In 2001, the New York Times characterized Ron Conway as “just another dot-com also-ran,” owing to the then-poor performance of two Internet index funds that Conway ran for rich contacts who wanted a piece of his early-stage action.

The uber angel was restored to his place at the center of the digital revolution when Google — which he’d backed in 2000 — went public in 2004. The search giant’s IPO made Conway and his investors far richer than when they’d started together. By then, however, Conway had taken enough slings and arrows; he resolved to invest his own money exclusively.

He’s done none too shabbily since with his index approach. Partly through his work with Baseline Ventures, a seed-stage venture firm in San Francisco that vetted his deal flow from 2006 through much of last year, Conway has enjoyed a number of enviable exits recently. Among them are mobile ad network AdMob, acquired by Google in December for $750 million; Zappos, acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion in November; StumbleUpon, acquired by eBay for $75 million in 2007 (then repurchased by its founders and new investors); and the personal finance site Mint, acquired by Intuit for $170 million last September.

Indeed, Conway struck out on his own last June when he and Baseline’s founding partner Steve Anderson amicably parted over how much to invest in any one company. (Conway prefers taking smaller stakes, investing between $50,000 and $150,000 in each startup; Anderson looks to take bigger positions.)

Over the last seven months alone, Conway has backed 36 new startups, aided by a team of four, young full-time investors that he assembled last summer: Conway’s son Topher; his friend Kevin Carter; Brian Pokorny formerly of Baseline; and David Lee, formerly of Baseline and Google. Among the most popular of their new portfolio companies is the location-based gaming mobile app Foursquare, the Twitter desktop client Tweetdeck, and Gowalla, a location-based service that tracks users’ activities.

It’s a lot of new portfolio companies. Then again, Conway’s team is looking at three to four deals a day, nearly all of which come through the enormous network that Conway has developed over the years. Says Lee of the group, which works virtually from their own homes, “We just divide and conquer and prioritize based on the sectors we like, then try reaching a consensus as quickly as we can.”

The criteria is loose, though a priority for Conway right now is the so-called live Internet — a wider trend in how users more immediately interact and share content these days — and mobile applications. In fact, concepts that combine both in particular “move to the top of the list,” says Lee.

The closer a startup is to an inflection point, the better, too. “We try to get involved when they need help with a key business development deal or a subsequent financing or with key hires,” according to Lee, who adds that occasionally, the group — operating under moniker SV Angel — will also back entrepreneurs at the concept stage. He says that it happens “rarely. It very much depends on the entrepreneur and the idea.”

The rest of the team’s time is spent cultivating stronger partnerships with Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft on behalf of its startups, or meeting, often at Conway’s lavish San Francisco home, with the new entrepreneurs that are regularly funneled their way.

“We try to spend as much time with prospective opportunities because, at the risk of sounding corny, that’s the most fun part of this business,” says Lee. “Even if they are opportunities we don’t pursue, [meeting with them] feeds the ecosystem, and we do think it’s a pay-it-forward business.”

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