For many, this would be the main place they ever come across those people, which would make it seem unusually conservative.

To counter balance the above blatant and unfair stereotyping above, I'll add some devil's advocate too: "change the world" type leaders might also be more idealistic and would vote progressive anyway, even if it's not good business sense.

That doesn't make sense. If someone feels unduly burdened by the status quo, why would they vote to preserve it?

Regulations tend to take a lot of money to comply with, making it difficult for small businesses to compete with larger ones.

So it is in small business owners' interests to support candidates that claim to be in favor of removing regulatory restrictions.

Which tends to be a Republican talking point (whether or not they actually do anything to advance the cause once elected)

Often it's a libertarian flavor, particularly here in the startup community where the cliche of the self-made-person looms large. Libertarians have some overlap with liberal positions in some areas (personal freedoms in general, drugs specifically) but disagreements in others (government regulation and spending, etc).

In practice though most libertarians today can generally be characterized as conservatives who want freedom in the areas that affect them personally. They want to smoke weed, or get gay married, so those things are good, but they're conservative in most other areas.