Today I'm partnering with 2x Olympic medalist @itsgabbyt to announce The 776 Invitational, a first-of-its-kind track event bringing the fastest women in the world together to compete for the largest purse *ever* for a female-only track event.
My goal is for this to become the flagship competition for women track athletes, increasing the visibility of track events and providing athletes with more competition, recognition, coverage, and opportunities for financial support.
In other words: it's a game-changer ↓
I've always said that money is being left on the table when it comes to women's sports.
Track is no different.
The athletes are there. The skill is there. The *accomplishments* are there. The excitement *could* be there.
What's been missing?
Training as a track athlete requires 24/7 work. Athletes put in long hours & they achieve at a very high level. Despite that, they get basically no press outside of the Summer Olympics.
That makes it nearly impossible for them to earn a real living in their field. It also makes it hard for them to build a solid fanbase.
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.
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...
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