After graduation from the University of Virginia in 2005 with degrees in commerce and history, Ohanian and friend Steve Huffman pitched the idea, MyMobileMenu, to Y Combinator. The company passed on the idea, but encouraged the duo to come up with another idea it could potentially fund.[10] They subsequently came up with reddit.com with the goal of it becoming the "front page of the Internet."[10] Now living in Boston, they were less than a month into development when Ohanian learned that his girlfriend had fallen five stories and was in a coma.[10] Shortly after, his father called him to tell him that his mother had been diagnosed with an inoperable tumor.[10]