Tom Messner / VT Startup News
You probably know him well. Whether from NBC5, the Lake Monsters field, or VT Startup News, Tom Messner is (smiling) everywhere. In this episode of Start Here, we explore his passion for Vermont’s entrepreneurial scene, his commitment to investing locally, and even unravel the mystery of weather balloons.
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Tom Messner 0:17
I think in some of the bigger cities, it’s hard to get to some of the people you want to I’m not sure there’s anybody that wouldn’t let me talk to them. And there’s an absolute overall feeling here that everybody helps everybody.
Nicole Eaton 0:36
Welcome to start here the podcast sharing the stories active, aspiring and accidental entrepreneurs. I’m Nicole Eaton.
Dave Bradbury 0:44
And I’m Dave Bradbury. So let’s get to the show.
Nicole Eaton 0:46
So welcome Tom!
Tom Messner 0:48
Well, thank you. It’s good to be here.
Dave Bradbury 0:50
Thanks for coming north and talking to us.
Tom Messner 0:52
Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Okay, I like Florida part of the year. What can I say?
Dave Bradbury 0:57
I’m not gonna out you. I wasn’t gonna do that.
Nicole Eaton 1:01
Okay, so first off, we want to know why did you start the Vermont startup news?
Tom Messner 1:08
Because nobody was doing anything like it. To be honest with you, when I started to do some angel investing, I was looking all over the place to try to find out what was going on in the investment community, and there was really no clearing house for it at all. It seemed to be pretty siloed, and you had to know people in each individual silo to find out what was going on. I found it a little bit frustrating, so I decided to try to find out myself what is going on and then tell everybody.
Dave Bradbury 1:38
So did you just produce the first one and throw it out there on your LinkedIn page. Like, how did you build your network? Where’d that come from? Was it the 30 years in television?
Tom Messner 1:48
Really, just what you said. I put it on more than just LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is workout traction. And I just, yeah, I made it up. It had, it had very bad graphics at first. And I did get some help on the graphics, which-
Dave Bradbury 2:00
MVP advice, so I just put it out there, and we’ll see if people care, right?
Tom Messner 2:04
It kind of was, and it was interesting, because people like you guys, and people in the investment community who was on LinkedIn at the time said, what an interesting idea. And I had asked a few people if they thought it was valid and, you know, worthy. And everybody said, Oh yeah, that would be cool. So it kind of went from there, and it’s been going on for a few years now.
Nicole Eaton 2:24
I love it, and I don’t know how you do it, maybe it’s because you have a lot of connections on LinkedIn, but it’s always the first thing I see whenever you post it. It’s right there. Really. It’s amazing, because if I go on LinkedIn in the morning, usually that’s what I do. I get all my updates from your video.
Dave Bradbury 2:41
He does sort of like load at the top of the page. It’s what do you really
Tom Messner 2:45
I have no idea why that happens. I honestly don’t, but I’m really glad to hear that that’s cool.
Dave Bradbury 2:56
…Oh my gosh. So why don’t we just describe to maybe folks haven’t seen it. What is Vermont startup news? What do you try to accomplish in that that time?
Tom Messner 3:08
It’s really kind of a, I would call it like a news update for the investment community and really the startup community. So when you listen to it, it’s like, here’s what we have coming up today. We’re going to talk about company XYZ, and then whatever they’re doing, we’ll give some details. It’s usually, you know, each update specifically is about 30 to 45 seconds. You know, maybe somebody got funding, maybe somebody has a new product, stuff like that. It’s not very long. The whole thing is usually round about four minutes, give or take about 30 seconds, something like that. And, and it’s that simple. And I’ve been doing it for a couple of years, and it has gotten a little bit longer, because, you know, when things are happening, you don’t want to go things out, yeah. And so the idea is to just get it out there every other week. At this point, is what I’m doing. I would love to do it every week. It would be a little tough on me, because I do travel a lot, but also, every other week actually feels about right in terms of how much stuff is happening in the startup community around Vermont.
Nicole Eaton 4:16
Yeah, it seems like every time, every time you post, there’s new, new information out there, and it’s something I really appreciate, because a lot of the times, yeah, you don’t want to read all the updates on LinkedIn every day, and so every other week, it’s easy to digest because it’s only little bits, but it’s really valuable.
