Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Jaleh.
Hi Ryan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Starting out most of my professional career was in private equity and corporate M&A, but I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I started my first venture-backed company in 2012 (now called Digital Brands Group Inc. – DBGI) which was a low-cost direct-to-consumer fashion brand that ultimately IPO’d in 2018.
While I was building DBGI, I began investing in US residential real estate and ultimately leveraged an initial $100k investment into a $65M real estate fund with hundreds of properties across the southwest US. In 2016, three years after starting the venture, we sold most of the portfolio to an institutional buyer and I began looking for the next thing.
I researched many different investment opportunities and ultimately ended up buying an operating company in the wedding & event space called Archive Rentals, and I’ve spent the last several years building this company and becoming an expert in the domain and problem of wedding planning and wedding booking, which is where the concept for Weddily.com was birthed.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Of course not! Haha. Nothing is easy or smooth about being a startup. I’ve learned that there is a big difference between being an entrepreneur and being a STARTUP entrepreneur. An entrepreneur can be anyone who lives and dies by their ability to take action and create value – like a real estate agent. Most real estate agents are very entrepreneurial – they have to be self-starters and make it happen because if they don’t then, they don’t eat. But there is a key difference, the product they are selling and the service they are providing is a known quantity. They know if they work hard enough and follow best practices, they will earn clients and income, but startups are a completely different ball game.
A true startup is an unknown quantity. A startup is a SEARCH for a scalable and repeatable business model with no guarantee that it will ever be found. Unlike non-startup entrepreneurship, the success of one’s search is not based on the founder’s vision, instinct, or business acumen – it’s based on the team’s ability to listen to customers and test, fail, and refine as much and as quickly as possible.
The biggest challenge is taking a long-term vision and trying to execute that vision given the limitations of physical reality – everything takes much longer, is much harder, and every action produces far more significant unintended consequences than you can imagine or see coming.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am the CEO and founder of Weddily (weddily.com), the first and only wedding marketplace where you can instantly discover, build, price and book your perfect wedding online. We are known for blending cutting-edge technology with intuitive and beautiful design turning the fragmented, time-consuming and chaotic process of wedding booking into a streamline end-to-end experience.
What were you like growing up?
I’ve always been an entrepreneur with keen interest in both design and analytics. In elementary school, I created and sold custom cartoons to fellow classmates and in junior high, I was the kid who sold candy in class for a 4x markup. I think I’ve always been the type to work hard but never too hard to lose sight of what matters most in life, which is spending quality time with good family and friends.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://weddily.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weddilyinc
Image Credits
Lehava
