Reddit IPO: 8 Startup Lessons For Any Entrepreneur Starting Out

TL;DR

This episode unpacks eight startup lessons from Paul Graham’s essay “The Reddits,” which describes how Reddit was founded as a Y Combinator company. Core takeaways: YC itself was born from a talk Paul Graham gave; Steve and Alexis traveled from Virginia to hear that talk; they were initially rejected because their idea (ordering food-by-SMS) was bad, but Graham later accepted them on his wife’s ad

Key insights

• Y Combinator was created because Paul Graham gave a talk on starting a startup at Harvard; teaching a subject forces you to sharpen your thoughts and can lead to a company or book.
• Steve and Alexis took a train from Virginia to hear a talk in a 30-person room; “eighty percent of success is just showing up” and putting yourself in positions for good things to happen.
• Graham rejected the founders’ original idea (food ordering by SMS) but his wife Jessica called them “the muffins” and said they should be in YC because they were endearing; he learned to bet on people