drewshula.com » angel investor http://drewshula.com Ideas for Green Building 2.0 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:46:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 en hourly 1 Philosophical Minds Think Business http://drewshula.com/2009/06/24/philosopher-business-men/ http://drewshula.com/2009/06/24/philosopher-business-men/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:51:16 +0000 Drew Shula http://drewshula.com/?p=266 LinkedIn founder, Reid Hoffman.

LinkedIn Founder & CEO, Reid Hoffman.

I was happy to read that Reid Hoffman, Founder and CEO of LinkedIn, also studied Philosophy before entering the business world.

I studied Architecture with a supplementary major in Philosophy at Notre Dame, and Reid earned a masters in Philosophy at Oxford. Some of my favorite thinkers are Socrates, Ayn Rand, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Reid is a great role model. He has dominated in Silicon Valley, helping to finance over 60 companies, 25+ from initial conception. He has been an angel investor for:

facebook.com, digg.com, bioscale.com, nanosolar.com, lulan.com, taxipass.com, naseeb.com, technorati.com, grassroots.com, friendster.com, socialtext.com, realtravel.com, rhythmnetworks.com, ravenflow.com, targetedgrowth.com, wink.com, wikia.com, adventsolar.com, bioscale.com, ning.com, tagged.com, tinypictures.us, etology.com, winster.com, rupture.com, jaxtr.com, kongregate.com, powerset.com, care.com, funnyordie.com, ironport.com, flixster.com, flickr.com, last.fm, grockit.com, and sixapart.com

These are some major Internet powerhouses. Ironically, I had a temp position at Ironport in 2006 before they were acquired by Cisco. I was living in Oakland at the time and temping in “The City.” It was a fun experience — data entry into Excel spreadsheets for eight hours at a time, hahah…. I also temped at Wired magazine during that period (answering the phone at the reception desk = BIG TIME BABY!) before I moved to Los Angeles in 2007.

Getting Reid Hoffman to invest in Vverdant, would be the equivalent of an up-and-coming rapper getting a co-sign from Jay-Z. Let me go brush my shoulders off….

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.]]> http://drewshula.com/2009/06/24/philosopher-business-men/feed/ 0 Valley of Death http://drewshula.com/2009/06/11/valley-of-death/ http://drewshula.com/2009/06/11/valley-of-death/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:05:53 +0000 Drew Shula http://drewshula.com/?p=114 700px-startup_financing_cyclesvg1Financing for my fledgling business venture has been on my mind. I’m currently in the start-up “Valley of Death,” that part of the financing cycle where you’re investing in yourself and going negative. It’s hard work to pull that curve back into a parabola, but I’m passionate about my idea so I think it’s very possible.

I can ask around, but the liklihood of an angel investor is not good. I could head to Vegas, but I don’t like my odds there either. The surest way to get this off the ground seems to be through diligence, creativity, and a solid belief that taking this risk will lead to a reward in the end. I go to Rick Ross for inspiration….The venture capital will come to me if I do this right.

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