Ryan Watson, CPA – 2017 20 Under 40 Honoree

City/State: Cincinnati, OH

Website: ahalogy.com | upsourcedaccounting.com

Twitter: @ryankwatson

I’m the co-founder and principal of Upsourced Accounting, a tech-enabled accounting practice in Columbus, OH, and head of finance and operations for Ahalogy, a Cincinnati-based startup focused on content and influencer marketing for Fortune 500 marketers. I’m a brand ambassador for Xero and a seasoned entrepreneur with deep experience in the fields of finance and accounting.

Formerly, I served as CEO of Sqrl – a SaaS tool, incubated out of Upsourced Accounting, that automated document collection for accounting firms. Sqrl, a venture-backed graduate of the Brandery accelerator, received an Entrepreneur of the Year EDGE Award from Ernst & Young and ‘Outstanding Emerging Innovation’ honors from the Cincinnati Business Courier.

In a previous life, I was a Managing Consultant with Navigant Consulting and began my career as a CPA at Deloitte & Touche. I live near Cincinnati, OH with my wife Lauren, son Jack, and our dog Harvey.

I’m deeply passionate about entrepreneurship and about helping aspiring business owners muster the courage to leave their corporate jobs to build something amazing. When I’m not getting paid to help business owners, I’m volunteering to help them. I’m actively involved as a mentor in several local startup organizations, including the Brandery, which is a Top 15 startup accelerator headquartered in Cincinnati, and the Founders Institute. Both organizations focus on helping startup founders test their ideas, avoid unforced errors, and get to validation and revenue as quickly as possible. I owe a lot of my success to Brandery mentors who had helped me, so it’s a really fulfilling experience to provide the same support to new founders.

Favorite influencer(s) (authors, bloggers, mentors, speakers, etc.)

Both my passion and our firm’s focus center around technology and marketing startups, so my favorite influencers are all also in the startup space.

 

Scott Galloway – Founder of L2, author of No Mercy No Malice

Jason Lemkin – VC at SaaStr fund and author of SaaStr blog

Bryce Roberts – Indie.vc, author of Strong Words

Noah Kagan – Founder of Sumo.com and author at OkDork

Chris Dixon – Partner at a16z, blogs at https://medium.com/@cdixon/

 

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Read about the other 20 Under 40 Honorees for 2017.