Ian Ippolito

Last updated
Ian Ippolito
Ian Ippolito entrepreneur magazine plaque.png
Occupation Entrepreneur
Employer(s)Founder & CEO, Exhedra Solutions
Known forFounder of vWorker [1]
SpouseElise Gres
Website www.ianippolito.com

Ian Ippolito is an American serial entrepreneur and the founder of numerous tech companies. He is best known as the founder of vWorker (formerly called Rent a Coder), an online portal for outsourcing computer virtual work projects. vWorker was purchased by Freelancer.com in 2013 for an undisclosed price in the millions of dollars. Ippolito is also the founder of the first open-source website (Planet Source Code) and a financial investment site called The Real Estate Crowdfunding Review. [2] As an entrepreneur, he has been featured in and provided commentary for numerous publications and media outlets including Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, as well as Fox and CBS News.

Contents

Early life and education

Ippolito grew up in Merritt Island, Florida, home of Kennedy Space Center. [3] His father was employed by NASA, first working in the Apollo control room and later as the director of the U.S. shuttle tracking station. [3] Ippolito had his first entrepreneurial experience in the fifth grade, helping his mother sell Chinese food to raise money for his school. [4] He initially attended Marquette University in Wisconsin before transferring to the University of Central Florida where he studied computer science. [5] During his time in college, Ippolito read Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins, a book that he attributes to teaching him how to "set goals and develop mental discipline." [6] After graduating from college, Ippolito moved to Tampa, Florida to take his first job. [3]

Career

Ian Ippolito (second from left - speaking), Steve Tingiris, Jason Caras at a monetizing your business conference in 2010. Ian Ippolito 2010.jpg
Ian Ippolito (second from left - speaking), Steve Tingiris, Jason Caras at a monetizing your business conference in 2010.

In 1997 Ippolito launched Planet Source Code, a website for sharing source code of computer programs. He launched the company after wanting to share his own source code, but was unable to find an online platform to do so. Ippolito used Visual InterDev (which later evolved into ASP.NET) to create the site. Planet Source Code is attributed as the first open-source site and grew in popularity, reaching 3 to 4 million page views per month prior to the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001. [7] Ippolito lost most of his site advertisers after the burst, and decided to create a new site for coders. [7] As the webmaster for Planet Source Code, Ippolito received numerous requests from coders asking him to assist with their programming, but was too busy to help them himself. [8] Ippolito saw the need created by demand and launched Rent a Coder in 2001, connecting coders from Planet Source Code with businesses looking for coders. [7] [8]

Ippolito included protection features for both employer and contractor on Rent a Coder. The website was the first online marketplace to do so with the use of escrow payments and arbitration for disputes. Every year from 2007 through 2010, Entrepreneur named Rent a Coder to the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. [9] Ippolito changed the company name from Rent A Coder to vWorker (short for "virtual worker") in 2010. [10] He grew vWorker into a 15 employee, $11.1 million yearly revenue business prior to selling the company. [11]

In 2012, Ippolito sold vWorker to Freelancer.com for an amount reported by TechCrunch as being in the millions (US Dollars). [9] At the time of the sale, it was the fourth largest freelance marketplace. [12] After the sale, Ippolito took six months off before starting his next venture, a financial website called The Real Estate Crowdfunding Review.

In 2015, Ippolito was awarded the University of Central Florida Distinguished Alumni Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement. [13]

Ippolito operates many of his ventures under the parent company Exhedra Solutions, founded by him and his two brothers in 1997. The company is headquartered in Tampa but also operates out of satellite offices in San Francisco, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His work as an entrepreneur has also led to him appearing in major publications and media outlets including Forbes, [11] Entrepreneur, [14] The Wall Street Journal, [1] Business Week, and Fast Company, [8] as well as Fox [15] and CBS News. [16]

