Paul Graham is one of the best thinkers and writers there is on startups. One of his many superpowers is concision: boiling ideas down to their essence. My favorite example is his two-word definition of successful entrepreneurs: “relentlessly resourceful”. He concludes that same post by writing: “If I were running a startup, this would be continue…
I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve just completed an investment in SkyWard. This is a first for us in several ways: Our first investment in the commercial drone ecosystem The first Portland investment from our new fund Our first co-investment with the new Techstars Ventures Fund Before I tell you more about any of those continue…
Bear with me on this one. Regional capital formation is an arcane topic, but a critically important one for any innovation ecosystem that sits outside a major money center like San Francisco or New York. The subject is very fresh in my mind because we just finished raising our third fund for Founders’ Co-op: a continue…
Seven years ago we announced the launch of Founders’ Co-op as a new $2.5 million fund dedicated to supporting seed-stage startups in the Pacific Northwest. Today I’m delighted to announce that we’ve just completed the final close on our third fund — our largest ever at just over $20 million — to continue the journey continue…
I’m thrilled to announce the official launch of Techstars Seattle 2015. Last November, after five years and some amazing local success stories, my friend and business partner Andy Sack announced his decision to step down as Managing Director of Techstars Seattle and I signed on as his successor. Andy put Techstars Seattle on the map, continue…
I met with a talented young entrepreneur last week with early traction on a very interesting idea. After getting to know him a bit and learning about the business, I asked him about his co-founders. “Well”, he said, “there are four of us, but I’m the only one working on the business full-time.” “Hmm,” I continue…
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great holiday break and are hitting 2015 as fired up as I am. One of things I’m most excited about this year is my new role as Managing Director of Techstars Seattle — complementing my ongoing seed stage investment work at Founders’ Co-op. I took over the program from my continue…
If there’s such a thing as an anti-linkbait title this post is a canonical example, but this topic keeps coming up in conversation so it’s time to take a swing at writing it down. The concept of the power law distribution is a common one in startup-land, whether you’re talking about venture capital outcomes, app store downloads or income inequality: many markets continue…
I introduced this team at Techstars Seattle’s Demo Day last week so the cat is already out of the bag, but I wanted to make a more public announcement of our investment in TrueFacet. The founders — Tirath Kamdar and Chris Chan — moved from New York to Seattle just to participate in Techstars, and continue…
I’ve always been fascinated by the interplay between online and offline — finding out what aspects of a brand or service offering can be shifted online, and what elements of the experience are so “sticky” that customers will be willing to pay a premium to keep them in the real world. (As usual, this blog is continue…