Dave Bradbury 4:34
Yeah, I love I really enjoy it, because you can fall in that trap of like, oh, we see it all, we know, it all you know. And I’ve always, I always wonder, what the blind spots are you guys know, but like- You’ve been fantastic for our companies to get some visibility. But I am always surprised with the ingenuity. And the business formations that go around our state that don’t know about us, yes, reminds us of the job we have to do.
Nicole Eaton 5:08
Totally. Now I’m curious, is this what you thought you’d want to do after you retired from from your TV career?
Tom Messner 5:16
No
Nicole Eaton 5:16
No? Wait, so tell us about that.
Tom Messner 5:20
A lot of my life, I don’t know if I want to call it a series of accidents, but it almost is, in a way. You know, I went to school, got a degree in Business Economics, but at this school, I really got into radio. So then I did radio for a while, then I did TV. And the only reason I got into TV was because I was in Rochester, New York, my hometown, and there was a local NBC affiliate television station that was terrible, and they actually put out an ad. I had never seen this before. I’ve never seen it since. It said we’re gonna hold all open auditions to find a weekend weather person. I’m like, okay, so I went in and I auditioned for a TV job, and got it, and I knew nothing about the weather at all. So I got the job, realized I knew nothing. The Weather Channel was new. Then I turned I turned the Weather Channel on, and I was writing stuff down. It’s like, oh yeah. It was raining over this word, all this stuff, yeah. And then I realized, I mean, virtually, immediately I said, if I’m gonna do this, I better get a clue. So I went back to school for meteorology after that, and then worked at one, I guess, one other place for a few years before I came over here.
Dave Bradbury 6:43
Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. Fake it t make it I heard on the front end right and then-
Tom Messner 6:48
So, so let me just to answer your question. So I end up over here for 31 years on TV, and it was the greatest gig ever. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I loved every minute of it, but I always knew that I wanted to do business on the backside. So toward the end of my career in television, I started to look around, and honestly, I kind of stumbled on and I think Shark Tank helped. Hate to admit that, but I really do love Shark Tank, yeah. And I got interested in what’s this investing all about? So I started to read everything I could find. And then started to seek out people like Dave and some others to see what this was all about. And then I started to do a little bit of investing, not only here, but nationally. And so then when I left my job at Channel Five, I was like, no, okay, you know, this will be kind of neat to be retired. And I was pretty happy for about four and a half minutes. And I’m, like, failed at retirement. I am a bad retired person. I just am so so I needed, I needed things to do, and Vermont startup news fit right in there, because the timing was right with getting frustrated with that, you know, kind of the silo situation I was talking about. And I said, Well, you know, I know how to make video. Maybe I’ll mess around and make some video on all this. And it caught on. And, you know, again, it was kind of an accident. So great.
Dave Bradbury 8:15
Well, we don’t know how to make video, so you’re our guinea pig.
Tom Messner 8:18
Weel I think we’re doing okay. Seems to be working great.
Dave Bradbury 8:21
I noticed a couple logos on your outfit today. So you joined the lake monsters early last year sometime or in why? What is the organization and why is this taking up part of your quote, retirement.
Tom Messner 8:37
Bad, retired guy. I Gosh, I don’t know, three, four years ago, whatever it was, soon after I retired, I called up CJ Knudson over at the Vermont lake monsters. I said, you know, I have an idea. I was thinking that maybe I could help promote the team. I, you know, knew I had some visibility. I knew how to make videos. I thought, you know, we could make some videos, and I could come out to the stadium and do some stuff. So I did a little bit that year, and I said, this was kind of fun. So then the next year, I did a little bit more, and I said, this is really a lot of fun. I really like this. And this almost, I don’t, it kind of sounds cheesy, but when I’m there and I look up into the crowd, everybody seems happy, and I feel like we’ve gone through a time recently where that’s not so much the case. And I just find that this is kind of like a place to go, bring the family, forget about your troubles. You know, have some local Vermont beer. Have some cheap hot dogs. And I just loved the atmosphere. So I went to the owner, the general partner of the lake monsters. I said, Hey, Chris. Chris English, would you be interested in taking on some local investment? Because there was nobody local that was on the cap table. Mm. Wow. And he said, you know, let me think about it, whatever. And I thought, Okay. And then I didn’t hear anything from him for a while. So there was an event with the lake monsters. They were in the playoffs, and we were out of town, and I got invited to come sit in a box with them. And so I go to the box that day, and in there was Chris, the owner, who’s not from here, and then some people from the lake monsters. And I walked in, and he looked at me, and he said, I understand that you’re more popular than champ. Is that true? And I said, Wow, I don’t know about that. And then the talks began again. Wow. And that’s how this all happened.