Personal life

Ippolito is married to Elise Gres with whom he has one child. He proposed to her by taking her on a scavenger hunt he set up throughout the city of Tampa, leading to clues, presents, and eventually a diamond engagement ring. [17] Ippolito also volunteers as a mentor for aspiring entrepreneurs [18] and he and his wife donate to Feeding America Tampa Bay. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WTVT</span> Fox TV station in Tampa, Florida

WTVT is a television station licensed to Tampa, Florida, United States, serving as the Fox network outlet for the Tampa Bay area. Owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division, WTVT maintains studios on Kennedy Boulevard on Tampa's west side, and its transmitter is located in Riverview.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WTSP</span> CBS affiliate in St. Petersburg, Florida

WTSP is a television station licensed to St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area as an affiliate of CBS. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., and maintains studios on Gandy Boulevard on St. Petersburg's northeast side, just off the Gandy Bridge; its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WFTS-TV</span> ABC affiliate in Tampa, Florida

WFTS-TV, branded as ABC Action News, is a television station licensed to Tampa, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Bradenton-licensed Ion Television station WXPX-TV. WFTS-TV's studios are located on North Himes Avenue on Tampa's northwest side, and its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

WMOR-TV is an independent television station licensed to Lakeland, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area. Owned by Hearst Television, the station maintains studios on Hillsborough Avenue in east Tampa, and its transmitter is located in Riverview. Master control and some internal operations are based at the studios of Orlando NBC affiliate WESH on North Wymore Road in Eatonville.

Bright House Networks, LLC also simply known as Bright House, was an American telecom company. Prior to its purchase by Charter Communications, it was the tenth-largest multichannel video service provider and the 6th largest cable internet provider in the United States. The company served more than 2.2 million customers.

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism school and research organization in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. The school is the owner of the Tampa Bay Times newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Network. It also operates PolitiFact.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bally Sports Florida</span> Regional sports network

Bally Sports Florida is an American regional sports network owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts local sports coverage in the state of Florida, with a focus on professional sports teams based in Miami, Tampa and Orlando.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicente Martinez Ybor</span> Spanish entrepreneur (1818–1896)

Vicente Martinez Ybor was a Spanish entrepreneur who first became a noted industrialist and cigar manufacturer in Cuba, then Key West, and finally Tampa, Florida.

Martech was a video game publisher which operated in Pevensey Bay between 1982 and 1989. It was founded as Martech Games. The company published a number of successful video games for the BBC Model B, ZX Spectrum, ZX81, MSX, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 16, Commodore 64, Atari ST, and Amiga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">College Hunks Hauling Junk</span> North American junk removal and moving company

College Hunks Hauling Junk andMoving is a North American junk removal and moving company with headquarters in Tampa, Florida. The company provides junk removal, local and long distance full service moving and office relocation services including in home donation pickup services for non-profit partner organizations. The company became operational in 2005 and began franchising in 2007.

Freelancer is an Australian freelance marketplace website, which allows potential employers to post jobs that freelancers can then bid to complete. Founded in 2009, its headquarters is located in Sydney, Australia, though it also has offices in Vancouver, London, Buenos Aires, Manila, and Jakarta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indiegogo</span> American crowdfunding website

Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows people to solicit funds for an idea, charity, or start-up business. Indiegogo charges a 5% fee on contributions. This charge is in addition to Stripe credit card processing charges of 3% + $0.30 per transaction. Fifteen million people visit the site each month.

vWorker Employment website for freelancers

vWorker was an employment website that enabled companies to outsource projects and independent contractors to find work. Together with Elance, Freelancer.com, Guru.com, and Upwork, it was one of the largest global freelance marketplaces of its kind. It organized and streamlined the management of outsourced employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GoFundMe</span> American crowdfunding platform

GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the beginning of 2020, over $9 billion has been raised on the platform, with contributions from over 120 million donors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amscot Financial</span>

