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User:Matgrey/sandbox/Joel Runyon

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Joel Runyon

Joel Runyon (born in Winfield, Illinois) is a publisher, internet entrepreneur and app developer. His company Impossible Ventures is best known for it's growth hacking work with startups, the branded flagship property ImpossibleHQ.com and several properties surrounding the paleo diet.

Education

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Runyon attended Wheaton North High School from 2001-2005. Upon graduation, he attended Bethel College from 2005-2009 and obtained a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Spanish.

There he played JV basketball and threw javelin as part of the Mens Outdoor Track & Field Team. Runyon was a part of the Men's team that won a NCCAA National Championship in 2009[1].

Career

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After graduating college in 2009, Runyon was unemployed and could only find work as part-time seasonal helper at UPS.

After getting laid off, Joel moved to Indiana to find work. Runyon worked at a Carmel-based marketing firm, Fat Atom, where he worked his way up from apprentice to marketing director.

After 18 months, Runyon became the director of e-commerce at Rocket Clicks where he managed the online advertising spend for Camping World (at the time, under the direction of Marcus Lemonis).

After a short stint, Runyon quit his job to start his company, Impossible Ventures, in early 2012[2].

Under the Impossible Ventures brand, Runyon expanded the business to include ImpossibleHQ.com and started another site, UltimatePaleoGuide.com, to provide easily accessible information about the paleo diet.

At the same time, he began to work closely with startups through Impossible Ventures' consulting arm. Notable clients include SpotHero, where he helped scale them from two to seven cities and helped triple their site traffic[3]. He has also worked with other TechStars portfolio companies including Simple Energy.

Impossible Ventures now serves to incubate the various internal business, apps and websites along with serving as a high-leverage consulting firm to rapidly growing startups[4].

Speaking

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Runyon has spoken at several venues including Target, SDSU, Loyola University Chicago as well as other colleges and conferences.

His TEDx talk on Cold Shower Therapy has garnered over 187,000 views on YouTube[5].

Writing

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In 2012, Runyon met Russel Kirsch and wrote about the encounter[6]. In the following days, the article went viral and was featured on Oprah, Discover Magazine, and The Guardian[7].

Runyon has created several books on fitness including:

  • Impossible TRI - A triathlon training program (no longer for sale)
  • Impossible Abs

Runyon has also contributed to Virgin.com, Huffington Post, and been featured in Entrepreneur.com, TIME, and FastCompany.

Apps

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Through Impossible Ventures, Runyon has published three apps[8]:

  • Cold Shower Therapy
  • Paleo (io)
  • MoveWell App

Philanthropy

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Runyon has initiated and participated in several philanthropic efforts.

  • He founded a team on Kiva.org that has lent over $35,000 to entrepreneurs in developing countries[9].
  • He has also helped build two schools with the educational non-profit, Pencils of Promise[10][11].

References

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  1. ^ http://thenccaa.org/custompages/History%20PDF%20Files/Men's_Indoor_Track_and_Field_Archives.pdf
  2. ^ www.bethelcollege.edu/magazine/2012/11/09/living-the-impossible/
  3. ^ http://impossiblehq.com/spothero-case-study/
  4. ^ http://angel.co/impossible-ventures
  5. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb0h8ZKvJW4
  6. ^ http://impossiblehq.com/an-unexpected-ass-kicking/
  7. ^ http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2012/aug/20/technology-links-newsbucket
  8. ^ https://impossible.ventures/apps/
  9. ^ http://www.kiva.org/team/impossible_league
  10. ^ http://impossiblehq.com/impossible-school-2013-pop/
  11. ^ http://777.impossiblehq.com/
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