Entrepreneur Kevin Ryan shares insights about start-ups and key financial trends

Screenshot of Kevin Ryan presenting at “A Conversation with Kevin Ryan” on 25 August 2021.

Acclaimed New York-based entrepreneur Kevin Ryan is definitely no stranger to the liberal arts.

Kevin, 52, is the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alleycorp, an incubator and venture capital fund responsible for founding companies like MongoDB and the financial news website Business Insider. On 25 August 2021, he spoke about his experiences in business and entrepreneurship with moderators Guadalupe Lazaro (Class of 2020) and Daniel Ng (Class of 2019).

The event, co-sponsored by Endeavor Global, the world’s largest high impact entrepreneurship orgnisation, and the Yale-NUS Entrepreneurship Society, took place over Zoom and saw a strong participant crowd of students, parents, members of the public, and alumni from Yale University and INSEAD.

Over the course of the conversation, Kevin shared valuable insight into the business world and his personal experience as an entrepreneur. He credited his time at Yale for getting him started in entrepreneurship, as he found his feet in business at Yale’s Student Investment Group.

On the topic of liberal arts and multidisciplinary learning adding value to entrepreneurship, Kevin opined that learning about technology, in addition to one’s major, is becoming increasingly relevant.

“Most of the entrepreneurs who lead the largest companies in the United States had a broad liberal arts education,” he noted.

Kevin Ryan with moderators Guadalupe Lazaro (Class of 2020) and Daniel Ng (Class of 2019). Image provided by Evan See.

Sure enough, students from the College have often demonstrated a strong entrepreneurial spirit. The event’s moderators, Guadalupe and Daniel, are fine examples of this, with both of them being co-founders of Singapore-based start-ups, Ease Healthcare and JustShip, respectively.

“There is a great deal of interest in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activity among our students and alumni so we knew that a session with Kevin Ryan would appeal to them,” said Dr Trisha Craig, Senior Lecturer and Vice President of Engagement.

A highly successful businessperson, Kevin shared about his time as CEO of advertising company DoubleClick, which grew from a company of 10 employees to 2,000 in four years.

However, he stressed that despite his success, not everything in his entrepreneurship journey has gone his way.

“I have bought companies that have not worked out. I have hired people who have not been right,” he said. “But you just have to think of yourself as a professional athlete. When [the football player] Ronaldo misses a penalty, he does not just quit and retire. You are going to miss once in a while, but you have to learn to take failure and endure that.”

With his success in various different start-ups, Kevin is firm on the need to give back to society. “There are a lot of different ways to give back,” he emphasised. From setting up public benefits corporations and giving to non-profits, to creating jobs and donating large parts of their fortunes, Kevin noted that increasingly, more top entrepreneurs around the world are driving social impact today, compared to the past. “Many things could be better all around the world, and we all need to play our role in helping,” he said.

Fielding questions from the audience, Kevin tapped on his knowledge to provide advice about hiring talent, technological trends, and the challenges faced by early-stage start-ups.

Having seen and supported many start-ups during his career and as part of Endeavor Global, he emphasised the importance of thinking about the benefits of growth beyond growth itself, sharing how his former company DoubleClick was able to gain a huge market share over its competitors because of its outreach into twenty-five different countries in just four years.

When asked about businesses transitioning into a post-COVID world, Kevin remarked that things would look significantly different, as “business travel will be cut back by 30 per cent, with the world becoming more remote,” among other changes. While this can pave the way for a truly global and remote workforce, he acknowledged that the big cities around the world would nevertheless remain attractive to young professionals due to the draw of the city lifestyle.

Kevin, who is Senior Advisor at Endeavor Global, will not be the only one from the organisation to share his expertise. As part of a newly formed partnership between Endeavor Global and the College, they will be co-hosting a five session Intensive on High Impact Entrepreneurship for Yale-NUS students. Each week, one of Endeavor’s managing directors in different Southeast Asian countries will be invited to speak on topics like identifying potential entrepreneurs and the role of networks or raising capital.

The Yale-NUS Intensive on High Impact Entrepreneurship focuses on the process of scaling up enterprises in the context of building entrepreneurial eco-systems that lead to sustained development.

Click here to watch the video recording of “A Conversation with Kevin Ryan”.