Relentlessly resourceful = Outreach.io

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…

Welcoming SkyWard to the Founders’ Co-op Family

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…

20 million new reasons to bet big on the Pacific Northwest

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…

The curse of the “non-operating co-founder”

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…

Techstars Seattle 2015 is on + I’m hiring!

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…

What log scale interval are you?

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…

Welcoming Garmentory to the Founders’ Co-op family

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…