Jay Wilkinson, Angel Investor

Before graduating from college, Jay started 8 businesses, most of which failed miserably. He eventually caught on, and in 1986 helped launch Campus Connection magazine in NYC which expanded to 350 college campuses. After selling the magazine in 1992, Jay moved back to Nebraska to open an AlphaGraphics printing franchise which subsequently broke the record for the 350-store network as the fastest to reach $1M in annual sales. Thirty years later, under a different name, the printing company was featured in Printing News magazine as the #1 (largest) rapid-response print shop in America. In 1996, Jay and his team launched a website design division and landed the Backstreet Boys Band as a client. Today, Firespring has thousands of clients in all 50 states and all over the world. It became Nebraska's first Certified B Corp in 2014 and was named by Inc. Magazine in 2016 as one of America's "50 Best Workplaces."​ Jay has invested in more than 100 startups and is a passionate advocate for the Silicon Prairie having served on the Nebraska Angels BOD since its inception.