Marcelo Calbucci

    Our presentation on ESIF yesterday landed us a paragraph on the Seattle P-I today, by John Cook:

"Investors who listened to the presentation of Sampa -- a Redmond Web site creation service -- were so impressed with the backgrounds of Chief Executive Paul Gross and Chief Technology Officer Marcelo Calbucci that they wondered why the startup even needed angel financing. Gross has spent 25 years in the software industry, most recently serving as an entrepreneur in residence at Ignition Partners. Before that, he held senior vice president positions at Microsoft and Borland International."

    First of all, we are honored by the "so impressed [with our] background" part. After Paul's presentation he had to leave the room so people could discuss the company, but I stayed (hidden in the back) and I heard a few people praising the team. My favorite was a gentleman that said "...this is a dynamite team...".

    Second, I feel the need to explain why we need Angel Investing since John Cook paraphrases somebody on the audience that asked that question, and here it is...

    I absolutely have no money left to invest. I literally invested 100% of my liquid assets in Sampa. I also sold my nice BMW and put into Sampa. My wife has a full-time job and she can pay the bills. I have not received any salary over the last 28 months and I have no discretionary spending money whatsoever. The angel money will not be used to pay me a salary (that I will wait until the Series A).

    Paul, on the other hand, already made financial investments (besides his time and career investment) in Sampa. He is also going to reinvest side-by-side with the new investors, and, like any smart person would do, it is good to have external validation that you are going somewhere and that we are not drinking too much of our own Kool-aid. Another reason that we need other Angels, which Paul explained during the presentation Q&A session yesterday, is that he has put the bulk of his "risk capital" into founding a clinical research network for Hydrocephalus -- a brain condition that his son (and other 1 million Americans) have.

    In summary we do need Angel Investors and hopefully that need will be met on the next few weeks with investments from angels that we've encountered on ESIF, Alliance of Angel and Keiretsu.

UPDATE: A blog post by John Cook with more details.