Alexis Ohanian Sr.

Seven Seven Six 7️⃣7️⃣6️⃣

Founder

reddit

Back home where it all started.
http://www.redditblog.com/2014/11/coming-home.html

Executive chair until coming back full-time in July 2015.

Executive Chair & Board Member

All things non-technical, including mascot doodling.

Co-Founder

Initialized Capital

Co-founder, Managing Partner

Y Combinator

Helping founders make something people love.

Partner

Institute on Higher Awesome Studies

I help make it rain on our non-profit's bank account.

Co-founder, Treasurer

Ambassador to the East

Without Their Permission

I'm writing a book for aspiring entrepreneurs eager to embrace the future of the World Wide Web for fun, profit, and for the good of humankind.

Author

Hipmunk

Head Marketing Dude & Hipmunk Doodler

Launched the company and ran marketing/pr/community for first year and change.

Advisor & Evangelist

Breadpig, Inc.

Breadpig, Inc. was founded with the purpose of being an uncorporation. Rather than following the typical corporate directive of maximizing shareholder wealth, breadpig aims to do interesting (good) things with its profits. Don't tell our shareholders.

Founder and Chief Swine Defender

Das Kapital Capital, LLC

Invest, advise, consult and sometimes play video games.

The Dude

I don't want my great grandkids to have to go to a museum to see the best of their great grandma's collectibles.

"If I’m married to Picasso, I’d want to own every Picasso I can. And I’d want to make sure my great grandkids have all these Picassos. That’s been my mindset for five or six years.”

Thanks for all the help, Alt (776 co)

sportico.com • 4 min read

Ohanian’s All-Out Quest for His Wife Serena Williams’ Memorabilia

"Don't worry about people stealing your idea. If it's any good, everyone will dismiss it." - Brian Chesky (CEO of Airbnb) 

His advice? Be willing to be misunderstood.

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Found this valuable? Follow Intro to learn how the world's most successful entrepreneurs built $100M+ businesses.

How 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots, and dozens of rejections resulted in Loom:

In reflecting back on the last 8 years, and investing in 40+ companies, I've become convinced that the most common pitfall for founders is investing too much time on finding the ‘perfect’ solution to their idea.

Loom didn’t begin as Loom.

It started around a whiteboard with Vinay, Joe, and myself. We wrote down 6 ideas, and went with the solution we thought was "the one".

A user testing marketplace.

7 months in, we only made $600, but learned an important lesson:

Companies cared less about advice from experts (what we were selling). Instead, they wanted to hear from their own customers.

We pivoted. The new idea?

Build a SaaS offering that’d let companies get direct feedback from *their own users*.

As Vinay started to rebuild the product, Joe and I spent weeks cold emailing 300 different companies offering a free trial

Soon after—we heard back from a research team at Harvard.

They used our product (called Opentest at the time) to gather insights from 7 students for a campaign.

As a result—they received 7 different videos..

Instead of sharing these videos back with the entire research team...

Someone at Harvard used the same Chrome extension (built originally for the user testers themselves)

to record a 1-minute summary of the 7 videos.

This 1-minute video was shared back with their team.

This wasn’t how our product was supposed to be used.

We realized that people were more interested in using Loom as a communication tool.

When we were able to realize that...

We took the extension, launched it on Product Hunt in June 2016, and had 3,000 people sign up on the same day.

Which was 2,990 more users than we’d had in the 9 months prior.

A couple things one can take away from our experience:

First, de-stress yourself from “finding the perfect idea”.

It’s impossible to predict how things will go once you start—and it’s better to start and adapt than never launch because you’re worried something won’t work.

Second, the four traits that got us to Loom were:

1) Timing of the market
2) Camaraderie
3) Intense focus
4) Pure luck

We were in a period where remote work was early, but not a foreign concept.

We enabled a ‘trust by default’ mentality amongst the team. We celebrated outputs that drove real results. This contained our own bias and ego.

We limited distractions, even the shiny ones (investor meetings, meetups, high-value dinners in SF, etc) and chipped away at finding product-market fit.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been spending more time with founders on getting their V1 out, helping discover growth opportunities, fundraising, and advising as founders go from 0-1 as well as those scaling from 1-2.

I'm opening a few slots to work with me 1:1 for the next 3-4 months.

- You're a Founder or CEO
- You're building in B2B SaaS or Consumer

Comment "Interested" below & the team at Intro will send you a link to my booking page.

You could say we have quite the collection of trophies in our family, from my Pinewood Derby trophy... to a US Open trophy 😂 🏆

Here's a few standouts ↓ 

I have an older business card, but I need to find it. I designed this one in 2006. Still, love that PSA let me get it graded.

