Richard J. Christiansen is a serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, philanthropist, mentor, and thought leader. He has given lectures around the world, his keynote presentations the highlight of many university and corporate events. His work has also been featured in numerous publications, including Forbes and USA Today. He is especially passionate about working with and educating youth, especially those in third-world countries. He and his wife, Alice Gaye Christiansen, are the parents of five sons, as well as a daughter whom he sponsored from Nepal. He has an intense love for the outdoors and travel, having visited Mt. Everest three times, while conquering Mt. Kilimanjaro's summit alongside his wife and two youngest sons during the summer of 2017. He is also a consummate and spirited golfer.
Richard worked as General Manager of the PC Division at Mitsubishi Electric, Product Line Manager at Novell, and General Manager of About.com. He left the corporate world in 2003. He is a serial entrepreneur and a parallel entrepreneur, and has founded or co-founded 49 businesses, 16 of which have become multi-million-dollar success stories. Though he has currently sold most of his businesses, his business have seen international success in 14 countries, specializing in wide range of fields, including technology, lead generation, SEO, real estate, online imports and exports, and many others. Some of Richard’s former businesses include: Tornado Solutions, Know More Media, Cyclone Trading Company, MortgageSaver101, Mountain Grabbers LLC, Castlewave, HooDoo Capital, Froghair, and Custom Dreams LLC. Richard's early-state venture capital firm HooDoo Capital has backed Cards2Life, a 3D greeting card business and Ascent Wear, an urban wear clothing store in Provo, UT. In 2011 Richard became an Entrepreneurship Founder for the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology at BYU. In 2017 he became a member of the Southern Utah UniversityBoard of Trustees. As a member of the SUU Board of Trustees, Richard has been involved with entrepreneurship and is the founding member of the SUU Entrepreneurship Leadership Council. Alongside his membership on the SUU Board of Trustees, he is currently the principal of the .
Author
Richard co-authored his first book Bootstrap Business: A Step-By-Step Business Survival Guide. It was published in 2009 by Wizard Academy Press. Richard's second book, The Zigzag Principle was published in 2011 by McGraw-Hill. The Zigzag Principle is a USA Today, Amazon.com, and Inc. Magazine bestseller. Richard co-authored his third book Even if Your Toes Turn Purple: Raising Teenagers that are Confident, Happy, and Stand Out with his sons Tim and Alex Christiansen. Richard was the featured author, in May 2012, of the 12 Books Group leading the discussion of his second book, The Zigzag Principle.
Philanthropy
Richard is involved in philanthropic efforts around the world. He is particularly interested in helping the people of Nepal. After a family trip to the Himalayas in 2001, Richard and his family decided to help the Nepalese people, starting by sponsoring a Sherpa family, bringing them to the United States to further their education.
