About Tony Wright

Current State of the Tony: I am founder and CEO of RescueTime, a venture-backed startup that helps businesses and individuals understand how they spend their time (and spend it more productively).

We’re a 6-person company in Seattle, Washington. My job at RescueTime includes customer support, user-experience design (from graphics to light coding), SEO, social media marketing, blogging, evangelism, hiring, PR, fund-raising and more. Why have 1 job when you can have 10?

Things that make me incredibly important: Along with my amazing co-founders at RescueTime, I went through the cool and exclusive angel funding/incubator mashup known as YCombinator. I’ve been quoted in a front-page article in the New York Times and a mess of other article focusing on time management, information overload, and startups. I’ve spoken (alone and on panels) at the Web 2.0 Summit, the Information Overload Research Group Conference, The Churchill Club, Seattle Tech Startups, the Six-Hour Startup Conference, and more. I’ve guest-blogged at VentureHacks, BusinessWeek and 47 Hats. I’ve eaten mooseburgers, but not with Sarah Palin. Guy Kawasaki put me on his Startup Alltop thingie. Mike Arrington once said to me, “Yeah, I think I remember you.” Robert Scoble interviewed me, and managed to pick the most horrific frame possible as a thumbnail (you can see the video below). It looks like I’m wearing fake buck-teeth in that particular frame.

Things I’d love to help you with: I like public speaking and would happily speak at your conference, event, or company (assuming it’s about productivity, innovation, startups, UI or other stuff that I’m not entirely stupid about). I’m happy to be interviewed for articles on said subjects. I’d love to do a guest blog post (if your blog gets more traffic than mine). I’d love to talk to your business about how RescueTime can make your teams more productive without being evil and draconian.

However, if you’d like to have coffee for “networking” purposes, I’ll probably try to avoid that during business hours (hey– I run a time management software company! You’ve got to expect me to jealously guard my time.). If you’d like to “network” with me, your best bet is to corner me at any Seattle Tech/Startup event or buy me a drink after 5 in Pioneer Square.

What I did before RescueTime: Before trying to manage the world’s time, I started and sold a small software startup in the recruiting space. The buyer was Jobster (where I worked for a year). Before all that, I ran a web application development consultancy in Anchorage, Alaska (it was 15ish people when I sold my interest in it). Before that, I was in College (Washington College in Chestertown Maryland).

What I do for fun: I like reading (sci-fi and biz books), traveling, cooking, kayaking, sailing, camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, playing casual sports (racquetball, ultimate), computer games, and hanging out with my wonderful wife & dogs.