I've talked about 18 to 24 months, but I'm very bullish given the success that Shopify has had, and maybe we will want to speed that up a little bit. Ryan Holmes More Quotes by Ryan Holmes More Quotes From Ryan Holmes When I was in high school, I loved paintball. I saved up my allowances and started my own paintball supply company. Everyone thought I was just some obsessed kid, but today the company is one of the biggest paintball suppliers in Canada. Ryan Holmes canada kids school Social media is the most disruptive form of communication humankind has seen since the last disruptive form of communications, email. Ryan Holmes email communication media You can run a sprint or your can run a marathon, but you can't sprint a marathon. Ryan Holmes sprint marathon running Email is familiar. It's comfortable. It's easy to use. But it might just be the biggest killer of time and productivity in the office today. Ryan Holmes killers office might I was told I had to go to business school to succeed. I gave it a shot, but eventually dropped out to bootstrap a restaurant with just a Visa card and a $20,000 line of credit. Everyone told me restaurants were hard work (and they were right! I have so much respect for anyone in the restaurant business). I ran the restaurant for two years, sold a franchise, decided to change paths, and sold the whole operation at a modest profit. Ryan Holmes hard-work years school For everybody in their busy lives, you need to invest in sharpening your tools, and you need to invest in longevity. Ryan Holmes tools busy needs What drives me is the prospect of turning an obstacle into a business opportunity, and then growing that into something lasting and rewarding. Ryan Holmes obstacles growing opportunity Everyone told me you can't build a major tech company in Canada. There just aren't enough investors or engineers or top-level managers. Each day, I'm driven to prove them wrong. Ryan Holmes canada levels each-day I'm motivated by solving new and challenging problems, especially ones that people say can't or shouldn't be tackled. Ryan Holmes problem challenges people Not using social media in the workplace, in fact, is starting to make about as much sense as not using the phone or email. Ryan Holmes email phones media I think that Vancouver as well as Canada needs a boot camp for young entrepreneurs. We have already seen tens if not hundreds of people put their names forward to be involved in the program, and we just think this is an amazing way to accelerate what theyre doing. Ryan Holmes young-entrepreneurs names thinking Social media is the future, with employers recognizing they need to start hiring people with the right skills. Ryan Holmes media skills people It may be coincidence that the decline of newspapers has corresponded with the rise of social media. Or maybe not. Ryan Holmes media coincidence may HootSuite never had a big launch. We were lucky to even have office space. Ryan Holmes office-space bigs lucky I'm not in a rush to do it just because everybody else is doing it, i want to have an amazing business and do it for the right reasons, timing is everything and who knows where the market is going to be, but we are moving closer to that (IPO). Ryan Holmes technology We're building what looks like a public company, we are putting together all of the processes and best practices, it's a little hazy as to when. I've talked about 18 to 24 months, but I'm very bullish given the success that Shopify has had, and maybe we will want to speed that up a little bit. Ryan Holmes technology Ultimately, I'd love to see a legacy company that has alumni that come out of it and go on to create other big things. A maple-syrup mafia, a HootSuite mafia. Ryan Holmes see alumni legacy love Providing better computer science education in public schools to kids, and encouraging girls to participate, is the only way to rewrite stereotypes about tech and really break open the old-boys' club. Ryan Holmes better education science way By allowing multiple partners to contribute, an open platform can nurture an entire ecosystem of developers and apps. Good products integrate and become great products. Users get a one-stop solution for social needs. Ryan Holmes solution become great good Social media has shaken up the world of sales, with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter offering new ways to hound leads and unprecedented insights into clients. Ryan Holmes new social-media media world
