Companies> People>Ryan Donahue

As a founding member of the PayPal design and user research group, Ryan played a key role in defining the customer experience for many of PayPal's most successful products. His accomplishments included the design of PayPal's Merchant Services, a product suite which today accounts for more than one billion dollars in annual revenue.

In 2002, Ryan created the field studies program at PayPal. Under his direction, the program spanned internationally and he conducted more than 100 hours of research inside the homes and offices of small business owners. During his research he noticed that there were thousands of software solutions to help a person sell a product from a Website, but virtually no solutions existed for those wishing to sell a service.

Upon leaving PayPal, Ryan set out to address this underserved market by developing a user-friendly, online scheduling and marketing service specifically for the millions of small business owners who provide services for a living. After a period of perfecting the technology, he launched HourTown in March 2008.

A highly sought-after expert in user-centered design methodologies, Ryan has consulted a wide range of Silicon Valley investors, non-profits and startups, helping them to design products that better meet the needs of their customers.

Ryan grew up in Northern California and graduated from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon in 1997.