Not everybody can wake up each morning and ask, what sounds fun today that might also benefit my community?
Richard Johnson can do it, thanks in large part to what he calls his neuro-divergent brain and the tech boom of the 1990s.
Johnson launched HotJobs.com in late 1996. Very few Americans were using the internet at the time. While the company stayed afloat, Johnson says he and his partner were spending about $100,000 of their own money each month and lagging behind their main competitor, Omnicom.
One evening on the commute home from New York City to Chatham, New Jersey, Johnson says he was thinking about closing the company. But then he had an idea too compelling to ignore. HotJobs.com would run a Super Bowl TV ad.
It was a huge gamble. In 1999, the ad cost two million dollars – about half of the company’s reported revenue at the time. But it worked. The company’s star rose and went public, albeit after the tech sector had begun its deflation.
In 2001, Richard Johnson stepped away from the company. The following year, Yahoo! paid just under $500 million, according to Johnson, for HotJobs.com. Johnson left New York with his family, and by 2005 had found his way to Wilmington, North Carolina.
Over the last decade-and-a-half, he’s purchased a tree farm that raises native North Carolina live oaks, he’s launched a nonprofit to preserve the natural beauty and public access to Masonboro Island, and he’s fired up a campaign to revitalize the town of Burgaw in Pender County. His national competition, Own Your Own Restaurant, awards the winner a one-million- dollar budget to design and build their Burgaw restaurant.
We hear about those projects on this episode, how he decides which ideas to bring to fruition, where those Super Bowl TV ad ideas come from, and why he’s come to view what he calls his neuro-divergency as his greatest gift.
Resources / Links:
Own Your Own Restaurant Competition
