Jonathan Coon

About Jonathan Coon

I like to work with a talented team to solve a hard problem and create an experience that customers love.(more below)-Started 1800contacts in my dorm with $50Small company. Annual revenue = what Google does in a day.Public CEO for 10 years. I have been lucky to be part of great teams that did hard things together. Had to get a federal law passed to give Americans a right to their contact lens prescriptions - Lost in 19 of the 22 state capitols where we tried to change the law- Personally invested over 300 days in DC over 5 years before we succeeded - The Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act passed as a stand-alone act through the House and Senate and was signed by the PresidentHad to sue Johnson and Johnson in a federal antitrust case to compel them to sell to us. We lost. And then we won on appeal. And then J&J settled and started selling to 1800contacts - and all Internet sellers.Made a movie with my younger brother called Napoleon Dynamite. We provided 100% of the funding, but Jeremy did all of the work (produced the movie and edited it in Final Cut Pro on his Mac at home) and deserves all of the credit. Got to do a fun demo at TED in 2013 for the tech we developed for glasses.com (creates a 3D head model using the 2D camera on an iPad - something multiple CV experts told us was impossible). 3 minute video attached on this page. Revolutionary at the time. Trivial to do now. The key person on our team who solved this computer vision problem now works at Oculus/Facebook. 1800contacts in June 2012 for $900 million. Retired from 1800contacts in 2014. The company was sold again in September 2020 for $3.1 Billion. I have enjoyed seeing the team continue to do well after I left.The company still answers calls with live humans by the third ring and still sends handwritten apology notes if an order is late. NPS score over 80 - and one of the highest-rated mobile apps in retail. I have been an entrepreneur since I was eight years old.Two quotes we posted in our lobby at 1-800 CONTACTS (before we started our legal and legislative battles):\"The difficult we do now. The impossible takes a little bit longer.\"- US Army Corps of Engineers\"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent- Calvin Coolidge

Experience

1. CEO

   Impossible Ventures

   Nov 2013 — Present

   The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little bit longer.\"- US Army Corps of Engineers\"It\'s kind of fun to do the impossible.\"- Walt Disney

Education

• Brigham Young University

  Bachelor of Science (BS), and 90% of an MBA before dropping out...

  1988 — 1996

Skills

• Marketing Strategy
• Online Advertising
• Marketing
• Start-Ups
• Team Building
• Business Development
• Product Management
• Juggling
• Product Development
• Strategic Partnerships
• E-Commerce
• Strategic Planning
• Magicians
• Business Planning
• Sem
• Sales
• Email Marketing
• Business Strategy