Dave Bradbury 10:43
More popular than the mascot!
Tom Messner 10:44
I just laughed. I’m like, okay!
Dave Bradbury 10:48
I don’t know who wouldn’t want Tom part of their team, right?
Nicole Eaton 10:51
I know. I mean, I just love your energy. You’re always positive, and it makes sense that you want to be in that community where everyone does seem happy, and I think you also do a great job at facilitating that too, with the crowd.
Tom Messner 11:05
Well, that’s nice, and I really appreciate that. I just love the setup that I have here, because it’s about a two and a half month season, so it’s a short season. We certainly do stuff on the off season. And believe me when I say, I do less than anybody else in the front office by a mile. But, you know, I do some of the liaison work with media. We’re getting a TV spot done, and we were just working on that and things like that, and then go out there, do my thing for two and a half months, and then I kind of disappear. It’s pretty good gig.
Dave Bradbury 11:36
Wow. Jealous. I know. I’m like, okay, the truth has the team’s record improved since you have arrived? I’m looking for correlation, causation.
Tom Messner 11:52
I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t think the team so you haven’t improved, but, but I’ll tell you, man, we’ve sold a lot of hot dogs.
Dave Bradbury 11:59
Okay, so all right, hot dogs, fans are happier teams performance
Tom Messner 12:03
25 cent hot dogs. Can you imagine? It’s really something
Dave Bradbury 12:07
I would overeat, for sure.
Tom Messner 12:09
They sell over 8000 hot dogs on these nights when they have the 25 cent hot dogs, it is hilarious.
Dave Bradbury 12:16
Well, V set, one of our member nights usually goes to lake monsters game, and people love it.
Tom Messner 12:22
It’s a lot of fun!
Dave Bradbury 12:23
Its a happy place, and a nice, intimate feel.
Tom Messner 12:28
Yeah, it’s good family stuff too, you know. And I think about when my kids were younger, to be able to sit in the crowd and then send them off to the Fun Zone, we call it, or go ahead and get your own ice cream or whatever, and you know, they’re safe. It’s kind of cool. And I’m not sure how many places there are like that, probably in Vermont, more than certainly most places. But still, sometimes that’s hard to find in that, and that’s just something we’re trying to do there.
Dave Bradbury 12:51
Good for you. Good for you. I can’t wait for the season to start. Let’s skip I want to talk more about this angel investing thing, and why on earth you felt like it was something you wanted to do. And I think you’ve made, you know, probably over three dozen investments you’re in Dudley fund, fresh tracks, one out in the west coast. So just bring, bring us through the process of some of the homework you did, okay? Because I think there are others out there that may want to do this. And, you know, any lessons learned in that regard about All right, I want to start putting my private capital into these businesses. How do I judge good or bad? How do I know I’m not being, you know, fooled or why am I so lucky that I get to do this one like, Yeah, sort of awkward first couple years.
Tom Messner 13:43
When I stuck my toe in originally, it was actually, it was a national syndicate situation. And for those that don’t know, what happens is people will start a syndicate, and then you can invest with that person, and hopefully that person has some kind of track record, and in a lot of ways, you’re trusting that person. And you say, Well, you know, if I’m in the syndicate of this guy that I really trust, and I read all his books, and he’s had some good success in the past, he or she, then I want to be part of that. And that’s how it began for me. And one thing I liked about the Syndicate is you could get in very cheap. So you could get in for, at the time, I think, was $4,000 it might be up to 5000 now, but it’s a it’s a really good way I found to learn about this without spending a ton of money. Because sometimes locally, and certainly not always, but sometimes locally, it’s hard to get in for like, a $5,000 thing, you might need minimum, what 25 David, you would know, and a lot of times, really more than that. And going back to the syndicate thing, what I liked about that too, is they guarantee you that the company that you’re investing in will give you updates. So I was actually learning i. Yeah, from the syndicate itself. Why are you investing in this company? Give me the reasons. What are the pluses? What are the minuses? And then, when you’d hear the updates from these people and their companies, I just felt like I was learning a lot about this-
Dave Bradbury 15:13
I guess, to put a couple chips down, you know, and then just sort of learn different insights, right, build structuring, and then the operations, and-
Tom Messner 15:26
Yeah, and I, you know, to me, you know, education, I don’t, you can’t put a price on that. So I’m thinking to myself, if I put in, you know, this many four or $5,000 bets and lose it, I certainly never put in more than I could afford to lose. So you know, a percentage of my portfolio, mine and Kate’s portfolio, is in private stuff, and I really believe in it, and especially when I got more involved in Vermont, because then you literally know the players, you’re shaking hands with them, you’re going to meetings with them. You’re getting updates from them. Depending on what the product is, you can buy it. And it got much more exciting when, as you guys know as well as anybody, to actually be part of a company that is hiring people that are local. People are moving here to work for this company. It’s wildly exciting, and that just means so much to me, because I want to see Vermont thrive.
