Tech Entrepreneur Ryan Williams Reflects on Seven-Figure Exit from Viral Media Business

Oldham, UK - Three years after selling his stake in a viral media company for a seven-figure sum, tech entrepreneur Ryan Williams says life has remained “surprisingly normal.”

The 36-year-old, who co-founded what later became the KOMI Group, still lives in the same three-bedroom house in Chadderton with his wife Jenna and their two daughters, now aged eight and twelve.

“We bought next door for my mother-in-law and knocked the gardens through,” Williams told the Manchester Evening News. “But other than that, it’s the same house, same car, same Greggs on a Saturday.”

The windfall came after years building viral Twitter accounts including football nostalgia page ‘Slow Sports News’ and Liverpool manager parody ‘Deluded Brendan’, which amassed 300,000 followers.

“It started in 2013 when my newborn had an undiagnosed milk allergy and wasn’t sleeping,” Williams explained. “I was channel-surfing at 3am, saw a Sky Sports memory programme showing Alan Shearer’s 1996 £15m Newcastle transfer, and thought ‘imagine if Twitter existed back then’.”

Within months his accounts were attracting celebrities and 40,000 followers. Soon he was part of a “Twitter mafia” agreeing retweets, earning cash from betting firms and social media monetisation.

The real breakthrough came after he was unmasked as behind the ‘Deluded Brendan’ account at a football awards ceremony, prompting approaches from Dragons Den star Steven Bartlett’s Social Chain and Sportbible.

“I thought they were mad - who’s building a business around social media?” Williams laughed. “I was earning good money in IT at Manchester Met.”

But in 2016 he quit his £35,000-a-year university job, rented an office in Rochdale and with partners Matthew Thomas and Andrew Trotman launched It’s Gone Viral (IGV), later rebranded the KOMI Group.

By 2022 the firm employed 88 staff, boasted 45 million Facebook followers and was turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds monthly through video advertising, nostalgia campaigns and novelty products like a Greggs afternoon tea platter that became a viral hit.

That October, Williams sold his stake. He won’t reveal the exact amount but confirmed it was “seven figures.”

“It felt like a lottery win but also the most stressful day,” he admitted. “I spent hours on the phone to fraud experts, lawyers and banks while my daughters walked in dressed as witches asking to go trick-or-treating - I was probably whiter than the zombies.”

Now he’s written a book with his wife, mentors local youngsters and campaigns around online safety.

“I completely lost my identity,” he confessed. “I went from being the IT guy to the Twitter guy to just being Ryan. It was a strange feeling.

“But sitting in board meetings talking KPIs instead of making funny videos? I was ready to cut and run.”

Despite the wealth, holidays to Lapland and Florida and “mega” Christmases, Williams insists his family remain “down-to-earth northerners.”

“I get why lottery winners speak to psychologists now,” he added. “When you can do whatever you want, sometimes you do the wrong thing.

“But I didn’t want to live like a millionaire. I’m quite normal - I’ll still do normal things.”

And for the lad who got a D in Business Studies at sixth form and “hated business”?

“I ended up being a successful businessman,” he grinned. “Maybe that’s why I like working with people who’ve got business ideas they want to drive forward.

“Because if I can do it, anyone can.”

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