From Greg Kumparak (TechCrunch editor):

"As a small (yet lovely) chunk of our MobileCrunch readers may know, Helio was of some importance to me. On a whim one weekend, long before I became a writer here, I founded a community called Heliocity — which, as you could probably guess by now, was focused on Helio. It was a pretty tightly knit group of 10 thousand-or-so of the geekiest geeks you’ll ever meet, hacking at — and nerding out over — every Helio phone we could get our hands on. That community got me into blogging, which took me to all sorts of industry events, where I in turn met all the people who eventually lead me to my job here at TechCrunch."

read the full article: http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/05/26/exclusive-the-helio-ocean-3-that-could...

Since 1995, Ron Conway has invested in 500 start-ups, including Google, PayPal and Twitter. He puts his money down before the large venture capital firms show serious interest, and his stake is relatively small, about $200,000 or less. But his investment gives a company instant credibility and an unrivaled network of contacts.

via LA Times