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PROFILE

Wit, Wisdomand CapitalComputer pioneer Bill Fisher oersadvice, cash and sometimes tough loveto ntech startups in the Midwest

By Sean Sposito

Sitting on the edge of a black leather chair, Bill Fisher oscillates slowly back and

forth like a portable fan. Hes in a conference room in the squat Omaha o ce

building where in any given month he makes hundreds of thousands of dollars

worth of investment decisions aecting hopeful nancial technoloy startups,

and hes pondering a question about how he arrives at those decisions.

The swiveling suddenly stops. He puts his hands under his thighs, nally resigning him-

self, it seems, to say what he was thinking.

Ill get someone who shows up, and they want to raise $200,000. And this is going to be

the deal: They have no money in it, and they cant put any money in it, he says, disparag-ingly. I dont have any room for a guy like that.

You have heard of the Oracle of Omaha. Well, Fisher, the founder of Treetop Ventures, a

consulting and investment rm, is the patriarch of the citys burgeoning tech scene.

Fisher, in his mid-60s, is an unlikely kingmaker in this city known more for thick steaks

than high stakes.

At 5 foot 7 inches, he often jokes about his height. Hes nearly bald, but still makes regular

visits to his longtime barber, who now rents a chair in a womans nail salon, to trim up the

sides and his beard.

And even though he predates desktop computers by decades, energetic entrepreneurs

young enough to be his grandchildren seek him out as much for his wisdom as his wallet.

He is almost a required stop for early-stage companies, says Danny Schreiber, a found-

ing editor of Silicon Prairie News, a blog that covers the region. People want to go and speak

with Bill Fisher.

BILL FISHER

I

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OMAHA BECKONSOmaha is a perfect place for processors and pay-

ments technoloy companies.

The underpinnings of the citys tech scene go back

to the 1950s, when the Strategic Air Command was

relocated south of the city at the Outt Air Force base.

With it, the Air Force brought the infrastructure that

eventually attracted technoloy specialists, including

Fisher himself.The talent bolstered local tech companies in the

50s and 60s, including then-Omaha based payment

processor First Data and transaction software com-

pany ACI.

And it created a runway for current companies

that now operate in the area, such as eBays e-com-

merce arm PayPal.

Despite this rich history, ntech startups only

began appearing in Omaha roughly two years ago,

says Dusty Reynolds, the Greater Omaha Chamber

of Commerces director of entrepreneurship and

innovation. Around the same time, investors began

appearing.Currently there are several venture capital rms

investing in companies in the city, and at least one

angel investment group, says Reynolds. They include

Je Skolls Capricorn Investment Group, which plans

to open an o ce in Omaha later this year, according

to reports. Skoll, a billionaire, is eBays rst employee

and its former president.

Midwestern modesty is one reason why Omaha

has been largely under the radar compared to other

tech hotbeds on either coast. Ask a rancher how

many cattle he has, says Reynolds. Hell knock you

out.

Theres a saying that Fisher and his di sciples arefond of: Big Hat, No Cattle. In Omaha, you hate fail-

ing, but you dont aunt your success.

That makes his company called Treetop,

because thats the word his sharecropper father

would use to describe a cup lled to the brim with ice

cream hard to peg down.

If you ask Fisher, hell tell you hes an angel

investor. He doesnt invest enough for control of a

company, and he typically brings other investors in

with him. There are about 70 active angels that follow

his lead.

Treetops o ce half incubator, half shared o ce

space is lled with small companies that are inter-

linked. Some Fisher has invested in. Others provide

services to the companies he invests in.

There are personal nancial management soft-

ware company Lodo Software; subprime auto lender

Prairie Finance; independent sales organization

USMPS, which is run by the oldest of his three sons,

William; and Hatchbox, a Web and graphic design

company that is run by his middle son, Tom.

Fisher invests in other ntech startups that are

not housed inside Treetops o ces.

I would actually categorize him as a friend and

family on steroids, says Craig Page, chief operatingo cer and co-founder of the MeNetwork, one of

Fishers investments that has created a merchant

loyalty smartphone app.

Fisher often continues to take meetings with com-

panies he turns down for an investment.

Roughly a year ago, after exchanging a series of

messages on LinkedIn, he met with Matt Medlock, a

former banker who founded PaySAFE in mid-2011 to

oer Internet escrow services.

Hes the type of guy that will tell you your babys

ugly, Medlock says.

Fisher told Medlock, On a scale of one to ten, you

have a nine idea and a three business model.

Fisher has yet to invest in PaySAFE, but Medlock,

who initially imagined his Omaha company as a

money transmitter like PayPal, changed his model

based on Fishers suggestions. Now PaySAFE focuses

on closing transactions through escrow services.

I had ideas for dierent add-ons, benets for the

service and what it did, he says. After that meeting,

I just took some of these fray benets that the website

and the service would oer and collapsed it down tojust oering an online closing service.

Medlock says the number of PaySAFE customers

is doubling every week. He has ve full-time employ-

ees and an equal number of part-timers. He gives

Fisher some credit for this success.

Fisher meets with so many people, and has his

ngers in so many companies, that keeping track of it

all has become something of a serious hobby for him.