She got laid off from her job, became an entrepreneur, and sold her last company for $235 million. Today, Kim Perell has invested in 100+ startups, including Winnie Harlow's new suncare brand which she co-founded.

Here's her advice on pitching an investor:

1. Master your elevator pitch

You should be able to explain your idea to anyone at any time.

Kim's advice? Be concise.

If you can't explain what your business does in less than 20 seconds, your elevator pitch is too long.

The extended version of your pitch should take no more than 20 minutes.

Remember: Your first meeting with investors will be short. A clear and concise message is key.

2. Account for every possible question

Your pitch needs to address every question an investor could have.

Questions like:

- What is the market need, and who is demanding it?
- How does your idea solve that need?
- How will your business idea make money?
- What have other companies in the space sold for?
- How much capital will you need, and how will you use it?

Investors want to know what they will get out of their investment, so be prepared to answer some tough questions.

3. Convince investors to believe in you

Your biggest challenge is convincing investors to believe in your ability to execute, so tell them your story.

What have you done that proves you can make this happen?

Businesses may change and trends may pivot — investors need to be confident that you can pivot, too.

Surround yourself with a team that supplements any perceived weaknesses. Balance realism and passion so potential investors can see that you will persevere, no matter what it takes.

If you don't feel confident in yourself, how do you expect investors to be confident in you? Exude confidence, even if you're not 100% sure how to answer a question.

Key takeaways:

1. Master your elevator pitch
2. Prepare for every possible question
3. Be confident

Kim Perell started her first company from her kitchen table when she was 23, and grew it to a $100 million company. She sold her last company for $235 million to Singtel, one of the most prestigious telecommunication companies in the world. If you're an entrepreneur who's looking to get business advice from a sought-after investor, we're excited to announce that Kim Perell is now available on Intro.

Want to get feedback on your pitch? Book Kim Perell on Intro.

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"No company has ever failed by having millions of delighted customers." - Warren Buffett

Reminder: don't worry about how you're going to get your first 1000 customers. Worry about how to delight 1 customer. 

Share if this resonates! Also, happy Friday 😀

"No company has ever failed by having millions of delighted customers. Delight 1 at a time and don't stop." - Warren Buffett 

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It's my theory that the age of AI and the ascendence of blockchain technology are about to collide and reinforce each other 💥

Why?

One is creating the indisputable need for the other.

Right now, AI is creating a world that will make images infinitely available. We will see a glut of them all over the internet. We're already seeing that, in fact.

So, imagine a world where you cannot trust a single JPG you see. You can't know if it's real or not, if it was taken by someone who says they took it, or if it depicts something real (we're already kind of seeing this, too.)

Now, imagine if the device you use to CAPTURE all these images could also inscribe a way to verify an image's origin on an immutable global ledger. "Yes, Alexis Ohanian took this photo Tuesday night at 7:42 PM." Your device could sign an immutable global ledger—a blockchain!—digitally, confirming that this .JPG is what it claims to be.

Suddenly, you have a great case for the blockchain that isn't speculative or particularly flashy – it's utility.

I don't know what projects will win in this space specifically, but to me, it feels pretty clear that there is an emergent market need. If you're a President or a CEO – even if you're just a teenage kid—it's about to be very, very valuable to prove that an image is yours.

🏜 SEDONA, AZ
I just wrapped a very productive week with the executive team out here and red-eyed to avoid a snowstorm (???) and feeling extra grateful back here at home in sunny Florida recharging with my family for another big week ahead. We're making such progress as an organization and I love seeing how far we've come in just 4 years. Seven Seven Six 7️⃣7️⃣6️⃣ is my life's work and I feel so fortunate to have such amazing humans building this alongside me, pushing me to be better.

When you're an early-stage investor, you HAVE to have a strong BS indicator.
In my experience, the #1 sign somebody is full of 💩?

They don't know their own market. 👀

Any founder should be able to tell you CLEARLY why what they are building is 10x better than anything else that exists.

They should be able to name all the smartest people already working to solve the same problem. And they should be able to ID their advantage.

They should also have a realistic sense of their market share.

If a founder is telling you they're gonna have 50% of the market? 💩

If they say 5%? And have a specific plan to get there? Now we're talking.

Any good founder knows that the problems we solve are never unique.

What they SHOULD know is what they're up against and how to differentiate. That requires knowing your market better than anyone else.

I'll be announcing my Next Big Thing in Sports + sharing the stage with amazing folks at our Business of Women's Sports Summit with Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment & Axios in NYC on April 23rd 🎉

Grab your ticket before they sell out ↓
https://lnkd.in/ec4kci_q

Community is *EVERYTHING* and it’s no surprise it’s my favorite moat for companies.

