entrepreneurs. Founder’s Co-op is evolving now, perhaps becoming more of a micro-VC fund. It is also connected to TechStars and RevenueLoan, a couple of other intriguing organizations that have sprouted up in Seattle recently.
6. Why Startups Fail: A Top 10 List From Geoff Entress, Seattle’s Prolific Angel Investor
Geoff Entress has since become a venture partner with Voyager Capital, and a managing partner with Founder’s Co-op. He is one of Seattle’s most prominent angel investors in tech, and has studied the failures of startups carefully over the years. This story was a distillation of some of his valuable knowledge and advice for startups and investors, in bullet-point form.
7. EnerG2, Backed by OVP and Firelake, Wants to Own Energy Storage in the Electricity Economy
This intriguing cleantech startup, whose initial venture funding news we broke in the fall of 2008, has been scaling up its production of materials for ultracapacitors. These are energy-storage devices that complement batteries and could be used in electric vehicles and consumer electronics. EnerG2 is based on technology from the University of Washington, and is one of the beacons in the Northwest energy scene.
8. Who Needs VCs? Seattle Entrepreneurs Say Bootstrapping Is the Way to Go
It’s a perennial decision for a young startup—to take venture capital, or not? Hillel Cooperman from Jackson Fish Market and Tony Wright (co-founder of RescueTime) engaged in a bit of dialogue on the topic. Seattle-area entrepreneurs Christian Chabot, Josh Petersen, and Steve McCracken weighed in on the debate. In part two of the story, these entrepreneurs dished some more on the specific pros and cons of taking VC versus bootstrapping, based on their own experiences.
9. Mayonnaise Wrestling, Flavor Fanaticism, and Social Media on Steroids: The Bacon Salt Story
(I’ll let this one speak for itself.)
10. How to Spot a Breakthrough: Tips From Early Amazon Investor Nick Hanauer
This was the talk from Second Avenue Partners’ Nick Hanauer that helped inspire our own 2010 event on breakthrough ideas. Hanauer, an investor in Amazon, aQuantive, and Insitu, laid out his contrarian thinking about what constitutes a breakthrough in business, and introduced the core idea behind Seattle-based Qliance, the healthcare-without-insurance startup that’s now backed by Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Drew Carey, and others.
And, lastly, here’s a bonus story (and Google map), on where to get the best coffee around Seattle—and which investors, entrepreneurs, and executives you might run into at their favorite café meeting spots. Yes, I’m going to miss the coffee here.
Where Innovators Meet Up: The Greater Seattle Coffee Cluster
