The social media landscape is dominated heavily by big names such as Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Instagram.
These platforms combined, average trillions of monthly users are using them to stay updated on current news and trends, communicate with loved ones, transact with businesses, and a myriad of other reasons.
Yet, despite the dominance of these social media platforms, Reddit, a social news aggregator and forum continues to thrive with billions of active users who praise it for its uniqueness.
This social media platform functions almost like a forum (harkening back to the early years of the Internet), where users can post their own content or comment on the ones posted by others.
Posts found on Reddit are organized by subject into user-generated boards known as “subreddits.” Aside from being commented on, posts found on subreddits can also be upvoted or downvoted by users.
Photo from Reddit
If a post is upvoted enough, it’ll eventually end up on Reddit’s front page.
Due to the uniqueness of Reddit, it has become one of the world’s most-used and most-visited websites, especially as its user base grew throughout the 2010s and 2020s. The social media platform even went on to become a full-fledged public company in 2024 and is currently worth USD 38 billion!
While Reddit’s current success is a marvel in and of itself, it’s important to trace how it became a social media giant in the first place…
To answer this question, we need to take a look at one of the key people behind it.
His name?
Alexis Ohanian!
Photo from TechCrunch
Ohanian was born in 1983 in Brooklyn, New York City.
At a young age, Ohanian had an affinity for anything related to technology. That’s why during his youth, he pursued computer programming classes at a nearby community college and spent lots of his time tinkering with computers.
He eventually pursued a degree in computer science at the University of Virginia… and while he ended up pursuing a double major in history and business commerce instead, his love for technology never wavered.
In 2005, Ohanian, together with his friend and college roommate Steve Huffman, came up with Reddit with the goal of making it the “front page of the Internet.”
Ohanian and Huffman were then accepted in the first class of Y Combinator for their idea and used the funding from the venture capital and startup accelerator firm to develop Reddit.
In 2006, Reddit was eventually sold to Condé Nast Publications for around USD 10 million to 20 million. Despite this acquisition, Ohanian continued to work on the social media platform as a member of its board of directors until 2010.
Fast forward to 2014, Ohanian returned to Reddit full-time as its executive chairman until 2018. By 2020, he had left the social media platform’s board.
Despite leaving Reddit, Ohanian remains involved in the tech industry as an investor, pouring money into public companies like Coinbase, Hubspot, and private entities such as crowdfunding platform Patreon.
He’s also the current general partner and founder of venture capital firm Seven Seven Six.
It’s clear that Ohanian is very successful. However, how was he able to attain the type of success he’s enjoyed throughout his life so far?
Well, who’s better suited to answer that question than the man himself?
In an interview with ABC News, Ohanian revealed the secrets to his success and here are the most important things he shared:
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Find your so-called “zone of genius” – Ohanian said that this may differ from person to person, but he said that finding his zone of genius has been highly helpful to him.
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Don’t be afraid to take the first step – Feeling stuck? Don’t worry, you can still achieve your dreams!
Ohanian emphasized that if there’s something you fear doing in a day, then that’s probably the first thing you ought to do first.
Ohanian said if you have big ambitions or you just feel unhappy with your current situation, you should take charge of what you do have control over such as where you spend your time and who you’re sharing your energy with.
He emphasized that if you can take even a small step towards a goal you’ve set, keep on repeating that step the following day and the next ones that follow.
This is crucial because it will help you become accustomed to and addicted towards making progress, no matter how small of a step you take.
Given these secrets, it’s no wonder Ohanian became such a successful individual.
His story shows that intelligence and passion go hand in hand in attaining success.
What’s more?
If you truly want to achieve your dreams and ambitions, then you shouldn’t be afraid to take the first step—no matter how small it is—and play to your strengths whenever you can.
So, if you want someone to look up to, look no further than Ohanian’s success story!
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Mondays: Marketing Marvels”
Too often, industry experts and the marketing press sing the praises of some brand or company’s marketing strategy.
… only for the audience to later find out that its product was a flop, or worse, that the brand or company went bankrupt.
The true ROI in marketing can’t be separated from the business as a whole.
What good is a marketing case study if one can’t prove that the company’s efforts actually paid off?
At the end of the day, either the entire business is successful or it isn’t. And the roles of marketing and communication are always paramount to that success.
Every Monday, we publish a case study that highlights the world’s greatest marketing strategies, marketers, and communicators.
However, the difference between our articles and the numerous ones out there is that we will always make certain that the firm really did generate and demonstrate earning power worthy of study in the first place in keeping with a person’s leadership skills in the area of marketing and/or communication.
We’ll also study the greatest marketing fails and analyze what they did wrong, or what they needed to improve. We all make mistakes, but better we learn from others’ mistakes—and earlier, rather than later.
Hope you find this week’s topic interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Monday’s “Marketing Marvels!”
Cheers,
Adrian Kyle Vergara
Content Writer
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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