Ryan Goodwin

From the start of my career, I have fused two worlds:

Creative Product Solutions

Software Implementation

I've balanced both from very early on. As a Team Lead on TraderOnline, I doubled for quite awhile as the Product Manager for CollectorCarTraderOnline—designing and implementing Place An Ad processes, dealership management platforms, and search engines.

That is the path I’ve followed since: listening, diagnosing, creating new interfaces and behaviors, then implementing those solutions. It is where I thrive. My career has existed here with great success, underscored by revenue growth and big exits:

$14M to $40M+ in my time driving CommercialTruckTrader, EquipmentTrader, & CommercialWebServices.

A $680M exit from Dominion Web Solutions to carve out and build Trader Interactive.

Reselling TI 4 years later for over $1B.

All while operating in lean environments with targeted investments. Yet I've maintained strong margins (50%+), cash flow, and practical OpEx/CapEx.

I attribute my success to this approach:

Empathy: Treat your customers with empathy, not as wallets to extract cash from.

Humans: Treat your teams as humans, not as employee numbers with expense attached to them.

Pragmatism: Be practical and pragmatic in your growth.

Decisive: Reduce pivots or lurches as much as possible through thoughtful, data-driven roadmaps.

Frugal: Treat every dollar spent in OpEx as dollars that cannot be invested in your team and company.

Efficient: Every CPU cycle and Gigabyte of memory used is a recurring expense. Be efficient in your code.

Functional: Every bug released is an expense.

Observability: Build the tools you need to measure and alert on your software, hardware, and expenses.

Self Awareness: Don't fall in love with your own ideas. Encourage open debate and pressure test concepts with data.

Company: Collaborate more than you compete with your colleagues.

Outside the office, I coach Under-18 Rugby with a great international group of coaches at the 757 Rugby Academy. This is a tremendous experience and a great exercise in teaching young men and women how to be decisive and strong with grit and endurance. Rugby really is chess with physical contact thrown on top. It requires keen awareness, sharp decision making, and interlocking teamwork to find success—all concepts that translate directly into the professional world.

Let's connect and discuss how my blend of product vision and technical leadership can drive your next stage of growth!