Using haters as motivation could be one of the reasons that entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian has been so successful.
The co-founder of Reddit shared how he used haters to push him in his business career.
In the episode, Ohanian discussed the early days of Reddit, a company he co-founded, and how the haters of the company helped push him forward.
I hated Kevin Rose, didn't hate him as much because we won, Ohanian said.
Rose was a co-founder of Digg, a company that competed with Reddit.
When Digg 'fire sold' for a couple hundred thousand dollars, I almost bought digg.com to redirect to Reddit, Ohanian said.
Rose, who co-founded Moonbirds, now counts Ohanian as an investor.
Ohanian used rivalries and calls about him not being able to do anything, and I have screenshots of every mean tweet. Ohanian said a lot of people questioned his backing of a women's soccer team with Angel City FC.
When Angel City broke attendance records years later, Ohanian said he would post screenshots of a full stadium and tag the person.
Ohanian and Yahoo had a meeting about Reddit, and Ohanian was also used as motivational.
I did this back in Reddit when an exec at Yahoo said that our traffic was so small that it was a rounding error compared to Yahoo. Ohanian said he thought the meeting was about a potential acquisition of Reddit, but the meeting ended early when Yahoo exec questioned the size of Reddit.
I printed out the words you are a rounding error, so I could look at it every morning, Ohanian said.
Five years later, Reddit surpassed Yahoo in traffic and it felt good to see that printed picture.
Why is it important to know that Ohanian is an investor in several NFT collections, including Moonbirds, Yuga Labs and Doodles. The Yuga Labs team said they appreciated the early feedback they received from Ohanian and his comments on proving doubters wrong could become a driving force in the world of NFTs.
Ohanian said his sense of printing out mean tweets may not be healthy.
I tell people that they might not work for everyone else. It is a unique position to be a founder, according to Ohanian.
Ohanian told the co-founders of Yuga Labs that they were going to be haters, but that is okay because it usually means you're making something that people also love.
You're better off having haters.