tl;dr: I’m a midwest-born entrepreneur living in Southern California. I founded 10 companies, have 3 modest exits, invested in over 25 startups, have been involved in several M&A events, raised venture capital, and also coached, advised, and mentored founders and CEOs. Now, I’m a Personal Growth Consultant.

I’m a Board Member and investor in a variety of startups readying to or raising venture capital. I scout startups for a variety of VCs, and run a VC newsletter and Scout program. My primary focus is my private Personal Growth practice.

Hi, I’m Ryan. A Midwest-born technology investor and this is what I’m doing these days.

I have a unique talent, vision, and passion that helps me identify, simplify and solve problems. I’m a super-connector and I pride myself on making strategic connections – whether for talent, funding, or other reasons – and forming meaningful relationships. I’m always becoming a better human.

I attended St. Cloud State University in Minnesota on a golf scholarship from 1999 through 2003. I played golf for two of my four years so that I could better focus on my education and enjoy the college experience. During my sophomore year, frustrated with alternative-campus accommodations [we were fined for having a party], I purchased a rental home 3 blocks off-campus. I rented the extra rooms to a few of my college friends and that paid for my tuition. This allowed me to graduate debt-free. I sold the home in 2007.

After graduation, I moved to Hawaii with my college roommate. I spent a year on the island living life, exploring, and learning to be cultured. I started a small indoor advertising company there to keep me busy. Most of my time was spent at the pool or beach.

After moving back to the “real world”, in 2006, I founded Negri Electronics with two credit cards, working from my girlfriend’s apartment. As CEO, I took the company from $0 to $53M in total revenue, with $18M in 2013, to an exit on Christmas Eve, 2013, without ever taking on outside capital or debt. This experience has helped me learn the most efficient and effective ways to create and scale startups.

In in 2012, Kyle Matthews and I founded Laicos, a Startup Studio. In a Studio, we develop ideas into products and those products into companies. We developed close to 15 applications, 6 ready to spin out, and have spunout 4, most recently, Laicos Cloud. We recently launched Laicos M2E services entending our range from Startups to Enterprise level customers.

Since 2012 I’ve been building and investing in startups. I took some time away from operating to run a Corporate Startup Accelerator (2016) and lead Vertical Business Development (2022), all while continuing to mentor and advise founders and help them fundraise. I ran a VC newsletter and VC Scout Program from 2019-2022. Now I run a Web 3 brand called Aces which runs 2 NFT projects, a Marketplace, a Staking platform, and a group of Poker Rooms.

I spend my free time with my dogs, Millie (9) and Milo (2), I travel, exercise, and, do as much of it outdoors as possible. I still play golf, although not as often (or as good) as when I was younger, but I still love the game.

If you’re curious about learning more or want to connect you can reach me using the contact page on this site. It’ll find me.