Some entrepreneurs are builders.
Ryan Hogan is a rebuilder.
When I sat down with Ryan — Navy Reservist, serial founder, and CEO of Talent Harbor — I knew I was in for a story. But I didn’t expect the ride to start with zombies and end with a revolution in recruiting.
Ryan’s journey didn’t begin with spreadsheets or strategy decks. It started with a garage full of T-shirts he couldn’t sell. Out of that misstep, he launched Run For Your Lives — a 5K obstacle race filled with actors dressed as zombies, back when The Walking Dead was just breaking out. What started as a side hustle to move leftover inventory exploded overnight. Thousands of runners showed up. Lines backed up for miles. And then, just as fast, the market dried up.
The business crashed.
But Ryan didn’t.
He went back to the Navy, regrouped, and started studying what went wrong. That season of loss became the training ground for the next chapter — Hunt A Killer.
If you haven’t heard of it, Hunt A Killer was a murder-mystery subscription box experience that grew from zero to $205 million in revenue in six years . It was part game, part story, part cultural phenomenon. Ryan and his team built it like a Hollywood studio — blending narrative, design, and community.
But success comes with its own kind of strain. When he got called back to active duty, Ryan suddenly found himself leading a fast-scaling company from the Mediterranean — Zoom calls from the deck of a Navy ship. That deployment forced him to rely on something many founders resist: systems.
He learned how to lead through structure, not adrenaline. He implemented EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) to create order from chaos, and surrounded himself with mentors and peers through his Vistage group — a circle of CEOs who pushed him harder than any investor ever could.
Those two decisions, he says, changed everything .
When he returned home, Hunt A Killer had become a household name — but Ryan was ready for something different. The biggest pain point he’d experienced through all of his ventures wasn’t product or profit. It was people.
Finding the right talent was always the hardest part. Traditional recruiters were expensive, misaligned, and often chasing commissions instead of culture.
So Ryan built Talent Harbor — a recruiting-as-a-service company that flips the entire model. Instead of taking huge commissions, his team charges a flat monthly rate — around $6,200 — to help businesses hire top talent fast .
When I asked how he came up with that, he laughed and said,
“I just took everything I hated about recruiters… and built the opposite.”
It’s classic Ryan — simple, practical, disruptive.
He calls it Recruiting as a Service, or “RaaS.” Clients can turn it on when they need it, pause when they don’t. No 30% placement fees. No bait-and-switch. Just experts who hunt for A-players the same way sales teams hunt for leads.
He told me, “The best people aren’t sitting on job boards — they’re out there selling, building, leading. You’ve got to hunt them.”
That’s the through line in Ryan’s story. Whether he’s designing a zombie race, a mystery box, or a recruiting system — he’s always been hunting. For talent. For innovation. For truth in the middle of chaos.
As we wrapped up, I asked Ryan what advice he’d give to other founders.
He didn’t hesitate:
“Find a peer group. Period. Everything else you’ll figure out there.”
That’s wisdom earned, not borrowed.
Ryan Hogan is the kind of entrepreneur who reminds you that reinvention isn’t a pivot — it’s a pattern. Every setback, every failure, every messy rebuild becomes the foundation for what comes next.
He’s proof that sometimes you have to run for your life before you can learn how to build one.
🎧 You can listen to my full conversation with Ryan Hogan on The Entrepreneurial Journey Podcast.
It’s a wild story of zombies, leadership, Navy grit, and the belief that great companies are built one great hire at a time.
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