The co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, says that every business is going to have to be a software business. “Our beliefs still remains that every business is going to have to be a software business in some way, shape, or form,” Ohanian told CNBC. “For us to be able to make these investments on bright engineers building software solutions still feels like the right long-term play. We noticed the turning point in the last couple of years where the C-Suite all got on Instagram.”
“What I mean by that is they got exposed to it and there’s now a broad use of world-class software for really trivial stuff,” said Ohanian. “Once enough execs have spent time looking at selfies on Instagram, of their kids or their grandkids, they come back to work they sit at their desk and they look at the software that they’re using and that their companies are using and they can’t believe how antiquated is by comparison.”
“So we’re seeing this new trend in startups that are selling direct to the enterprise level from jump,” explained the Reddit co-founder. “They’re people who left that world, see the problems, and are saying I can build a better solution and I’m just going to sell it back to my old buddies and then hopefully the rest of the industry. Whereas ten years ago, if you were starting Dropbox as Drew was, you’d be trying to sell the basic $10 a month package to some little startup.”
Ohanian says that today, companies realize this existential need and startups are now able to sell to enterprise direct.
About Alexis Ohanian:
Alexis Ohanian was the co-founder of Reddit, one of the first social media companies in the world. He is also a bestselling author and he is currently co-founder & managing partner of Initialized Capital that focuses on very early stage VC ($22B in market value so far).