Peter Shankman and HelpAReporterOut (HARO) Just Sent Me a Cease-and-Desist Letter

02.26.10 Posted in Entrepreneurship, News, Personal, Posts by Ryan W.

Backstory: A couple weeks ago, I launched a site called PRManna.com, to help startups and small businesses connect with reporters and other journalists who are looking for experts and sources for stories. The launch was well received, got picked up on ReadWriteWeb, and people have been using the site for the last couple weeks. I [...]


If You’re Passionate About Something, You Can Make a Living From It Online

02.23.10 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Posts, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

There’s a saying that in China, if you’re one-in-a-million, that means there’s more than a thousand people just like you. The same is true of the Internet, and I’ve come to realize that if you’re truly passionate about something (anything), that almost certainly means that there are enough people out there who are also passionate [...]


Book Review: “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuk

01.18.10 Posted in Blogging, Development, Entrepreneurship, Finances, Goals, Inspiration, Misc, Personal, Posts, Reviews, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

I recently read Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk and I enjoyed it enough that I thought I’d post a short review.
For those of you who don’t know, Gary is a very successful entrepreneur who has really pushed the limits of social media [...]


For bigger things

06.11.09 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Personal, Posts by Ryan W.

I want out of this machine
It doesn’t feel like freedom
This ain’t my American dream
I want to live and die for bigger things
I’m tired of fighting for just me
This ain’t my American dream
“American Dream” by Switchfoot


Introducing MightyReach – All your web analytics and social media stats on one page

05.25.09 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Posts, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

Note: This is a repost of a blog post on the MightyBrand blog…thought it might be useful to some folks over here.
Short version: we’re launching a new web application called MightyReach that lets you create a customized dashboard of all your web and social media stats. Check it out and sign up to be notified [...]


MightyBrand in 60 seconds

05.10.09 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Personal, Posts, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

It’s recently come to my attention that in the excitement of the last five months, I’ve neglected to really talk about MightyBrand, my startup, and what’s going on with it. So here’s a brief overview for those of you that are curious.
In mid-2006, Ben Lew, Ben Rasmusen, and myself all started working on a social [...]


GovFresh – All the government’s social media feeds in one place

05.10.09 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Personal, Politics, Posts, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

A little over a week ago, my good friend Luke Fretwell stopped by my office to chat about this idea that he had to aggregate all the feeds from the social media accounts of the US Government in one place. Various arms of the federal government have been signing up for things like Twitter, Facebook, [...]


Pricing strategy hack: hold a contest

04.29.09 Posted in Entrepreneurship, Posts, Technology by Ryan W.

When you’re launching a new business, determining your pricing is a crucial but extremely difficult task that’s more art than science. Worse, for many businesses, adjusting pricing later is difficult, so you need to get it fairly close to right the first time around, or at least build some slack into the system so you [...]


I’m back

04.01.09 Posted in Blogging, Entrepreneurship, Goals, Posts by Ryan W.

Note: Despite the date, this is not an April Fool’s joke.
Almost exactly three months ago, I stopped blogging, pretty much stopped using Twitter, stopped doing most of my daily habits, stopped worrying about my goals, and started working 14-16 hours per day on MightyBrand, a new startup that I’ve been toiling away at for awhile. [...]


Twenty-five tomatoes: experiments in micro-startups

12.22.08 Posted in Development, Entrepreneurship, Goals, Personal, Posts, Social Media, Technology by Ryan W.

I’m going to start a new tradition where I create a small website, service, or other project. Here are the rules:

It has to be launched in less than 25 pomodoros (12.5 hours), including brainstorming, design, development, launch, and initial marketing

That’s it.
Why am I doing this? Here’s why:

Startups are getting cheaper and cheaper to launch. But [...]