Ryan Mongan’s role model is Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group fame — not so much for his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, but for his love of starting a seemingly endless string of businesses.
Since launching his first business, Speck Design, 11 years ago, Mongan and his business partner have founded Speck Products, famous for its iPod accessories; CAD Talent, an online job board for engineering talent; Camera Armor, which makes protective cases for cameras; and Speck China, a design and sourcing firm in China. Mongan’s latest company is called VentureNiche, which will act as a hub to help his growing family of companies to leverage each other whenever possible.
“We learned that we also enjoyed starting companies in niche markets. Our mantra when it comes to starting new companies is to fail fast, fail frugal, and fail fearlessly. We started 10 companies before we had our next successful next company, which became Speck Products. We tried new stuff, didn’t spend a lot of money, and if it wasn’t going anywhere, we shut it down. We never bet the farm on a new venture, which allowed us to keep trying.
“We come up with the majority of our ideas internally. For instance, we came up with the idea for Camera Armor at a trade show. We want to play in niches — we don’t want to go mainstream.”
“Our latest company, VentureNiche, is going to be like a mothership to all the companies and help them give each other unfair advantages. For example, we want our people at Speck Design talking to the folks at Speck Products about new designs. Then we want the Speck Products people to talk to people at Speck China about tips on pricing suppliers. I act as conduit between the CEOs of all the companies. In the end, I want to be an owner, not a CEO.”
Photo by VentureNiche.
Mike Sabat on April 26th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Rich-
Great Post. It’s encouraging to hear about Ryan launching so many ideas and failing fast and failing cheap. I like the idea of the new company bringing the branches together and making it “unfair” for competitors.
Can you ask Ryan, “Why Speck?” We know why Virgin Brands are called Virgin, so what is the significance of Speck?
Thanks
Mike