May 14, 2000
Jane Larson
The Arizona Republic
"Silicon Valley" didn't get where it is today by leaving entrepreneurs to
slave away alone in their garages. Arizona is trying to catch up with
organizations that get people connected to new ideas and new partners.
Organizations such as AZSOFT.net, the Arizona Software & Internet
Association, formed in 1991; the Arizona Internet Professionals
Association, formed in 1998; and the Arizona Angels, started in 1999, were
designed to bring together New Economy businesses, employees and potential
investors. "In the New Economy, networking is very important," said Ed
Denison, president of AZSOFT.net since 1998 and former president of the
Chicago Software Association. "Today, you're collaborating, tomorrow you're
partners, and the day after that, you're competitors."
The association provides a variety of forums for making connections,
including monthly programs about capital formation and an annual investing
conference. It also scored one of the information technology industry's
lobbying successes of the year with the passage of a bill that will give
companies tax credits for training desperately needed IT workers.
Creating a "critical mass" of people doing Internet-related work spurred
formation of AZIPA. Now the association draws more than 300 to its monthly
meetings and has an active e-mail discussion list of more than 1,000,
President Ed Nusbaum said. Nusbaum, who started and sold a fund-raising
company in Ohio, also has worked on promoting Tempe's Tech Oasis as a
hotbed for software and Internet companies.
The Arizona Angels came together when Chris Augur and Rick Marshall of
Legacy Capital Partners in Scottsdale decided to do something about the
Valley's lack of an efficient process to introduce promising companies to
interested individual investors. The network, which the pair now run along
with Nusbaum and Bob Korman, did five deals totaling $3 million during its
first year.
"The key needs for these New Economy companies center on money and people,"
Augur said - needs best fulfilled outside the garage.