Nicole Eaton 16:30
Yeah, so talk about your love for Vermont. Obviously, you’re not from here, but you’ve been here for a long time. And what do you find special about Vermont and the startup ecosystem here?
Tom Messner 16:42
I think, more than anything, access, you know, I think in some of the bigger cities, it’s hard to get to some of the people you want to. I’m not sure there’s anybody that wouldn’t let me talk to them. If that makes sense, I was gonna say take a call, or whatever. I love that about here, and there’s an absolute overall feeling here that everybody helps everybody. I have not run into anybody who was a roadblock here in terms of investing. I don’t think, I can’t think of a time. I’m not sure that what the case is other places, just because I haven’t been there, but I find it hard to believe that that’s the case in a lot of other places?
Dave Bradbury 17:24
Yeah, I would, I would agree with that. I mean, the access to just ask an opinion, or to find out why investors are in a company that maybe you want to consider joining on the cap table at some point. Like it’s information, it’s relationships. It’s, you know, we get 2025 cold emails coming in a day, someone pitching something from all over the planet. And you become immune to those at some point, you just sort of delete them and don’t read them. So I think there’s a real benefit to place and other trusted parties that you could go take a more serious look at an opportunity.
Tom Messner 18:05
Well, I think of a guy like you, you know, you’ve been here for a long time now. I read about you, did a little background, and figured, well, there’s a guy who in the world, or, you know, who would? Why in the world would that guy want to talk to me? If I you know, it’s like, Oh, there’s the guy from TV, and I don’t have time for that, so I’ve got some companies to work with, or whatever you and you were just one example. It’s like, oh, hey, you’re interested in this. That is really cool. Why don’t you come up to VCET. I’ll show you around. What do you you know? What can I do to help you? You know that, to me, is just huge, and I just find that over and over again here.
Dave Bradbury 18:51
Yeah. I do remember our first conversation here at VCET. I usually try to talk people out of it, just like, No, this is not for the meek, or it’s such high risk, maybe high reward, but just mostly that there’s alignment about why to be an angel investor. And I was an angel investor prior to starting a VCET, you know, many years ago, too. And it’s, it’s, it’s awesome. I mean, I any stories of a pitch, or an entrepreneur that just really knocked it out of the park, and how they, you know, what came across, like, what was the magic that made you connect with the business or them?
Tom Messner 19:32
Yeah, Lindsay over at Bolton Valley, yeah, I’ve never seen anything like it, yeah, she’s awesome. So she’s going to do a pitch. And by then, you know, I had some friends, so we’re all going to see the pitch together. And I’m like, yeah, right, a ski area that, and good thinking with climate change and stuff, sure, I’m going to everybody in the room was like, okay, she was unbelievable. Unbelievable. Now, I’ve seen other good pitches, but that’s the one that surprised me the most, because there was just in my head going into that. I said, You got to be out of your mind to do this. And her pitch was great. I loved it. A lot of us put money into it, and I give her a lot of credit, because she’s doing quite well.
Dave Bradbury 20:18
Yeah, undeniable. I mean, it’s, you know, we look for undeniable people with some specific insight in an inevitable market.
