Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Constant.
Ryan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I joined the Marine Corps after high school, and after my tour of duty, I started doing odd jobs in the music industry, like managing artists and working for record labels and large music festivals. After seven years, I pivoted to technology. I recruited for an agency and worked for a software development company. Then, I knew nothing more about technology than the average person.
Now, I realize the work was similar in theory: Developers are just like musicians. They, too, create something from nothing. They, too, are artists. Music and technology are, on the surface, two very different professions, but what excited me about my switch in career fields was that developers were wanting to innovate and create just like an artist or musician, but their focus was on solving problems.
Not just about entertaining. All they needed was an idea and someone to drive the process. I’d found my niche. They were my drummer, my guitarist and bassist; I was the songwriter. Passion —those who know me might use intensity here—defines me, and I get behind something I believe in. Working with developers ignited my passion—something I had been missing in my work—and I was eager to get myself and fellow developers into creating software that could solve problems. It started simply. Developer friends and I met at my house to brainstorm technical solutions to common problems I saw in the world.
We would hang out on my porch, drink beer, and whiteboard our ideas on every single window in my house into the early hours of the morning. I resigned from my full-time job to pursue some of these early-morning-ideas, thinking I would just take a summer to flesh them out and start production and then go back to the workforce. Two weeks later, we entered the SXSW Hackathon in Austin, TX and, to our surprise, we won the grand prize for our consumer fraud prevention app for event attendees. This exposure at the Hackathon forced us to create a software company, Constant Venture, LLC. Our mission is focusing on solving problems by putting the developer/artist first, by allowing their voice to be heard and their recommendations to be what drives our projects.
After the SXSW Hackathon, we were invited to several more hackathons including the Capitol Records Capitol360 Hackathon where we took second place for best use of MS Cloud Technologies by creating an automated process for musicians to access more than $300M in unclaimed royalties and the invite-only Facebook F8 Hackathon where we created instant connections for people with limited wi-fi. Now, after just three months, we have traveled all over the country meeting with different companies to bring our passions for solving everyday problems to fruition. And I still haven’t reentered the 9-to-5 workforce.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has been a stressful road in just three months, for sure! I honestly didn’t expect the team to be so connected to my vision. My biggest struggle is allocating enough time for each project, for myself and the Team Lead, while making sure to create a pipeline of projects for my team that are both exciting and profitable. I also struggle with everyday CEO responsibilities. I see myself as a Product Manager more than a CEO because I like to be in the weeds with my team building.
Learning about the Venture Capitol market has been a struggle too, leaning heavily on my experience watching Shark Tank get me through tough meetings. I’ve had to spend more time researching and learning how this part of the business world works while still working with the team and our projects. It has been my team that has encouraged me to focus on these areas because without it they know our dreams to build won’t be realized.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Constant Venture – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Constant Venture is a software company focused on solving problems for everyday people and businesses. Our strongest skill sets are in building useful mobile applications for businesses and consumers that enhance and protect their lives and their wallets. For example, Legit Tix is a solution and app we built that eliminates the possibility to duplicate an event ticket in the ecosystem and stops fraudulent ticket scalpers.
What sets us apart from the competition is that we are developer driven, by which I mean the developer makes the call, not the business. We lead with technology, take care of the customer’s needs, are custom, and we adjust our solutions to solve individual problems.
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