The Idea Guy

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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.

"I started out working at a design firm in Palo Alto, Calif., called IDEO. In 1996, my co-worker David Law and I left to start our own business, which we called Speck Design. We didn't like working for a company where we designed things for other people. We would put our heart and soul in designing something and it would just go away. We wanted a company where we could see our designs made into products.

"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.

"Now we have five separate operating companies, and our success rate is getting better. Our philosophy when we look to start a new venture today is that it has to be in a niche market, needs only a small investment to get started, and that we know someone talented who can run it for us. We're always collecting talented people, whether they know it or not. We call it our virtual bench. When the time comes that we see a great potential match between a person, concept and timing, we'll start the company.

"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. As much as I respect Richard Branson, I'm not interested in building a global brand. We did start our first few companies using the name Speck, but we're changing that.

"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."

[via finance.yahoo.com]

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