Tom Messner 20:25
An that one’s a little bit different in that, you know, there was a, there was a ski hill there. It wasn’t like something’s on a laptop and eventually make it, yeah, right, right, yeah. So, so I knew that was a different thing, and there’s land involved, so that was a different story, but for her to overcome, for everybody that was there, you know, given what’s going on again with the climate, everybody’s like, Oh yeah, we’re going with Lindsay, yeah, oh yeah,
Nicole Eaton 20:54
That’s awesome. So having a background in weather and being a meteorologist, I can’t help but wonder, what is it like hearing pitches about solutions to combat climate change? Like, do you consider what you know about the weather more than others? Like, how does that work? What is your process?
Tom Messner 21:14
I mean, I’m certainly open to looking at it and and, yeah, it catches my attention, but I did a funny thing when I, when I left the TV station, my wife just, she just shakes her head. I really turned it off immediately not to say, like, I’ve kind of have gone full circle, and I’m back to to looking at the weather and doing all this stuff. But for a long time, I just did my last day we went to Florida right after that. So we were gone for months, and I didn’t look at any weather at all, none. Wow. So what I did was I was changing. I was kind of my attention had been changed. So I was reading a lot of business books and stuff like that. I’m like, Okay, that was a great chapter, and the weather’s cool, and we all deal with it every day, and all that stuff, I said, but now I need to do this. So it was weird. I mean, I just, like, shifted a year. Wow, yeah, now I’m kind of back to doing weather now, because people still ask me, is it gonna rain tomorrow?
Dave Bradbury 22:12
I’m like, should I come out to the ballpark?
Tom Messner 22:15
Yeah, well, that’s the other thing too, because out at the ballpark, you know, if it’s raining or something, you need to tell them when it’s gonna stop. So, so I do have to wrap it up for the ball team.
Dave Bradbury 22:24
It’s really nice to have you know someone an expert in weather in your back pocket. We had a member of Jay Schaefer from he was a professor up at Linden for a while. They had different products for weather, and I never forget Dick was Mike Lane was was here when fluency started, and they do a sleep out on Church Street every year to raise money for spectrum, I think. And we didn’t know which way the wind was going to blow with the storm that was expected. And got a hold of Jay, and he’s like, got into his model. He said, you want to sleep on this side of the rock?
Tom Messner 22:59
Yeah. I mean, that’s money in the bank right there.
Dave Bradbury 23:02
Yeah, it was so cool. Oh, my God, that worked.
Tom Messner 23:09
It has its advantages, for sure. Yeah. And it’s funny, because I’ve really gotten into fishing down south, so, so I am back to and wind is such a such a thing there.
Nicole Eaton 23:20
That is crazy. Do you this is a random question, do you have an iPhone or an Android? I have an iPhone. Do you use the apple weather app? Because I hear opinions of it’s not accurate. Use the weather channel like, what do you use?
Tom Messner 23:36
The app for weather on the iPhone is the Weather Channel.
Nicole Eaton 23:44
Okay. So it’s accurate?
Tom Messner 23:50
….I mean, I don’t really think so. My wife and I go back and forth about this. She goes, it’s gonna rain in 15 minutes, and I’ll hop on the radar or something. I’m like, Get out of here, you know. So sometimes, sometimes it’s okay, okay, you know, depending on, you know, do you want to know what the high is going to be? That might work.
Nicole Eaton 24:08
Okay, that’s good.
Tom Messner 24:10
So I want to get back to the climate tech investing. And, you know, whether you think, is it over hyped? Is it, is it necessary, like, Do you have any sort of macro views on that area for investing?
Tom Messner 24:31
Well, with the political environment? No, because I don’t know. Nobody knows what’s going to happen right now.
Dave Bradbury 24:41
Tough to find opportunities?
Tom Messner 24:43
Tough to find if anything that has government related, it could go away honestly. And I think sometimes the macro look at climate stuff needs a government involved.
Dave Bradbury 24:59
Mm. For the for the baseline data, etc.
Tom Messner 25:02
Yeah stuff like that. And if we don’t have it, it’s a problem. So I think right now, it’s just really, it’s really tough to dive into that, which is unfortunate, because we need it. Now. We all know that, and that’s kind of how I feel about it. I’m I’m nervous. I mean, they, they have just eliminated a lot of jobs at the at the National Weather Service offices are short people. They stopped in some spots. They had problems sending up weather balloons. And you think about this, these weather balloons are essential for forecasts. That’s where you get the data that goes into the models that spit out when it’s gonna rain-
Dave Bradbury 25:41
Like a real balloon you’re talking about?
