Crowdfunder

Jason Best, Co-Founder - Crowdfund Capital Advisors (CCA)

Jason Best is co-founder at Crowdfund Capital Advisors which provides advisory services to angel groups, venture capital and private equity funds, governments, and professional services firms regarding how to succeed with Crowdfunding. His prior entrepreneurial experiences has been in a effectively scaling SaaS businesses. He has been on the executive leadership team of Kinnser Software, named to the Inc Magazine list of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the US 2 years in a row. As a successful entrepreneur during the credit crunch, Jason saw a need to update the '33 and '34 securities acts to allow the social Web to be used for capital formation, and did something about it—as a co-founder of Startup Exemption, Jason co-authored the Crowdfunding Framework lobbied congress and the White House to legalize crowdfund investing in the US. The Startup Exemption framework formed the basis of the crowdfunding language in the JOBS Act that was signed into law by President Obama on April 5, 2012. Jason is a leader in the crowdfunding industry; he is the co-founder of the CrowdFunding Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CFIRA) the self-regulating association for the crowdfunding industry currently working with the SEC and FINRA helping to establish and maintain crowdfunding rules and industry practices. He is also the Co-Chair of the Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) and sits on the board of the European Crowdfunding Network. Currently he is co-authroing a book on crowdfund investing for Wiley Publishing. Jason earned his MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, the world's top international MBA program and holds a Bachelors degree from William Jewell College.

Rick Duggan, Director of Website Systems, Zappos IP, Inc.

A veteran of five startups (one of which conducted a successful IPO), Rick Duggan is currently Director of Website Systems at Zappos IP, Inc.. Prior to joining the Zappos Family of Companies, he was Chief Technology Officer of Thinker, Inc., a Las Vegas-based provider of digital signage and co-founder and VP of Engineering & Operations at Incanta. One of the first people involved in the VegasTech community, he acts as a community evangelist, mentor, and is co-creator of the vegasstartups.com blog. In addition to a strong technology base, he is knowledgable in operations, business planning, product feasibility, and lean/agile software development. He has also held various positions at IBM, Nortel Networks, and Capital One. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.

Thomas Knoll, Founder at Clipppr, Advisor at Drumbi, and Managing Director at FounderDating

Thomas is the Visioncaster & Founder of clippPR.com, a startup advisor, and a connector for the #VegasTech community. He has been a community architect, community cultivator, product designer, social marketer, customer developer, and startup advisor for companies including 500Startups, Drumbi, LaunchRock, Zappos, UserVoice, and Seesmic. While he has a technical background, he prefers to speak in gardening and architecture metaphors. He is inspired by storytelling, psychology, evangelism, architectural theory, social economics, game mechanics, cultural anthropology, compassion, and ants. He was studying to become a missionary, but left that path because he grew tired of the business of religion. Now, he helps businesses convert customers into communities of evangelists.

Robb Kunz, Founder & Managing Partner, ventureBlue Capital

Robb Kunz is a Founder & CEO of several high-technology Companies, an Active Angel Investor and also the Founder & Managing Partner of ventureBlue Capital, an early-stage high technology investment firm and incubator.

As an Entrepreneur, his expertise and track record revolves around starting, launching & funding emerging Companies. He is the Founder/CEO of KnowledgeBlue, an Open Source Systems Integrator and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firm. KnowledgeBlue was recently acknowledge as the 37th fastest growing Company in the State of Utah as part of the elite Utah100 group for 2009.

As an Investor, he founded and created ventureBlue Capital an early-stage high technology investment firm and incubator. He is an active Angel Investor as a member of the Olympus Angels Investors based in Salt Lake City, Utah and recently was acknowledge as one of the top 15 Angel Investors in the State of Utah for 2009. He is an active Director / Board Member of RedSpan Inc and GuestSpan.

Thomas A. Thomas, Managing Partner of the Thomas & Mack Co.

Thomas A. Thomas is the Managing Partner of the Thomas & Mack Co., an investment management and commercial real estate development company. Thomas, sits on Switch’s board, was one of Switch’s early investors, and has been at the epicenter of the Las Vegas Digital Exchange Campus and The InNEVation Center. Thomas received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Finance from the University of Utah in 1982 and a Law Degree from the University of Utah College of Law in 1986. He is also a graduate of the National Graduate Trust School at Northwestern University. After obtaining his law degree, Thomas joined the Valley Bank of Nevada as Vice President and Legal Counsel and then became Senior Vice President over Private Banking and Corporate Trust Services. Thomas has chaired the UNLV Presidents Associates, the Opportunity Village Foundation Board, the Board of Governors of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and served as President of the Las Vegas Rotary Club. Thomas was also instrumental in establishing the Thomas & Mack Legal Clinic and the Thomas and Mack Moot Court Facility, both at the UNLV Boyd School of Law. Thomas served as the Chairman of the Capital Campaign for the $44 million Engelstad Campus of Opportunity Village.