For founders, this is so important to recognize - especially now that we’re in the age of AI 🦾

"As an entrepreneur, you need to have a personal conviction that your business idea is going to work, even when a lot of people say it's stupid." - Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI)

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This entrepreneur sold his beverage brand for $1.7 billion, just seven years after making his first batch at home.

Ben Weiss is the founder of Bai, a flavored water brand that was acquired by Dr Pepper's parent company for $1.7B.

5 tips for creating a billion-dollar brand 👇

But first... a quick backstory:

- Ben spent 15 years in the coffee industry
- He created multiple coffee & beverage products with mixed success
- Leveraged his beverage industry expertise to start Bai
- His mission: fighting "Big Sugar" by creating a tasty beverage without sugar and artificial ingredients
- Created the first batch of Bai in his basement
- Seven years later, he sold Bai for $1.7B

Here's what he learned along the way:

1. Create something that solves a problem

After 15 years of studying the beverage industry, Ben Weiss identified a key problem that helped him build a $1.7B brand.

Consumers became aware of the shady artificial ingredients found in diet soda brands and were looking for alternatives. They also didn't want to "drink their calories".

Ben's solution? Develop a great-tasting drink that’s better for you than your average soda.

2. Find your enemy.

Ben's enemy? Sugar.

And specifically, Big Sugar.

It's no secret that the U.S. struggles with obesity and diabetes.

For many years, people were told that "diet soda is better for you". Ben knew that it had many hidden unhealthy ingredients.

That's why he set out to create a beverage that was as flavorful as soda, but without the artificial ingredients and hidden sugar.

3. Know your end game.

Is it a billion-dollar exit or creating an iconic brand? Write down your vision and use it to guide your journey.

It sounds silly, but you'd be surprised how few entrepreneurs do this.

Ask yourself: If I succeed, what's my desired outcome?

4. Raise only what you need.

Some entrepreneurs can get excited by a larger lump sum but often they don’t really need that full amount.

The downside to raising too much? You're not as disciplined with how you invest that money.

Raise what you need. Increase sales. Then raise additional funds at a higher valuation. Repeat.

5. Delegate, delegate, delegate

Don't try to do everything yourself.

Hire great people as soon as you can.

What Ben did:

- Hired people to spin up a well-functioning production arm
- Built a distribution infrastructure to support the business
- Delegated everything that didn't have to do with increasing sales

... and that's how Ben Weiss built Bai in 7 years. Now, he helps other founders do the same.

Want to get business advice from a beverage industry expert? Book Ben Weiss on Intro.

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We are entering a new era of content creation as we know it 📲

Just look at MrBeast, he's breaking records with each of his videos, and his stardom arguably already rivals Hollywood's A-list.

With these new AI tools, there'll be an explosion of innovation ↓ 

This NEW Feastables (776 co) is GREAT. It's gonna be a big hit in my house lol. Props to MrBeast on nailing this down 🍫

If you haven't tried it yet, you gotta → feastables.com 🔥 

"Right now is a great time to start a company. If your idea is good and you can make it in a tough economy, you will definitely make it in a good economy." - Brian Chesky (CEO of Airbnb)

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We're in an era of tremendous efficiency in software thanks to AI, which means the new frontier for opportunity is gonna be the opposite.

It's time for hard tech.

Hard tech is way sexier today than it was even a few years ago. Companies like SpaceX and BLUE ORIGIN have blazed the way for how the private sector can innovate on hard tech... even in outer space.

The market opportunity has been proven with @sevensevensix early-stage investments in Interlune, AstroForge, and Stoke Space.

The other big thing is that the *tech* is there. Big advancements in technology have made it way more defensible to be an early-stage investor in hard tech – even the moonshot stuff – which is super exciting for a space nerd like me 🚀

This speaks to the power of de-risking IP development. Had Bluey launched internet-first, across YouTube and even TikTok and Intagram, no one would have ever passed on the opportunity to expand the franchise through licensing. There would have been clear data that it was a hit and signs and signals that not only was there community built but MASSIVE engagement and affinity, aka intent to spend. Even Disney doesn’t always know what will be a hit.

"A source familiar with Disney’s original Bluey deal in 2019 says the company’s consumer products division had the chance at the time to license the show’s merchandising and theme park rights from BBC Studios, but it passed on them. That’s something Disney now regrets."

bloomberg.com • 1 min read

How Bluey Became a $2 Billion Smash Hit—With an Uncertain Future

We're breaking new ground with Offseason FC ⚽️

Traditional sports media overlooks women athletes' stories, so I partnered with Margaret (Midge) Purce, Box To Box Films, and 32 Flavors to change the game 🔥

Here's a clip from a chat I had with Front Office Sports on the magnitude of what this project could become ↓

Taplio

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