I’d like to take a moment to celebrate the angel investors and venture capitalists who believe in founder dreams and write checks early on.
(I know it’s been a tough week for many of them).
I love to publicly thank Stephen W. Gibson — one of the best human beings I’ve ever met. He was the very first investor in Ancestry dot com back in 1998. I’ll never forget the lunch meeting where he gave us his number.
Amazingly he was also the first investor in Omniture and in 1-800-CONTACTS. His strengths of Activator, Futuristic and Maximizer make him a wonderful first investor.
Founders he has backed (including Josh James and John Pestana) have gone on to fund scores of other startups in turn.
Wonder why Silicon Slopes is thriving? It’s partly due to his decisions to back companies more than twenty years ago. Still rippling.
I met the legendary Ron Conway at a Stanford event about fifteen years ago. He had already invested in something like five hundred startup companies.
Utah, Boulder, Austin, Kansas City, and other places where I’ve spend some time usually have angel investors who take so many risks, believe in so many founders, and create so many jobs for employees on this young and growing companies.
Tag the person you know who has invested in the most startups.
Let’s all celebrate the amazing seed investors that make our collective million dreams come alive.