Tom Messner 25:42
This is literally a balloon that, twice a day, gets sent up from weather offices-
Nicole Eaton 25:49
Does that happen here too?
Tom Messner 25:50
It doesn’t happen in Burlington. It happens in Albany, which is the closest one. You don’t know about this?
Nicole Eaton 25:56
No!
Dave Bradbury 25:57
Tell us about this. How big a balloon is it?
Tom Messner 25:59
Is it April Fools? no, no, no, no, no, no, really weather balloons. They send up weather balloons twice a day.
Nicole Eaton 26:07
I’m glad you said something about the balloon, because I was like-
Dave Bradbury 26:09
I know I thought he was making it up.
Tom Messner 26:11
No, and it goes up and and it collects data, and that data is put into computers. That’s where information to make these forecast models comes from. Where’d you think it came from?
Dave Bradbury 26:24
I don’t know Tom.
Tom Messner 26:30
It goes up and usually goes high enough that it pops and comes down.
Dave Bradbury 26:36
Okay, so it starts in Albany. Where does it land each day?
Tom Messner 26:40
It depends where the wind’s blowing.
Dave Bradbury 26:42
Damn. That’s a good answer. Set myself up for that one.I’m, like, blown away. Why can’t a plane, like, give us this information.
Tom Messner 26:56
Actually, it’s interesting you say that because airplanes, some of them are helping to fill in some of the gaps where weather balloons are not.
Dave Bradbury 27:05
…we’ll put, we’ll put the live stream on the link here. That would be fun. Literally, probably been using air balloons like this for, you know, 150 years?
Tom Messner 27:26
Well, I mean I don’t use them.
Dave Bradbury 27:29
Are they illegal in Vermont here?
Tom Messner 27:31
Read that will ya.
Dave Bradbury 27:33
Weather balloons, also known as sounding balloons, carry instruments called Radio songs, into the stratosphere to collect atmospheric data. And they’re white, so you wouldn’t even see them.
Nicole Eaton 27:45
That is literally a balloon. Wow.
Dave Bradbury 27:47
Well, fact check. We fact checked.
Nicole Eaton 27:49
Is there a better solution to this, or is this like what works like?
Tom Messner 27:53
This is what works. This has been going on for years, and and this is, and, okay, these balloons go up. They check the temperature, the wind, the humidity, all the state is sent back down, put in computers, and this is how we see how the air is moving up there.
Dave Bradbury 28:10
I thought it was like, you know, Bob in Plainfield calling in from the backyard. You collected the data and how much rain fell.
Tom Messner 28:18
You think there’s like a guy in Washington taking the phone calls from everybody in the United States?
Dave Bradbury 28:24
Probably, but okay, well, it’s good to know we’re trending forward then. So yes, I do think it’s concerning to particularly as government isn’t responsible for data that might not make economic sense to gather. But as important as people plan their lives, their businesses, planting crops, you know, yeah, all right, stuff like it’s changing, yeah, and weather is such a factor now in any business plan, you know, what’s your climate exposure? What’s your exposure to fire, water, right? Absolutely, it’s we’re seeing. You know, new businesses and entrepreneurs come in with different ideas on how to take it, find an opportunity, come up with a solution, good so predictive management, predictive outlooks, things like that. And unfortunately, we’re spending more time on weather rather than just enjoying it. It’s more risk mitigation.
Tom Messner 29:17
Yeah, I know. I know. And these balloons that you guys are enjoying so much. The there have been times where there were so few people working at the National Weather Service offices that they didn’t, they could, they weren’t able to launch them. And when you don’t, you start to put holes in the data, and then the data is inaccurate, so all these little things add up so much to get this all done correctly.
Dave Bradbury 29:42
And I don’t want to dissuade Bob and Plainfield from continuing to phone in the snow report and the wind.
Tom Messner 29:50
You got to know how much snow fell the night before. You know when you make those things on TV, it says Plainfield 10 inches.
Dave Bradbury 29:56
So some advice. Focus on, on Angel investing again. You know, you know top two or three things that you learned, maybe the hard way or through your diligence and preparation, that every first time or early angel investors should, should really ask themselves.
