RescueTime CEO Tony Wright to step down, eyes next opportunity |
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RescueTime CEO Tony Wright to step down, eyes next opportunity
Wright
RescueTime chief executive Tony Wright plans to step down from the 28-month-old company. The well known Seattle entrepreneur and blogger said he's not sure about his next move, though he cryptically adds that he has some ideas brewing.
"I will definitely be in the world of startups one way or another," Wright said. "My happiest times are on small, fast-moving teams. It's very hard to get that feeling at larger companies. Spinning up something new is definitely on my list of possibilities."
RescueTime was founded as a Y Combinator-backed startup in January 2008, with the company raising $875,000 from True Ventures, angel investor Mike Koss and others that summer. The company has developed an online service to track how people spend their time in front of computers, a service that has won it plenty of attention given the Orwellian implications.
Wright said he's leaving RescueTime at a period of strong growth, with quarterly revenue averaging 51 percent over the past four quarters. About 600 to 1000 users sign up for the product every day, with an increasing number of Fortune 500 companies signing on in order to get a better understanding of how their workforces function.
"The other side of our business, our data asset, is getting super interesting," he added. "We now have hundreds of millions of man hours of second by second attention data -- inside and outside of the browser."
Wright said he plans to continue to work on some select projects at the startup, but co-founder Joe Hruska will be stepping in as interim CEO. RescueTime also is working on a small acquisition.
Prior to RescueTime, Wright sold the Internet startup Jobby to Jobster in 2006. He plans to stay in Seattle. Here's more on how the RescueTime service works:
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