What is ThingVC? How Two Entrepreneurs Are Investing in Small Business Dreams

Serial entrepreneurs Mike Gellman and Chris Glodé want to pay it forward.  

Glodé was a client of Gellman’s Denver-based web development firm, Spire Digital, on a few different projects. Gellman sold Spire after 23 years in 2019, but the duo continued to meet for lunch and brainstorm about startups. 

A shared inclination “to give something back and try to help people get their businesses off the ground,” as Glodé puts it, led to the launch of ThingVC in spring 2023. Gellman knows well the struggles involved in starting and developing a business. He launched Spire in 1996, and over the next two decades employed hundreds of people, generated more than $100 million in revenue and helped shape an industry. But it was far from easy. In the beginning, he bootstrapped the business by working at Outback Steakhouse. His first two employees were ex-cons. 

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Still, he had an ally. Additional early funding came in the form of a credit card with a $10,000 limit his dad let him use. The power of a hand-up, however small, resonates with both entrepreneurs today. 

“We had such great experiences starting our own businesses and thinking about the many people out there we speculated would be great entrepreneurs if they could just have, number one, the encouragement and the belief from somebody and, two, the capital, and three, the experience, perspective and mentorship that we could provide,” Glodé says. “We decided to give it a go, and ThingVC was born.” 

The standard deal? ThingVC is offering $10,000 investments for a 5 percent stake of companies valued at $200,000. 

The process for prospective investees is straightforward: Fill out the online form at ThingVC.com (questions include “What’s your Thing?” and “How will you spend $10,000?”), then Gellman and Glodé schedule Zoom meetings with their top prospects. 

“We were trying to arrive at a size that we felt like it could help jumpstart somebody with an idea for a small business,” Glodé says. “We also wanted to keep it as simple as possible, because we want to create something here for very early-stage companies. We expect people to not have anything more than a sketch on a napkin in most cases.” 

The process is intentionally simple. “We wanted to impact as many companies and people as we could by streamlining it,” he explains. “I think a lot of people’s great ideas for a small business can die on the vine because it becomes so daunting to do all of the planning and analysis and vetting the idea.” 

That’s where ThingVC can help. Glodé says he and Gellman want to support the companies in ThingVC with their entrepreneurial experience. 

“It’s very much industry-agnostic,” Glodé says, noting that the focus is on Colorado-based companies to start. “We’ve talked about everything from somebody starting their own food truck to expanding to a second location, or if they’re an independent service provider, like an electrician or a plumber or a handyman, maybe this could give them the bump they need to hire another employee.” 

Glodé says ThingVC would like to close on “a handful of deals done this year, and hopefully more than that next year.” 

The first $10,000 investment went to Daniel Valdez, who plans to develop a platform that aims to accelerate leadership for underrepresented minorities in businesses. ALUM is the Denver-based startup’s placeholder name. Valdez, who is a manager for Accenture in Denver by day, says the investment will allow him to build a prototype of the platform. 

“Even if they weren’t giving any money… their backgrounds are excellent,” he says. “Mike has built companies bootstrapping, and Chris is on the other side of things where he’s raised a decent amount of money, so you’ve got the best of both worlds.” 

And what about the name, ThingVC? “Anybody who has an idea for a thing, let’s talk about it,” Glodé says. 

ONLINE: www.thingvc.com