Amscot Financial is an American financial services company headquartered in Tampa, Florida. Founded in 1989 by Ian MacKechnie, Amscot Financial provides non-bank consumer financial services through a network of retail branches located exclusively within Florida. Amscot's core services include check cashing, bill payment, prepaid access cards, payday loans, free money orders, ATMs in every branch, wire transfers, notary services, fax services, and postage. Amscot Financial operates nearly 240 branch locations in the Tampa Bay, Orlando and Miami media markets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citizinvestor</span> Crowdfunding website

For project funding, Citizinvestor was a civic crowdfunding website that describes itself as a "crowdfunding and civic engagement platform for local government projects on the United States."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter O'Brien</span> Irish businessman, founder of Scorpion Computer Services

Walter O'Brien is an Irish businessman and information technologist. He was also the executive producer and loose inspiration for the television series Scorpion. He is known for claiming various accomplishments, including a childhood IQ of 197, which have been scrutinized and remain unproven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elise Ippolito</span> American artist

Elise Ippolito is an American artist based in Tampa, Florida. She has been featured in numerous media outlets for her works, including portrait and oil paintings.

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over US$34 billion was raised worldwide by crowdfunding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Tian</span> Canadian entrepreneur

Simon Tian is a Canadian businessman, inventor, entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Fonus and Neptune. Born and raised in Montreal, Canada, Tian dropped out of pre-university college at the age of 17 to start Neptune, and, as of late 2017, has raised around $7 million from private investors as well as a total of more than $2 million from crowdfunding sources alone. Tian is a 2015 Thiel Fellow, having been awarded $100,000 by PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation, and was named one of the top 30 Quebecers under 30 by Les Affaires in 2014.

References

  1. 1 2 Flandez, Raymund (13 October 2008). "Help Wanted -- and Found". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 13 January 2014.
  2. ↑ "Pre-funding: The Killer App of Real Estate Crowdfunding". Crowdfunding Insider. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 Shahzada, Usman (24 May 2011). "Interview with Ian Ippolioto, CEO of vWorker". Usman Shahzada. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Secret Academy Episode - Ian Ippolito". Secret Entourage. 28 October 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  5. ↑ Berni (6 January 2014). "From Epic Failure to Multi-Millionaire With Serial Entrepreneur Ian Ippolito". The Shut Up Show. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  6. ↑ Bond, Casey (15 November 2013). "How to Think Like a Millionaire According to Tony Robbins". Go Banking Rates. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 Siu, Eric (15 July 2014). "2 Risky Pivots You Probably Haven't Heard About". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 Kirsner, Scott (1 January 2006). "The Ebay of Programmers". Fast Company. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  9. 1 2 Lunden, Ingrid (19 November 2012). "Freelancer.com Buys Another IT Job Site, vWorker (aka RentACoder.com), For A Price In The Millions". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  10. ↑ "100 Brilliant Ideas 2010". Entrepreneur. 18 May 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  11. 1 2 Hall, Alan (15 October 2012). "100 Founders Share Their Top 'Aha' Moments". Forbes. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  12. ↑ Stafford, Patrick (20 November 2012). "Freelancer snaps up US site vWorker, aims to become "eBay for services"". Smart Company. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  13. ↑ "2015 UCF Alumni CECS Awards". University of Central Florida College of Engineering and Computer Science. 4 August 2015. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
  14. ↑ Prior, Kara Ohngren (6 January 2011). "The Influencers: Five to Follow on Twitter for Crowdsourcing". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 13 January 2014.
  15. ↑ "Fox News Interview with Ian Ippolito". Fox News via YouTube. 17 February 2011. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  16. ↑ "CBS Interview of vWorker CEO Ian Ippolito". CBS WTSP Channel 12. 31 January 2011. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  17. ↑ Alff, Shawn (20 January 2010). "The 20s roared once more for New Year's Eve". Creative Loafing. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  18. ↑ "USF Research Foundation - Mentors". University of South Florida Research & Innovation. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.