Congratuations GoInstant on Salesforce Acquisition

As an angel investor and closet CEO, it is a great feeling to watch as great entrepreneurs and teams execute on a vision and plan. Especially so when they do it so fast. GoInstant has done it the fastest I have seen (of our Social Leverage investments) in my years of investing.

GoInstant is a shared browsing experience company.

I met Jevon back in 2006, in Toronto. We became quick friends and Jevon was serious about helping the Canadian entrepreneur scene expand. In November 2008 (the end of the world), he invited me to speak at a conference ‘Startup Empire’ with my topic ‘Why Now is a Good Time to Start a Business’.

Jevon spent some time at Austin ventures and than moved back to Eastern Canada (must have lost a bet), to start GoInstant (a no download web sharing experience).

He pitched me a few times, I said no despite wanting to invest in the company and Jevon (purely on valuation), but he rounded up an insane group of investors and demanded I join the syndicate. I broke my price rules and invested. The product and vision (shared browsing) fell squarely within a main theme of mine around customer support.

Now they have been quickly acquired by Salesforce.com $CRM, and the team has a huge payday and an opportunity to further accelerate their product and vision. Payday’s are awesome. As Fred Wilson says in this great blog post, ‘helping other’s achieve greatness as I attempt a bit of my own’, is awesome and wonderful, but so is getting paid. We invest for returns and entrepreneurs that create shareholder value are underhyped.

Thank you Jevon and team GoInstant.