What does it take to make it as a startup entrepreneur? Persistence and a great team.
Those themes came up repeatedly when we asked 26 serial entrepreneurs in the Seattle technology industry for the entrepreneurship advice they wish they’d heard earlier in their careers. We’ve collected their words of wisdom—as well as pictures of the entrepreneurs having fun and with their families—in the slideshow above.
We consulted with venture capitalists, angel investors, and others in the Seattle tech entrepreneurship community to identify this group of repeat hit-makers. But we know there are more out there, and we’d love to hear from readers about the ones we missed. We plan to update this list with your suggestions, and to recognize future successes.
Our imperfect definition of “serial entrepreneur” is someone who has founded more than one tech company, or founded one and held a C-level or equivalent position at another. Our list includes some people who are now primarily investors. And it leaves off some iconic founders who have reached global-scale levels of success—and are therefore rather hard to contact—or have so far only done one startup. Names like Bezos and Gates and Rich Barton come to mind for the former group, and Sujal Patel of Isilon Systems and Kabir Shahani of Appature for the latter.
We hope this collection of entrepreneurship advice will add inspiration as Seattle pays extra attention to startups and innovation this month. Events include Entrepreneur Week 2013, going on now on the University of Washington campus; Northwest Entrepreneur Network’s Entrepreneur University 2013 on Friday; and Seattle Startup Week, Oct. 18-25, with a ton of great events such as Techstars Demo Day on Thursday, Oct. 24, and Geekwire’s Startup Day on Friday, Oct. 25.
