Be Awesome Without Their Permission

#sxsw #WTPBook

I've just returned from a 5 month nationwide bus tour for my book on internet entrepreneurship, Without Their Permission, and I've met founders as well as college students (77 universities!), all fired up about creating their own small empires (as well as incumbents trying desperately to stay relevant in the internet age).

There aren't a lot of advantages to being an upstart, but seizing them is the key to success online. Based on my experience as a founder, investor, advisor, and bus-journeyman, I'll talk about everything I've learned from creating brands people love to running an amazing crowdfunding campaign. Fellow millennials, we have an opportunity the world has never seen before, so let's make the most out of it.

Presenters

Alexis Ohanian

Startup Guy

Alexis Ohanian

Alexis Ohanian is a startup founder and investor in Brooklyn, NY.

After graduating from UVA in 2005, Alexis and his co-founder Steve Huffman started reddit, now a top 100 website.

Now a reddit board member, Alexis focuses on social enterprise Breadpig, publishing authors like xkcd and SMBC -- profits donated to worthy causes.

Alexis helped launch hipmunk and ran marketing/pr/community before becoming an advisor and joining the fight against SOPA & PIPA.

Alexis invests and advises over fifty tech startups. He's Y Combinator's Ambassador to the East, co-founder of the non-profit IHAS, and is writing a book, Without Your Permission.

Along the way, Alexis spoke at TED, volunteered in Armenia as a Kiva Fellow, and was named on Forbes and Inc Magazine 30 Under 30 lists.

He proudly doodled the logos for all three of his startups and loves his cat, Karma.