20VC: Hootsuite's Ryan Holmes on Optimising Productivity in Meetings, Creating An Ownership Culture & Lessons From Running A Pizzeria!

Ryan Holmes is the founder and CEO of Hootsuite. He started the company in 2008 and has helped grow it into the world’s most widely used social relationship platform, with 15-million-plus users, including more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies. As of 2014, HootSuite has raised over $250m in venture funding from some of the best in the world including Accel, Insight Venture Partners and Fidelity. Prior to Hootsuite, Ryan started a string of ventures from a pizza restaurant to a digital media agency. Ryan is also a prolific angel investor with investments in the likes of Gusto, Bench and previous guest Immediately, just to name a few.    In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Ryan transition from being a restauranteur to founding Hootsuite? 2.) What were the big lessons Ryan took from his hard journey as a restauranteur? How has he applied those lessons to his role with Hootsuite today? 3.) How does Ryan look to create an environment of employee ownership and internal entrepreneurs? What has been successful? What has not? 4.) Meetings suck. What does Ryan do to optimise the meeting for simple enjoyment and productivity? 5.) How was the fundraising process for Ryan? What does he think he did well and what would he like to improve on for the next rounds? How was fundraising in 200*? Is now a good time to be raising? Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:  Ryan’s Fave Blog: Media Redefined Ryan’s Fave Book: The Long Walk As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Ryan on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Angelloop is the leading post funding management platform for private market investors and their portfolio companies. They help investors manage and track their portfolio companies on the cloud while providing them with access to their investments performance data. Angelloop helps founders of startups track their performance, manage their cap table and keep their investors in the loop. Investors get free access while their portfolio companies pay only $49/Month. Use or share the promo-code 20MinVC to get your portfolio companies online with a two month trial. This episode was supported by Wunder Capital, the leading online investment platform that allows individuals to invest in large scale solar projects across the U.S. Wunder’s solar investment funds allow you to earn up to 11% annually, while diversifying your portfolio, curbing pollution and combating global climate change. Do well by doing good and sign up for a free account here and join the thousands of people that are already achieving their investment targets.

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