The evening before the announcement of the big $20 Million OMERS investment in HootSuite, I attended a meetup featuring Dave Olson @daveohoots He related the Tom Sawyer story about painting the white picket fence as a metaphor to engaging people on social media and community building. It didn’t occur to me until last night at the BCTIAs, that he was in fact referring to Ryan.
At the 2011 GROW Conference, Ryan gave a keynote about why companies, and VC’s, should look at Vancouver as a place to do business. Since then, HootSuite has taken in $20m @ a valuation north of $200m, and not long after announced it was raising another round of $50m which likely values the company north of $500m. This has attracted all the right players including Canadian VCs.
Ryan IS doing exactly what Tom Sawyer does – makes what he is doing so compelling, you just want to be a part of the experience. It’s been good for HootSuite, naturally. However, it is a great thing for BC Startups.
Ryan, Person of the Year, Thank You for making it cool to do business in BC, or Vancouver for that matter. Your Rock!
Yup, Ryan Rocks!
Thanks for the kind words re: Tom Sawyer etc.
@daveohoots