for W3c validation
Last Wednesday, I volunteered some time at the Seattle Angel Conference at Impact Hub (where I am a member) to man the front desk for a few hours, and wanted to put a few thoughts down on paper (or, into a database with a keyboard technically).
The turnout was impressive; I’d say about 100 people in total. I, of course, am not an angel investor – so didn’t know much about the Seattle Angel community in Seattle that John Sechrest has cultivated over the years. The energy in the room was great.
Josh Maher, a longtime friend, was the keynote speaker.
Josh recently published a book, Startup Wealth, and touched on a wide rang of topics related to angel investing in his 30 minute time slot. He showed some compelling data that Seattle startup scene is actually not lacking capital (the common knock on Seattle’s tech startup ecosystem) – and talked about what he really looks for in entrepreneurs being “appetite”. Appetite boils down to two primary traits — how big do they see this being, and are they willing to persevere/sacrifice to achieve that vision.
After Josh spoke, there were 6 pitches vying for the investment prize:
- Slope – @GoSlope – Collaborative tool to improve the creation of visual content
- 2Morrow – @2MorrowInc – Quit Smoking mobile app for behavior change
- GrowPlastics – @GrowPlastics – Better bioplastics
- 6Crickets – @6crickets – Summer camp scheduling made easier
- IXD – @ixdco – Secure information delivery
- Camp Native – @campnative – Organizing the worlds Campsites
- Tenacity – @tenacityhealth – Improving staff retention at call centers
The investment panel debated long and hard, and decided to award two investments rather than just one. Congratulations to the two winners, Tenacity and Camp Native.
