Origin: Save the World Air, Inc.

Around 2011 I got pulled into a small Santa Barbara public company called Save the World Air, ticker ZRO, working on technology to move oil through pipelines more efficiently. I was not an engineer, but I understood how to raise money and tell a company's story to people who might invest in it. So I came in as a consultant, with an equity position as part of the arrangement. I helped raise about three million dollars for them. I raised it through my own network, matched to each investor's appetite for that kind of risk, and I told people plainly that I was investing too. Most of it was being able to articulate why I was attracted to the deal and knowing each investor's appetite. It was a side bet during years when Tellus was my main focus, the kind of thing you say yes to because the problem is interesting and the people around it are worth the time. I held the position through the company's rename. It taught me that raising capital for someone else's idea was a real skill of mine, years before Aycre or Common Ground ever made that a formal part of my work.