Rob Ryan (entrepreneur)

Robert J. Ryan
Born	1948
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Former Chief Executive Officer
Known for	Founder and CEO of Ascend Communications

Rob Ryan (born 1948)^[1] is the founder, past chairman and CEO of Ascend Communications,^[2] and currently mentors entrepreneurs through his Entrepreneur America Mentors' bootcamps at his ranch in Montana. Ryan earned national attention when he grew his 1989 start-up company, Ascend Communications, to more than $2 billion in sales. Lucent Technologies acquired Ascend in 1999 for approximately $20 billion^[3] in what was termed at the time the "largest technology merger ever."^[4][5][6]

Effectively, Ascend helped create the modern Internet by building all of the infrastructure equipment that powered the Internet worldwide. At the end of 1995, Rob won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Northern California (including Silicon Valley).^[7] Rob also was selected as the Cornell University Entrepreneur of the Year for 2002.^[8] Following Ascend’s success, Rob has helped build several start-up and early-stage ventures into multi-billion dollar companies, including Right Now Technologies and Silicon Spice,^[9] among others. His entrepreneurial successes have transformed businesses using his Sunflower ModelTM.

Ryan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969^[1] from Cornell University and began his career as a systems analyst with Burroughs, then worked at Lawrence Livermore Lab on the first non-military extension of Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet. In the late 1970s he was the principal architect of DECnet^[10] and the Intel portion of the Ethernet specification while working at Digital Equipment Corp. in the Boston area. He founded Softcom, Inc.^[11] in the early 1980s, sold it in two years to Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. and worked there as Director of Research and Development until the late 1980s.

Ascend

In 1989, Rob left Hayes with three engineers to found Ascend. Rob served as President, CEO, and Chairman of Ascend, taking it public Friday 13, May 1994, at $13.00 per share. Under Rob’s leadership, Ascend became the leading manufacturer of Point of Presence boxes (POPS) for Internet providers. Ascend grew from zero sales in 1989 to over 500 million sales in 1996. In 1995, the last year Rob served as CEO of Ascend, the stock was acknowledged as the best performer of the year on all of Wall Street.^[2][12][13]

Entrepreneur America Mentors

Rob left Ascend in 1995 and founded Entrepreneur America Mentors (EA). EA has established an entrepreneurial mentors' campus on Rob's Montana Ranch where Rob began mentoring entrepreneurs in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The outgrowth of his mentoring has been transformational to many businesses throughout the US, where he was instrumental in building several multi-billion dollar companies and many more multi-million dollar enterprises. "Rob has a passion for business and a love for entrepreneurs. Our interactions with him have always resulted in higher expectations and a practical plan to achieve them." Greg Gianforte, Founder and CEO, Right Now Technologies.

Entrepreneur America Mentors now has two entrepreneurial centers for developing and mentoring successful 'hero' companies. Teton Springs Resort is a golf and casting resort that Rob acquired in 2014 and now joins Rob's Montana Ranch as a destination for mentoring, entrepreneurial retreats and relationship building. Further, in partnership with an affiliate partner, Bronze Buffalo Club, Rob expands his platform for mentoring to the Star Valley Trout Ranch in Afton, Wyoming. It is through these unique properties that Rob is able to inspire and mentor entrepreneurs while also creating experiential learning in beautiful settings.

An outgrowth of Rob's efforts with Entrepreneur America Mentors has been the success of many companies. Some of those who have realized significant liquidity events are: Right Now Technologies, Silicon Spice,^[9] LookSmart, NetCracker. Andrew Feinberg, former CEO and founder of Netcracker stated: "Working with Rob allowed us to gain the executive experience and maturity that our entrepreneurial management team needed."

Some other companies that continue to thrive under Rob's mentorship are Comply365, a mobile enterprise platform that dominates in the airline and transportation industry, among others; and Acculynx, an enterprise platform for specialty contractors.

