Company Launch

After marrying in February, 2007, Brian and Alex took the next step in starting the company, reserving the airship by signing an option agreement with ZLT in March, 2007 – officially launching Airship Ventures. Although Alex began her full-time commitment at the company in March, she did not have her first ride aboard the Zeppelin NT until that August, bringing along her father as a special birthday gift to him. The experience exceeded her expectations, and she was instantly convinced of her husband's initial vision for the company.

Alex's first order of business was to secure a base for the Zeppelin in the Bay Area. For a fully functional Zeppelin operation, airship hangars were needed. Fortunately, three of the remaining13 airship hangars in the U.S. are located at a single airfield, in the Bay Area, at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California. Decommissioned as a Naval airfield in 1994, Moffett Field is operated by NASA's Ames Research Center. Utilizing contacts at NASA from her previous position at Chabot Space and Science Center, Alex arranged a meeting the Center Director, who agreed that it was an obvious partnership, a wonderful historic reuse and exactly the kind of project he'd like to see at Ames. It then took almost a year to build local community support and navigate red tape to make the initial agreement happen.

The company then had other areas to navigate, including securing the funding. With a business model and short tem exit strategy not well suited to a typical IPO or venture capital offering, Brian and Alex realized they would have to find private investors who were just as passionate about the future of airships as they were. And they found them. Following Brian and Alex's initial personal investments, the first angel investor, noted emerging digital technology journalist Esther Dyson, signed on in December, 2007. Series A financing concluded rapidly, in May, 2008, yielding three additional 6 and 7 figure investors interested in making two returns – a dividend and the bragging rights of being involved with America's first Zeppelin.

Next: Solving Chanllenges