“I guess it’s not every day that someone comes up to you and says, ‘Can I build you a restaurant?’,” says Johnson. “But it works. I find someone who wants to own a restaurant, build it for them and hand it over with a reasonable lease. They get their own restaurant, and the town has a new gathering place.”
Who is Richard Johnson?
Johnson created Hotjobs, later took it public and sold it to Yahoo.
In 2014 his Super Bowl add was called one of the 10 ‘gutsiest” moves in the history of entrepreneurs.
Wrote Under 30 CEO in ranking the decision No. 10 : “$1.6 million mortgage to buy a super bowl ad”
“Richard Johnson, the CEO of Hotjobs decided to take out a mortgage on his house to buy one single ad during the Superbowl. The response was immediate and HotJobs moved from being a struggling fledgling company in 1999, to being acquired by Yahoo 2 years later for half a billion dollars.”
That’s pretty rarified company. Other top 10 decisions included the iPhone, Tesla’s backing by Elon Musk, and rejected merger offers by Facebook as well as Twitter.
In his LinkedIn profile, Johnson writes about himself:
Started some companies, sold some companies. Along the way I worked with some amazing people. After winning the business lottery, I moved to Jackson Hole for three years and settled in Wilmington, NC in 2005. Since 2005 my primary focus has been on family. I have also kept busy serving on non-profit boards (most recently Trout Unlimited) and starting a non-profit called (MSB) masonboro.org in 2009. MSB’s crowning achievement is annually taking every 5th grade student (2000+) in New Hanover County to Masonboro Island for an educational field trips. I still do a some pro-bono recruiting and C-suite consulting. I love marketing, sales, process analysis and helping people with career consulting. Most recently I am developing a boat manufacturing facility, a tree farm and buying some buildings in the town of Burgaw, NC. I mentor a lot of entrepreneurs who are facing high growth opportunities and every once in a while I even try to go fly fishing or offshore fishing.
Credit: Source link