Tom Messner 30:18
Are you okay if you lose everything, you have to start with that, I think, you know, and as I said to you guys earlier, that for me, it’s a portion of our portfolio. I hope we don’t lose it. I hope it goes well. But I also love the education I’ve gotten from it, and that in itself, might be worth it to me. You know, I’d really like to learn stuff, and I had a lot to learn after I finished my career, so that’s worked out really nicely. I think the other thing is that it’s really tempting to put too much money in early I think a lot of people do that, and that’s a bad idea, and that’s the one reason I did like the syndicate model that I did by putting in a little bit, even though you don’t feel quite as close to the product as you would if you invested in somebody here in Vermont, you certainly can learn a lot. And by reading, you know what the Syndicate is doing, you know in terms of why they’re investing in that, and what the company’s doing, telling you how things are going, we are growing, and all this kind of thing. You learn things that you can then use when you’re ready to put a little more money down in Vermont.
Dave Bradbury 31:26
And any any differences between syndicates or investing in non Vermont companies versus Vermont companies. Do you see valuation or term differences on the whole, or are we pretty similar to other-
Tom Messner 31:45
Hard to tell in the term situation, depending on who you are dealing with, on a national level, you may have access to deals you would never get in Vermont. You know, because when you’re looking at a syndicate that might be looking well beyond even where they are. But even if you just start in California, which is where the one I am doing is, they have more to choose from, quite honestly, you know. So I think that that you know, our choices being limited here does make it tougher to make money, to be perfectly honest with you, however, on the flip side, you know, if you have a specialty and that company could not only use your money, but use your expertise, it’s awesome. It’s just really cool to feel like you’re truly part of the company beyond just putting money in.
Nicole Eaton 32:40
Do you have a favorite memory from being an angel investor?
Tom Messner 32:44
I got a check once, and that was gonna say, you remember checks coming back somehow? That was pretty awesome. One thing that did happen that was really cool is this takes so long. I feel like I’ve been doing this a long time, but I still haven’t made money overall, and I still hope to. But one thing that happened was the Syndicate, at one point, they sold 20% of the shares that I invested through them and also within the the VC fund that they had. So I thought that was really cool that they did that, because they sent a check back that more than covered the original.
Dave Bradbury 33:31
So they took partial liquidity from all the shares, and that was enough to cover.
Tom Messner 33:35
Right, which I thought was really cool. And it’s like, okay.
Dave Bradbury 33:38
Did you feel brilliant at that point?
Tom Messner 33:40
I’m not sure if I felt brilliant or just lucky. Funny how that works, but again, it makes you feel like, oh, okay, I can do this. And then I haven’t heard from them in a while.
Nicole Eaton 33:55
That’s awesome.
Dave Bradbury 33:58
How would you, you know, rate the sophistication of, say, the Vermont investment community now, and I use word sophistication, you know what? There’s more funds now. There’s new entrance folks been doing it. Like, are we serving and we’re part of that, that group, good or bad? Like, are we serving companies well?
Tom Messner 34:21
Well, I think so. I do. I think so. I wondered when you know more VC firms were popping up, but I wondered if there was going to be enough room for them all. One thing that seems to happen here, and you would know better than I would, is the same VCs are putting in money for the same companies, and it that happens here so much more than say, with who I’m working with out in LA or out in the bay area, because it’s a matter of it needs to be done. So. So I think that’s a good thing and a bad thing, because it’s harder to spread out VCs and what they’re looking at here than it is in other places. I, like I said, I think that part of that is good, part of that is bad. I always feel like I’m in the Dudley fund when we put money in, and then I see you guys put money in the same thing. I actually feel really good about that. I do. So there’s so there’s that sense of, oh, oh, that’s good.
Dave Bradbury 35:28
There’s another person in the lifeboat here.
Tom Messner 35:30
Well, you know, I like to think of it as we’re all rowing in the same direction. But yeah, I think, I think that happens a lot less when you, when you start to get into bigger places, because there’s just so much more, you know, so much more available.
