In this heartfelt tribute episode, Marcia Dawood honors the iconic angel investor, Bill Payne, who passed away the week of December 20, 2023. Through a touching reflection on Bill's immense contributions to the world of angel investing, Marcia shares personal anecdotes and highlights Bill's pivotal role in shaping the landscape of angel investing. Using excerpts from an earlier episode featuring Bill, listeners gain insight into his journey into angel investing and his passion for educating and mentoring entrepreneurs and investors. Bill's unwavering dedication and wisdom leave a lasting impact, prompting an outpouring of tributes from the global community and a commitment to preserving his invaluable teachings. This tribute provides a touching exploration of Bill's journey and his unwavering commitment to educating, mentoring, and shaping the angel investing landscape, prompting a collective dedication to preserving and sharing his wisdom with future generations of investors and entrepreneurs.
In this heartfelt tribute episode, Marcia Dawood honors the iconic angel investor, Bill Payne, who passed away the week of December 20, 2023. Through a touching reflection on Bill's immense contributions to the world of angel investing, Marcia shares personal anecdotes and highlights Bill's pivotal role in shaping the landscape of angel investing. Using excerpts from an earlier episode featuring Bill, listeners gain insight into his journey into angel investing and his passion for educating and mentoring entrepreneurs and investors. Bill's unwavering dedication and wisdom leave a lasting impact, prompting an outpouring of tributes from the global community and a commitment to preserving his invaluable teachings. This tribute provides a touching exploration of Bill's journey and his unwavering commitment to educating, mentoring, and shaping the angel investing landscape, prompting a collective dedication to preserving and sharing his wisdom with future generations of investors and entrepreneurs.
Bill Payne Bio from The Grainger College of Engineering - https://grainger.illinois.edu/alumni/distinguished/William-Payne
Ann and Bill Payne ACA Angel University - https://www.angelcapitalassociation.org/aca-angel-university/
The Angel Next Door episode with Ann and Bill Payne - https://the-angel-next-door.simplecast.com/episodes/ann-and-bill-payne-w74vnWdx
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Marcia Dawood
Hi, everyone. I know in last week's episode, I promised you a part two on a look back at 2023 and possible trends for 2024, and I will deliver that content to you next week. But just yesterday, December 20 of 2023, we learned of the passing of Bill Payne, an iconic angel often referred to as the grandfather of angel investing. As a tribute to Bill, I'll attempt to explain to you just how much he contributed to the angel world as we know it today. I say attempt because he touched so many of us, and I don't know that I can do justice to all of the contributions that he made. In May of 2022, Bill and Anne Payne were guests on this podcast. So I'm going to start with a short clip from that episode with Bill explaining how he became an angel investor.
Bill Payne
I was living in LA. I had moved there straight out of school, worked there for ten or so years for a couple of companies before we started this venture. And the company started in Burbank, California, so right in the LA area. Then we stayed there until sold to Dupont, and then they became, started merging pieces of what we were doing into other stuff they were doing, which was fine.
Marcia Dawood
Great. Well, so now you're on your angel investing journey. You sold the company, and are you starting to learn about and do angel investing in LA?
Bill Payne
Frankly, I had no idea what an angel investor was. In fact, I don't know whether you know this history, but the University of New Hampshire that Jeff Soul's now organization was chaired by Bill Wetzel. And he actually coined the phrase angel investor because he really liked to go to New York from New Hampshire and go to see the Broadway shows. And he saw the parallel between those investors that fund Broadway shows and what early stage investors in startup companies do. And he coined the phrase angel investor in about a little before 1980. About 1980, though. But I didn't know about it for some time. So I was just a private investor in early stage companies, and I didn't invest in too many companies at the outset simply because I couldn't find know. It was not a common thing for people who were retired entrepreneurs to do.
Marcia Dawood
It's so fun to hear Bill talk about his personal experience of becoming an angel, but also about the history of many of the angel groups that we know today. You can hear more about how tech host angels, the Band of Angels and others were formed in the full episode. I'll make sure there's a link in the show notes. Bill was so generous with his time and his talent from 1995 until 2007 as the entrepreneur in residence at the Kaufman foundation in Kansas City. He worked on educational programs for entrepreneurs and their investors, including eventuring.com and the power of angel investing seminar series. He helped countless companies, not just in the US but worldwide. With his education and mentorship. He made regular trips to Australia, Europe and especially to New Zealand to work with angel investors and entrepreneurs.
Marcia Dawood
He served as the BNZ University of Auckland entrepreneur and residence for five months in 2010, and he made many visits after that. Suez Reynolds, executive chair of the Angel association of New Zealand, said, we owe Bill so much. Our hearts are broken. And Bill knew there was so much more to investing than just money.
Bill Payne
I think it wasn't about the money, though. I think it was hard figuring out how to start companies and grow companies, even if you had sufficient capital to do it. So I was on a lot of all of those boards of directors of those companies, and we were working on all kinds of problems and funding was a I'm not saying it was an insignificant area, but it certainly wasn't a primary concern in those days. You could start companies with a lot less money. So the big problem became finding the right people and putting the team together and figuring out where the customers were and going and fighting them and finding out if there were any customers. So I enjoyed those director positions in the early days.
Marcia Dawood
Bill was so passionate about education, even outside of Kaufman. Bill was an early teacher of angel one and 101 courses, as well as all types of other angel education topics like term sheets, due diligence, cap tables, the list goes on. I remember going to my first ACA summit in probably 2014, and I took a class before the summit started and it was taught by Bill and a few helpers. At one point we were split up into tables with a mentor at each table. I was lucky enough to have Bill as my new mentor. From there, I worked with him on many projects over the years, including organizing the 2023 Las Vegas Angel Capital association summit. He was a mentor and a friend. He did so much for the ACA, including serve on the ACA's education and Smart Practices committee, where he wrote a large amount of the educational content that is still being delivered today.
He and his wife, Anne, made a significant monetary contribution to the Angel Investor foundation, the charitable arm of the ACA, allowing the organization to expand its educational reach even further through what is now known as the Anne and Bill Payne ACA Angel University here is some Bill wisdom on diversification.
Bill Payne
New angels don't have an appreciation for the importance of making lots of small investments rather than a few big ones. So that's one of the beauties of angel funds is that they're taking your money and investing in a bunch of different companies, which gives you instant diversification, which, as an angel investor, unique angel investor in an angel network is a little harder to achieve. So I think that the fund model or the combination of the fund and the network model seems to work very well.
Marcia Dawood
Over the last 24 hours, we have received many notes and heartfelt comments about Bill. I'll close with reading you just a few what an incredible person to have known. A loss for the world, for sure. A legend indeed. Bill's presence will certainly be missed. What a giant, such a treasured friend and mentor. Too soon. Bill was a source of great knowledge and an inspiration for all of us.
Bill Payne's legacy will live on forever. We cannot thank him enough for all of the knowledge and best practices that he shared with the global community. Bill, we miss you already, and we will keep your legacy alive by teaching others what you have taught all of us.