14 Facts About Ryan Holmes

Ryan Holmes was born on December 30,1974 and is a Canadian computer programmer and internet entrepreneur.

Ryan Holmes is best known as the founder and CEO of Hootsuite, a social media management tool for businesses with more than 18 million users and Holmes' fifth startup.

Ryan Holmes is the founder of League of Innovators, a charity with a goal of building entrepreneurial acumen for youth, from discovery to acceleration.

Ryan Holmes is a contributor to the LinkedIn Influencers Program, where he writes about entrepreneurship and technology.

Ryan Holmes contributes regularly to news publications including Forbes, Fast Company and Inc com.

Ryan Holmes was born in Vernon, in the British Columbia Interior.

Ryan Holmes won a district-wide programming contest in the fifth grade, and the prize was an Apple IIc which was rewired to run off of a car battery.

Ryan Holmes spent much of his spare time on the computer, both at school and at home.

In high school, Ryan Holmes founded a paintball field as his first business which later became an online retailer.

Ryan Holmes sold a franchise of the business in that year.

In 2009, Ryan Holmes raised an initial round of Series A funding of $1.9 million for Hootsuite and spun it off as an independent company.

In 2013 Ryan Holmes launched an accelerator program for young entrepreneurs called The Next Big Thing, in part to help foster a "Maple Syrup Mafia," the term he coined in early 2013 to describe a new Canadian technology powerhouse similar to the original PayPal Mafia.

Ryan Holmes claimed that the book inspired Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein to tweet for the first time in June 2017.

In 2020, Ryan Holmes started working on the startup idea platform Kern.