Dave Bradbury 35:45
Yeah, it’s been really neat, you know, Nicole and I were chatting about this just to see the number of new organized venture funds that are doing seed stage and, you know, seed plus early series A stage investing. Because, you know, from the founders perspective, there’s choice, right? And there’s also more than one conversation, because back when it was just one or two of us, like, yeah, if we said no because we didn’t understand it, or we didn’t, you know vibe well with the team, like, you didn’t have a lot of local options. And I think that’s that’s to the detriment of a healthy ecosystem and and I love the deals that that we don’t do and others do, and I wish them the best. And I again, I hope, I hope we’re proven wrong that there was, we had a blind spot, we didn’t understand attack, or we were too lazy to learn something new.
Tom Messner 36:36
Yeah but sometimes it’s somebody else’s specialty, you know? So, so there are many reasons for that. One thing I, you know, when I looked at what I’ve done with VC investing, is I was really happy to see that fresh tracks did a growth fund. And I said, Okay, so if you’re going to do this fund over here, that’s going to be a lot of seed stuff. I really like the idea of a growth fund because you’re getting in later, and they’re established, and it’s just another way to look at investing. So to me, that that is, you know, just they’re not all the same, I guess is what I’m saying. And them not being all the same, I think, is important. You know, you’re divesting even within-
Dave Bradbury 37:19
Yeah a family office fund is different than in our fund, right? We have such a mission, and we’re basically investing off our balance sheet now with fund two, which is a $9 million fund, and, you know, we’ve not so visibly, put out over $3 million into six companies over the last 12 months, 14 months, and it’s been really exciting. We just invested in a bank. What a correspondent bank down in White River Junction acceleron So, and-
Tom Messner 37:45
It’s like investing in a baseball team. Why would somebody do that?
Dave Bradbury 37:49
We’ve had, we’ve one for one so far in FinTech, and one win that Goldman Sachs bought was, it was, it was a really great one for the team. Good investors. So hopefully this one will do it. And how do you see companies Burlington versus sort of rest of Vermont? Have you invested any companies outside of Chittenden County in Vermont?
Tom Messner 38:15
What county is Bolton in? Boy, you know, that’s a great question. I’m, I’m not sure that I have, well, through, through the funds they have, yeah, but I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know that outside the funds I have, which is a little bit embarrassing. Now, having said that, I’m really happy at what’s going on with, you know, down in Rutland, they’ve got startup Rutland going on, and then due north, up north of here. But I haven’t, I’ve been down to Rutland. I haven’t been to due north yet, and I really like what they’re doing, but I’m not really involved that much, and I’m hoping to learn more. So to answer your question, I’ve been really-
Dave Bradbury 39:00
We should come up with something, Nicole, to show Tom right?
Nicole Eaton 39:04
Yes, for sure. It is magic wand
Tom Messner 39:09
Oh, no, not that.
Nicole Eaton 39:11
Yeah. So Dave, why don’t you ask?
Dave Bradbury 39:13
Okay, magic wand, what founder or leader, past or present would you like to sit down with and have a chat and why?
Tom Messner 39:27
Well, I’ve said this for years, but I it would be my grandfather. Really. It really would. My grandfather started a business. His name was Walter Gerber, my mom’s maiden name, and they started CUNY and Gerber, two guys, and a lot of it was about wires. They were doing lots of wire stuff. And they worked in Jersey City, New Jersey. And he. He died when I was three. And I’ve heard a zillion stories about him, but never enough about work. And I know that he was on the ground floor, of course, a founder of this business that I do have about a million questions, and I would love to find out how he did that, what made him do that. You know, I had heard stories. My mom would say that there were years that were better than other years. She remembers when she was young, and if it was a good year, grandma got some beautiful jewelry and a really nice jacket. If it was a lean year, she didn’t get so much. And she remembered that. And I’m like, Oh, wow. I wonder what was going on at CUNY and Gerber during those periods. Wow. I think that would be cool.
Tom Messner 40:45
Great answer. Tom, thank you so much for helping us kick off our video format for the Start Here podcast season 10 coming up!
Nicole Eaton 40:57
Only right. It’s only right to have you.
Tom Messner 40:59
That’s great look at this, woah.
Dave Bradbury 41:00
And when we go off camera, you could tell us everything that we could improve upon. I hope.
Tom Messner 41:04
No, no, are you kidding, you guys do a great job. You know that.
Dave Bradbury 41:08
And thank you so much. This has been start here podcast sharing the stories of active, aspiring and accidental entrepreneurs. This series is brought to you by the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies. Now let’s get back to work.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
