Vicki and
Ryan Johnson
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Making
The Move
Silicon Valley
New Zealand is ranked as one of the easiest places to start a business in the world, but being so isolated
geographically means the hard part comes when you’re looking to reach customers in foreign markets. When
Vicki and Ryan Johnson started their first business together in Wellington, New Zealand, they soon realised they
needed to be located where most of their customers were (The USA). We talk to Vicki about why they decided to
move to San Francisco and how their business has benefited from being closer to their customers.
Ryan and I have very different professional backgrounds.
When we first began dating in Washington, DC, I was working
in public health policy while Ryan was working in corporate
product management. Ryan was also co-founder of www.
slapapp.com, one of the first iPhone app review websites. In
2010, I won a policy fellowship in New Zealand and Ryan
agreed to leave his corporate job and come with me on an
adventure on the other side of the world. His start-up was
acquired in 2011 and we began to daydream about starting
an online company of our own. While we were still in DC,
he saw me give a talk on a panel discussion about women
and leadership where I told my story to a group of recent
graduates detailing how I had used fellowships to not only
travel the world, but advance my career in policy. Fellowships
are short-term, competitive opportunities that provide
funding for professional development, career training and
graduate study. Before Ryan and I met, I had earned three
competitive fellowships – one in New York City government,
one in a research think tank in Washington, DC and one
to conduct an independent project in Berlin, Germany.
When the audience asked how I found these fellowship
opportunities, I explained they were actually very hard to
find because they are often hidden on obscure websites or
archaic university databases. Watching the fascinated interest
of the attendees, Ryan recognised an opportunity to make
online fellowship searches easier. He proposed the idea that
we develop a website specifically about fellowships, to solve
a challenge I experienced myself. However, I knew nothing
6
about business, let alone start-ups or technology, so little did I
know I was about to embark on an incredible journey building
a company with Ryan. We moved to New Zealand in January
2011 and we began to work on ProFellow there.
ProFellow started as a blog, which served as a place to find
fellowship information, but today ProFellow is much more
about the community of people who use our site – aspiring
and former fellows, university and career advisers and
fellowship organisations.
“
Over time
you realise there
is no right way
to grow a start-up,
despite what some
people will say.