Profile picture
Sep 28, 2023
Can I tell you a small secret about how I built Reddit's community from scratch? Lots of people know we used alt accounts for the first few weeks, but that was because an empty forum is a terrible UX (we didn't even have comments yet) so I begged my friends to post... Image
Only a couple of them, did (Thanks Connor & Morgan!) so I invited a few hundred people from a phpBB forum I ran in college. These first 100 community members are the hardest.

So how can you make your community feel alive when you have 0 users?!

Here's what I did 👇
I USED THE PRODUCT ALL DAY EVERY DAY. I had to be the party host (just like in real life) and start convos, introduce people, and basically set the tone for the space. Online communities work the same way as offline communities. Act like you would if you're hosting an IRL meetup
Read 8 tweets
Alexis Ohanian 🇦🇲 Profile picture
Jun 22, 2023
Every founder wants to build a “community" but runs into roadblocks when it comes to execution.

Here's a couple tips ↓
1. Do the work that doesn’t scale (to start).

📱 Make 1-1 phone calls.
💻 Write personal emails.
🎁 Find individual ways to surprise and delight your community.

If people think you, the founder, personally care about them, they will reciprocate. They will also stick around.
Remember when I recorded personal thank you videos for everyone who ordered @WeAreLAGC merch? People were thrilled since they knew this took real time to execute.

That good feeling translates to brand loyalty, positive word-of-mouth, & a healthy community.
Read 7 tweets
Alexis Ohanian 🇦🇲 Profile picture
May 31, 2023
Within the next 5 years, the majority of gamers won't play games unless they are being properly valued for that time.

The model is called "play-to-earn" and it will become standard for video games in the future.

Let’s talk about why ↓ Image
First – quick definition.

The “play-to-earn” model in gaming lets players earn rewards that have real-world value just for playing.

These rewards generally come in the form of in-game digital assets that players can buy, trade, and sell outside of the game for real cash 💰
This isn't a super new concept – remember Club Neverdie from Entropia?

This fully virtual property sold for $635,000 back in 2010 at a time when platforms with similar play-to-earn models like Second Life also flourished.

dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar… Image
Read 9 tweets

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