Today we’d like to introduce you to John Richards.
John, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Raised in Seattle and attended BYU. After graduating pre-med chemistry at BYU and getting accepted to medical school, I opted to instead return to Seattle and get involved in competing in 1985 against the recently broken up Ma Bell (AT&T) system in the yellow pages arena. After a decade of growing a well-known mid-sized yellow pages publishing company, I launched the first-ever Internet yellow pages in 1995. After selling the print publishing company in 1996, I merged in with three former Microsoft employees into a company called InfoSpace, which went public 2 years later in December 1998. I “retired” in 2001 and became a professor of entrepreneurship at BYU, relocating my family to Provo. I immediately helped build a top-ranked program at BYU and became managing partner of UtahAngels, at the time the only angel investing group in the state. I invested in many ventures, and some like Omniture were successful and led to great outcomes. I went on to form BoomStartup, a YCombinatorTechStars-like tech seed accelerator as well as other organizations. I left BYU when I was hired by Google after I helped the City of Provo sell its fiber network to Google Fiber. After two years at Google, I launch Startup Ignition, an entrepreneur bootcamp that has helped almost 500 entrepreneurs and ventures. I have mentored thousands of entrepreneurs. I am not done yet as I have the next phase of my venture career ready to go. Though trite to say, my greatest achievement truly is my almost 40-year marriage to my wife Susan, which has spawned 4 children and 8 grandchildren.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
There have been many struggles. We lost our first child to a full-term stillbirth. I had a gargantuan competitor try to wipe me out and I have to sue them for antitrust and unfair practices — and in the end, we beat them in the field of competition. The dot-com era was a wild ride with many ups and downs. Lots of life lessons along the way. A few times I have had multi-million-dollar setbacks, close to the point of having to start over.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Startup Ignition is an intensive entrepreneur bootcamp that helps entrepreneurs ideate, form entities properly, and validate customers and business models in a scientific way using lean startup principles and practices. It teaches entrepreneurs what to do and what not to do. My lengthy experience in mentoring entrepreneurs is brought to bear via Startup Ignition. I am most proud of the many entrepreneurs who write me years after I helped them telling me I was the most significant mentor they had and it led to massive personal success for each of them. I get such a communication almost on a weekly basis and it keeps me going.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I was the 8th-grade chess champion of Washington State and I am an avid pickleball player, from before it was cool.
Pricing:
- $1,999 tuition
- Discount for women
- Discount for teams
Contact Info:
- Website: startupignition.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnericrichards/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnrichards_ut
