Richard Rygg

South Pasadena, California, United States
Accredited investor
Member since April 15, 2010

I appreciate a great idea, a great team, great execution, and the great amount of effort it takes to build a successful company. Quote_down

About

Investor interests

Credentials

Accredited Investor

I am a(n):

Entrepreneur

If you're an entrepreneur or corporate innovator, why?

I can't help it. It's my nature.

My favorite startups:

HipGeo.com, Instagram, Square, DropBox, Machinima, Groupon, Flipboard, Blockboard

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?

Fund raising is most frustrating. Building something that fills a person's need is most rewarding.

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs/innovators make?

One of most valuable entrepreneurial skills is the ability to hire great people, and it is the hiring and firing process that makes or breaks a company.

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?

Hire the best people you can. Fail fast. Innovate on a hunch, perfect with information and feedback. (Bonus tip from GeoCities: There was a direct relationship between the closeness of a deadline and the odor in the engineering cubicles.)

What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

What do you mean? An African or European swallow?

Full bio

Rich Rygg is an experienced entrepreneur, skilled in product strategy, product management, business development, online communities, and customer management. His online career started at CompuServe where he managed online communities for most of the high tech companies in Silicon Valley over an X.25 network. He opened the AOL office in Los Angeles and kicked AOL's first local effort Digital Cities. He moved on to GeoCites and was part of the executive team who grew the company to one of the top 4 Internet sites, executed a successful IPO, and sold it to Yahoo! Along with his HipGeo co-founders Scott and Jeff, he worked att Yahoo! Rich launched Yahoo! Websites and Yahoo! Domains. Thinking he was going to retire, he worked for the Clinton Foundation and oversaw the creation of an anti-retroviral program for the Dominican Republic in collaboration with Columbia Univeristy and McKinsey Consulting. Since his retirement he founded iChange, which was recently sold to Herbalife, invested in a number of companies, and recently founded HipGeo.