Entrepreneurship Founders

John E. Richards

John E. Richards

Membership Information:

Member Status: Platinum
Current Position: Head of Operations, Google Fiber (Provo, UT)
Member Since: 2000

Contact Information:

Website: https://startupignition.com/

Employment:

Job Title: President
Company: Startup Ignition, LLC
Location: Utah, United States

Expertise:

  • Creating New Ventures
  • Business Management
  • New Venture Financing
  • Angel Investing
  • Venture Capital
  • Capitalization
  • University Education
  • Publishing
  • Advertising
  • Software (Mobile, Web, Desktop)
  • Lean Startup

Biography:

John E. Richards is an entrepreneur, venture investor, mentor, and educator. His endeavors involve founding, operating, managing, selling, and investing in enterprises. Though he is a generalist, he mentors entrepreneurs frequently in software, Internet, mobile, blockchain, and consumer products. He founded Startup Ignition, an entrepreneur bootcamp. He served as Google Fiber’s Head of Operations as it launched in Provo, Utah. He spent over a decade teaching entrepreneurship at Brigham Young University where he helped it achieve a #2 ranking and brought the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology to global prominence. He is listed as one of the Top 25 entrepreneurial educators in the United States. He was managing partner of UtahAngels, a venture investing group. He co-founded BoomStartup, a leading tech seed accelerator. He has invested in hundreds of ventures and mentored thousands. Early in his career, he was president of a yellow pages publishing company and later created the first-ever online yellow pages that led to an initial public offering and a multi-billion-dollar valuation as part of InfoSpace, Inc. John is a frequent speaker at conferences and other events. He and his family reside in Utah.