Nissue #40: Eric Ryan, Co-Founder of Method, Olly, Welly and now Cast.
Wow, hard to believe there have been 39 other interviews before this one! I first met Eric Ryan when I was working at the boutique marketing agency Ammo and one of our clients was Method, which was co-founded by Eric. The project involved opening a pop-up store for the brand smack dab in the middle of Union Square in San Francisco. It was a wild few months, at the very least demonstrating that Eric was a leader willing to take creative risks and have some fun.
He has since gone on to start Olly Welly and now Cast, following a theme of taking relatively boring product lines (cleaning, vitamins, first aid and now jewelry) and bringing personality to them. Whenever I run into Eric, I try and remind him that my brief stint working on Method (and in particular with him) gave me a lot of inspiration and ideas for making Yelp “funny, useful, and cool” while at the same time changing the rules on what it meant to review something.
Nish: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Eric: Being with my kids when they are not fighting with each other.
Nish: What was your worst job ever?
Eric: This is lame but I don’t have one. I enjoy working and my hardest jobs were always the ones that taught me the most. Somehow, I even found joy in bagging groceries or shoveling snow.
Nish: What was your first job ever?
Eric: My first real paycheck was when I was 16 and worked at Little Caesars in Detroit. When orders were slow, I would experiment with new product ideas which didn’t go over very well. I’m still sure my crazy bread pizza bites would have crushed it.
Nish: What was your best job ever?
Eric: Whatever one I am starting next. As a serial entrepreneur, my next company is usually my favorite.
Nish: What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Eric: Why can’t I spell!?!
Nish: What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Eric: People who keep correcting my spelling to look smart [Editor’s note: I corrected at least 4 typos].
Nish: What’s some advice you’d give to yourself at 23?
Eric: You have more time than you realize. And you have less time than you realize.
Nish: What is your greatest extravagance?
Eric: I seem to only do sports that require a ridiculous amount of equipment.
Nish: You have exclusive dinner reservations for 4 excluding family and close friends, who are the 3 people (alive, dead or imaginary) you’d invite?
Eric: Walt Disney, Henry Ford, and Steve Jobs for a master class in entrepreneurship.
Nish: What is the theme song of your professional life?
Eric: Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka.
Nish: What is your motto?
Eric: Progress not perfection.
Nish: What is something you’re really excited about right now?
Eric: We just launched a new jewelry brand called Cast. It follows my model of finding categories that are unnecessarily complicated and take themselves too seriously. I love finding these spaces and bringing a child-at-heart approach.
End Interview.
Who knows what will come after Cast, but surely something, and that entrepreneurial thirst reminds me of the great Nolan Bushnell, who I interviewed for Nissue #30.
Eric’s vibrancy and colorful spirit also remind me of two other interviewees: the fab clothing designer Prep Curry (Nissue #26) and the equally fab interior designer Jonathan Rachman (Nissue #7). Hope you get a chance to revisit them, and happy Thanksgiving!