About Me
Hi I’m Ryan. Welcome to my blog. I am a 27 year-old technology entrepreneur and social entrepreneur. I co-founded and am fortunate enough to lead a company called iContact as CEO. We provide email and social media marketing software. We’ve grown a lot in the past few years and now have about 250 employees. I’m also founder and Chairman of Virante, a Raleigh-based digital marketing agency, and an investor in companies in the USA and East Africa.
I’m passionate about using technology and entrepreneurship as tools to change the world. I’m an angel investor in companies in the U.S. and East Africa via the HumanityFund, the author of the book Zero to One Million, and Chairman of the non-profit Nourish.org.
I believe that you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I live to inspire others to reach their full potential and create positive change in the world. I hope to see a world one day in every human being has access to basic human needs and there is no extreme poverty.
I grew up in Bradenton, Florida as the son of an Episcopal Priest from Pennsylvania and a social worker from Yorkshire, England. I attended UNC for college and in 2011 graduated from the EO/MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program.
Feel free to connect me with anytime via email, on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. I also maintain a photo blog on Tumblr.
Background
Ryan Allis is a technology entrepreneur and social entrepreneur from North Carolina. Ryan has been an entrepreneur since he started Allis Computing at age 11 in 1995. Today, Ryan is the Co-Founder and CEO of iContact, a provider of email and social media marketing software and services. iContact has over 250 employees, 70,000 customers, and $50M in annual sales. iContact is a certified B Corp and uses the 4-1s CSR model to give 1% of its payroll, equity, employee time, and product back to the community. Ryan is also the founder and Chairman of Virante, a digital marketing agency based Raleigh, NC.
Ryan is an active angel investor, investing via the HumanityFund. He invests in businesses in the USA and East Africa including investments to date in Pengo Loans, VillageEnergy, ThinkImpact, EvoApp, Unblab, CityPockets, SpringMetrics, and School House. Ryan is the author of the book Zero to One Million, published by McGraw-Hill, which reached the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list.
Ryan is currently the Board Chairman for Nourish.org which uses social entrepreneurship as a tool to end global poverty. Nourish teaches entrepreneurial skills to college students and uses the profits from student businesses to partner with and invest in social entrepreneurs and community-based organizations in the developing world focused on sustainable development and eliminating extreme poverty and hunger in our lifetime.
Ryan was named in 2006 as one of BusinessWeek’s 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25. In 2008 he was named as Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year for the Carolinas, In 2009 he was named as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Americans by the U.S. Junior Chamber. In 2010 he was named as part of the 30 Under 30 List By INC Magazine. Ryan currently serves as a member of the UN Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council which is advising the UN Foundation on expanding how it uses digital marketing to bring awareness to its humanitarian campaigns.
Ryan attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was an economics major and a Blanchard Scholar. Ryan is a 2011 graduate of the EO/MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program.
Short Bio
Ryan Allis is the co-founder and CEO of iContact, a socially responsible purpose-driven company that provides email and social media marketing software. iContact has grown from its start in 2003 to more than $50M in annual sales. Ryan is also the founder and chairman of Virante a digital marketing agency, the author of the book Zero to One Million from McGraw-Hill, the founder of the HumanityFund which invests in companies in the USA and Africa, and the Board Chairman of the non-profit Nourish.org.
About iContact
iContact is an email and social media marketing software company based in Raleigh, NC with offices in London and Miami. Founded in 2003, iContact has 250 employees, $50M in annual sales, and 1 million users of its leading email marketing and social media marketing software. iContact also provides the event marketing platform Ettend.
iContact is a B Corporation and utilizes the 4-1s Corporate Social Responsibility Model in which they give back 1% of payroll, 1% of employee time to community volunteering, 1% of equity, and 1% of product to its local and global community as part of its social mission. iContact has a fun, creative, energetic, challenging, and caring company culture.
iContact has raised $53.3M in investment from JMI Equity, Updata Partners, North Atlantic Capital and IDEA Fund Partners. iContact most recently secured a $40 million dollars Series B round of venture capital funding from JMI Equity in August 2010.
iContact has made the INC 500 list three times from 2008-2010. In 2008, iContact was named the fastest growing software company in North Carolina by INC Magazine and in 2009 the Software Company of the Year by the North Carolina Technology Association.
> Read about the founding of iContact on Time.com.
Videos
2011 Fox News Spot “American Entrepreneur Triggers Egyptian Economic Growth” – November 2011
CNN Appearance on Trip to Mentor Young Egyptian Entrepreneurs – May 2011
Introduction from the Jaycees 2009 Ten Outstanding Young American (TOYA) Awards
Appearance on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch in 2007