License to Dream

Rob Ryan has recently undertaken a mammoth project to enlighten, inspire and educate others on entrepreneurship through his film and web project, License to Dream. In collaboration with Ori Yardeni and Life Changing Experiences, Rob has produced a 90-minute 3D film about entrepreneurship. Intended for a wide audience, he has begun the project with a specific focus and target to teenagers and young adults. The License to Dream initiative has shown the inspiring film to thousands of high school students in the US with rave reviews from students and teachers alike. The L2D Project was filmed in Budapest, Hungary and now being shown in high schools nationwide. The film and interactive website will be an edutainment project and will be companioned with a national entrepreneurial contest in the near future.

Sunflower Model

Rob Ryan developed the Sunflower Model when codifying the key elements of Ascend's success. Rob has since applied the Sunflower Model with each of his entrepreneurial ventures and attributes their success to its use and application. The Sunflower is a perfect metaphor as the large seed-center core of the Sunflower is representative of core competencies, the innumerable petals of the Sunflower are representative of revenue channels, and the stem of the Sunflower is representative of the driving forces (positive and negative influences/forces in the market). The Sunflower Model has seven key steps: 1) Drilling Down to your Core Competencies; 2) Building your Revenue Petals; 3) Critical Decision Making Amongst the Revenue Petals Using Matrix Modeling; 4) A Revenue Petal Walkabout; 5) Refining your Decision Matrix; 6) Building a Suffocation Strategy; and 7) Goals and Execution for a Successful Transformational Company. The Sunflower Model and Process is a critical tool and process applied by Rob Ryan to develop transformational Hero companies.

Ryan is currently developing an AI deep learning model of the Sunflower process to empower entrepreneurs.

Drilling Down to your Core Competencies: Core Competencies are those things that you or your company do well and further differentiate you in the market place. Core Competencies can include technology and engineering skill sets, intellectual property, brand, personnel, databases, algorithms, network relationships, etc. These Core Competencies are metaphorically the prime numbers or the irreducible; they should be unique, can be leveraged and prove a value to the customer. Core Competencies fall into three categories: the obvious, the hidden and the missing. It is imperative to know your Core Competencies.

Building your Revenue Petals: Once Core Competencies are defined and determined, Revenue Petals emerge through an ideation process with the key management team. It is imperative that these Revenue Petals leverage the Core Competencies, provide a valuation equation to the customer (specifically making or saving the customer money), and stand uniquely in the market. Part of this process demands the development of a criteria set to judge and rank the Revenue Petals. Some additional criteria could include: time to money, stealthiness, barrier to entry, market potential, etc. Another key element of this process is the alignment that emerges among the management team.

Critical Decision Making Amongst the Revenue Petals Using Matrix Modeling: The Sunflower Model helps to build alignment and qualify your Revenue Petals using a matrix model.

A Revenue Petal Walkabout: Management walkabouts to customers are a valued part of the Sunflower Model, which helps to assess and validate the outcomes of the process, including, but not limited to, verification of criteria, pain points and competitive dynamics.

Refining your Decision Matrix: Following the Revenue Petal Walkabout, a refinement process is undertaken.

Building a Suffocation Strategy: The process of a deliberate application of the Sunflower Model in the company, and the real competition, helps to inform the company of a 'suffocation' strategy to dominate the market.

Goals and Execution for a Successful Transformational Company: Strategy informs goals and lays the foundation for a tactical execution.

The Sunflower Model uniquely drives innovation, alignment and strategy. The Model informs the entrepreneur in critical product innovations and strategies to dominate in the marketplace.

Books Written by Rob Ryan

• Entrepreneur America: Lessons from Insider Rob Ryan's High Tech Startup Boot Camp, (Published by Harper Business. 2001)
• SmartUps, Republished Entrepreneur America, Cornell University Press, 2002

Brief History

Rob earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969 from Cornell University and post-graduate studies at University of Madison, Wisconsin in mathematics and physics. He has been married for 45 years to his Cornell classmate and attorney wife, Terry Ryan, who co-founded Ascend and currently serves as President of Entrepreneur America.

Awards

At the end of 1995, Rob won the Entrepreneur of the Year award for Northern California (including Silicon Valley). Rob is Cornell University’s Entrepreneur of the Year (CEY) of 2002.^[14]

References

External links

• Entrepreneur America
• Teton Springs Resort

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