A bomb scare on a plane trip in 1985 got him

started on the detailed record-keeping. The only

thing I could think of is there isnt anyone in my

family that is going to gure out my nancials, he

says. Ever since then I have been religious on keep-ing my life book.

The binder is in a bureau in his palatial home that

abuts a golf course on top of a hill in west Omaha. Its

accompanied by an encrypted DropBox account that

only his family can access through a series of security

questions and a PIN code.

EXERTING CONTROLFishers investments come with conditions.

This is my term sheet: Ill make an investment of

this amount of money for this amount of shares, and

I want a board seat, he says.In addition, if a company thats taking his money

wants to hire a lawyer, it hires his in-house guy at a

discount. If it needs an accountant, it goes to Tree-

tops as well.

Its a shared o ce space, Fisher says. And its

my money. So, if you hire an accountant, and you

hire a lawyer, then you are going to use your money a

hell of a lot faster than if you hire [mine].

His approach, however, hasnt always been free of

failure.

Last year he lost more than $250,000 after a time-

share company that focused on real estate in travel

He is almost arequired stop,

says DannySchreiber, a

founding editorof Silicon PrairieNews, a blog thatcovers the region.

People want togo and speak with

Bill Fisher.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Fisher isadvising and supporting severalFinTech startups, includingLodo Software and MeNetwork.

PartnerTreetop Ventures

STREET CRED: Former CEOof ACI Worldwide and COO ofFirst Data.

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PROFILE

destinations such as the Bahamas folded.

In this case, the trouble was not with the idea, but

with the person running the company.Probably the toughest logic is realizing your CEO,

or your leaders, arent the people for the job, and

then guring out a way to get them to step aside.

They take it personally when I say you are not a for-

ward thinker, or you are not very strategic, he says.

Thats what happened with this company.

Fishers biggest ntech splash might be still to come.

Hes currently working on a $50 million secret proj-

ect with several other investors and banking software

entrepreneurs that would create a private cloud for

the banking industry. Itll target the largest 200 banks.

This is core applications, best of breed, says

Fisher, who smiles slightly and perks upright in hisseat, giving away his excitement about the potential

for this idea. Im 66 years old, Ill be careful about

the next two or three things that Im going to put my

time into. But if I bite o something like that, Ill put

time and eort into it.

TECH ROOTSFisher or Fish, to those who know him initially

gained fame in Omaha for helming one of the citys

largest companies, ACI Worldwide (ACIW). He was

CEO of the payments software giant for roughly a

decade, except for a yearlong interruption, the rstof several would-be retirements that didnt take.

In the fall of 1989, two years after he jumped from

Omaha payment processor First Data to become

ACIs chief operating ocer, he helped organize a

senior management coup that convinced ACIs then

owner, the telecom US West, to sell the company to

Tandem Computers (which is now a unit of Hewlett

Packard).

The deal was completed in 1991, at which time he

became the companys president and chief executive.

Tandem founder Jimmy Treybig oers an anec-

dote about Fishers unique style.

At the close of the Tandem deal, ACI executivesew to the new parents headquarters for a series of

meetings.

At the beer party celebrating the acquisition,

Fisher introduced Tandem to a game popular with

ACI employees. Called bun darts, it involved, hold-

ing a quarter between your buttocks with pants on,

of course and dropping it into a cup.

We were better at it at Tandem than the ACI

people, Treybig says with a big laugh.

Tandem was a temporary stop. Two years later, in

1993, Fisher sank $1 million of his own money into

a management buyout of ACI. The complex deal

included a total of about $5.5 million from ACI execu-

tives, but most of the funding came from investors

backing Transaction Systems Architects the last

private owner of ACI.

The move paid o for Fisher. He got back quadru-

ple the amount he put in when he took ACI public in

1995, with a market cap of roughly $400 million.

After nally leaving ACI in 2001, Fisher went onto other ventures, including in 2007, co-founding

Sojern, which now has agreements with all the major

airlines to provide the advertisements printed on

boarding passes, and in 2009, starting Treetop. He

also began investing in tech newcomers.

Fisher says, over his lifetime, he has di sbursed

more than $100 million of capital to startups. He has

investments, or board seats, in Sojern, FTNI (a cor-

porate portals company), the MeNetwork and Lodo

Software, among others.

All these years later, there are still traces of ACI in

his business dealings.

Two friends from ACI are part of Treetop: Tom

Boje, who was chief information ocer, and Dwight

Hanson, who was the chief nancial ocer.

ALWAYS ONFisher has been involved in computing since near its

commercial inception. He was a computer operator

in the Air Force during Vietnam, when the machineswere programmed with punch cards. He used that

skill to keep himself employed and support his family

while he attended college in Indiana and then gradu-

ate school in Omaha.

Now hes been at the ntech game for than 30

years, and in the conference room, he returns to

swiveling as he explains why it never gets old.

I dont know if its the thrill of the hunt, watch-

ing these things turn into something, that makes me

invest capital and chase these opportunities, he says.

I think its because I like seeing stu grow, and I like

to see winners and I like to be a part of building it.

I just like working.

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IMAGE:AlyssaSchukar

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