How Ryan Welmans Grew Several Businesses From Scratch

You’re asking for a number—there’s probably more than 10. I mean, there’s a whole list to go through. We’ve got Sopro, many years ago; Instant Digital; we’ve got Founders Hub; and at the moment, Out Base. We don’t put this front and center on our website, but you might be aware, Shane, that we run an incubator. Sopro actually directly invests in inception-stage and seed-stage startups. In some cases, we’re involved pre-product or pre-website—even in one case, we actually incorporated the business, investing in the idea. We’ve got ventures in corporate social responsibility, financial services, a language testing platform, a video personalization platform, a compliance support platform and service, and even a crypto exchange.

I guess I’m a fixer—fixer of things that aren’t working. I love challenges and solving problems. My role in the business has always been on the commercial side—structuring and positioning the business to engage well with the market. In the early days, that tends to center around the sales process and configuring the product to fit the market, then layering on marketing to engage with prospective customers. I’m in my element when I’m parachuting into blank-canvas environments and just rolling up my sleeves.

We funded the business ourselves. We grew organically—we picked up a client base pretty quickly and didn’t over-invest. We hired people as we got clients, always keeping our cost base slightly below our revenues. Even when we were breaking even—and there were probably a handful of months over the years when we hit the red—we’ve generally been profitable from the start. We have been able to fund the incubator and our other investor business investments entirely with our own revenue, which is great.

I think the difference it makes is that we’re not on that VC money treadmill, where you’re constantly asked, “What’s next? What are your numbers?” We have more control—we can steer the business in the best direction for the business, rather than in the best direction for your next core VC appraisal, for example.

I think there are a couple of really common challenges that apply everywhere. The first challenge is matching the scope of your solution—whether it’s a platform, product, or service—with your available resources. For instance, some Japanese platform builds can run to a $2 million bill when you think it through. So, if someone has an idea with not a lot of funding, it’s very challenging to do that in a bootstrapped format. You’d be surprised how many people pitch businesses where it’s painfully clear this venture needs several million dollars, but the founder is adamant that funding isn’t necessary and insists on getting the business off the ground with a one- or two-person team. So, it’s about finding the right-sized challenge to solve. The second challenge comes with scaling. How do you scale from, say, a team of up to 10 people to 10 to 100? As a founder, you start by being involved in everything—you’re ordering the microwave for the office, going on sales pitches, and even delivering the service yourself. Then, you have a great day when you get a salesperson, or when you can finally let go of operations. Eventually, you can move from working in the business to working on the business by building a robust senior management team—someone running finance, HR, operations, sales, client services, tech, etc. That’s the challenge of letting go.

The earlier you accept it as an inevitability, the sooner you can build processes that don’t rely on you. When you get to a point where you come into work and your team runs the department perfectly, your mind is free to focus on high-value, strategic growth for the business.

I think it terrifies people because the natural thought is, “If I’m not really doing anything, then am I really going to be needed?” But it’s actually the opposite—you become so much more valuable. When you get to that point, your impact increases and you start doing bigger, better things.

I think the “better than me” point is equally valuable. People often think that nobody can do as good a job as they can because they’re the ones who care the most. But the truth is, my direct reports are now better than me at everything they do. I’ve got talent across operations, finance, and client services—each of them should be better than me. I’ve learned so much from them.

This is so—apart from investing in Bitcoin, of course, right?—we’d all want that information. It’s a good question. One thing I’ve wrestled with over the years—and I know it isn’t just me—is that so much of life is a confidence game. In business, confidence is a determining factor. There are two types: the confidence that comes from experience, knowing you can dive into finances or handle spreadsheets because you’ve done it before, and then there’s personal confidence. When you’re 21 and at the bottom of the ladder, you tend to view those in C-level roles or as directors as superhuman—like they’re on a completely different level. It might take another 20 years before you realize that everyone who runs a business is just a normal person who works hard, gets stressed, and sometimes has late nights—just like everybody else. I wish I had known that 21 years ago. I think if you had that personal confidence, you might have made that leap earlier and it would have been less stressful. Life’s too short to carry imposter syndrome. I’d say, don’t fear failure—learn from it. There are so many cases where people are perfectly competent but just can’t take the leap because they’re afraid of failing. Structure your life so that if everything falls apart, you’re alright—you won’t lose your house, your kids will be fine. That way, you can run a business without that paralyzing stress. I try to make that point to young people who want to start a business.