John Sechrest

John Sechrest is a Seattle-area angel investor, startup ecosystem builder, and Managing Director of Mossy Ventures. Mossy Ventures describes itself as an investment firm that runs angel investing programs, conferences, and events, with a focus on teaching investors how to identify good investments while helping startups prepare for fundraising.

Sechrest founded the Seattle Angel Conference, which began in 2012, and is also cited as founder of the Willamette Angel Conference and APIS Health Angels. His APIS Health Angels speaker bio says he is focused on “growing the startup ecosystem, with more investable startups and more/better Angel Investors” and brings a structured methodology to training new angel investors and supporting early-stage health-related startups.

Before his Seattle work, Sechrest was the Economic Development Director for the Corvallis-Benton Chamber Coalition in Oregon beginning in 2006. In an interview with Okanagan Edge, he explained that he chose startups as the practical economic-development path for a town of roughly 50,000 people and used an angel conference to change the local conversation around entrepreneurship. He has said he helped launch angel conferences in San Diego, Kelowna, Anchorage, and Seattle.

Earlier in his career, Sechrest worked in technology and outreach. Archived NANOG material from 1995 lists him as Executive Director, Computer Science Outreach, at Oregon State University. MarketScreener lists prior Oregon State University roles from 1992-1996 and reports that he received an undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois.

• Sechrest’s core operating thesis is ecosystem capacity: activate local accredited investors, train them through real due diligence, and use pooled capital to fund early companies that may otherwise lack local pre-seed capital.
• Mossy Ventures says its angel conference model starts with 60+ pre-seed startups and about 40 investors, then narrows to six finalists before selecting one company for a roughly $200K investment.
• Seattle Angel Conference is explicitly “Learning by Doing”: investors learn by screening companies, reviewing pitches, conducting due diligence, and making an actual investment decision.
• The program has “no sector bias”; Mossy Ventures says angel conferences look for very early companies, but “more than just an idea,” with evidence of market interest and team execution.
• Mossy Ventures says traction often looks like revenue and revenue growth, and that companies need to be growth companies with a path to meaningful valuation change and investment repayment.
• Sechrest emphasizes portfolio thinking. In a 2024 post about SAC workshops, he wrote that angel investors need to think with a portfolio mindset instead of investing in one or two companies to “see how it goes.”
• Mossy Ventures is cautious on instruments: it says about half the time it uses a simple convertible note and is “not particularly fond” of SAFE agreements.