With the deadlines for such seed-funding-plus-mentorship programs quickly approaching (YC is March 3rd), this is a great opportunity to learn about whether these programs are right for you, and what you should do to get in. If you’re considering applying, starting a business in the near-term, or think your company could be a good fit, then you should definitely attend!
Andy Sack, executive director of TechStars (amongst many other things), will talk about the program. For those of you who don’t know, this is TechStars first year in Seattle, and it has already attracted some of the best mentors and investment support Seattle has to offer.
Then we’ll have a panel discussion from Y Combinator alums including Tony Wright (RescueTime), Kalid Azad (Contest Machine, Better Explained), and Michael Miller (Cloudant) to talk about their experiences, advice on getting in, and anything else you want to know.
Andy Sack has over 15 years experience running and investing in high tech businesses, most recently as co-founder and CEO of Judy’s Book, a local search social network. Prior to founding Judy’s Book in 2004, Andy co-founded three successful Internet technology companies: Kefta (acquired in 2007 by Axciom), a leading provider of real time customer interaction solutions; Abuzz, (acquired by New York Times Digital in 1999), an enterprises knowledge management solution named number one in the Internet software category by Red Herring Magazine and the top company to work for by Boston Magazine; and Firefly Network, an Internet company that pioneered internet personalization technologies (acquired by Microsoft). Andy also spent time as an entrepreneur in residence for SOFTBANK Venture Capital (now Mobius VC) where he founded and served on the board of three companies: BodyShop Digital, Quova, and Kefta. Andy currently serves on the board of and advises a number of companies including: zango, Cooler Planet, and Orange Line Media. Andy was also a founder and board member of Students for Responsible Business, and is a regular lecturer at the University of Washington Business School. Andy received his undergraduate degree from Brown University in 1990, and his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. Andy lives in Laurelhurst with his wife and two children.
Tony has started 3 software companies and sold 2. His current venture is RescueTime, a venture-backed freemium service that helps individuals and businesses understand how they spend their time and spend it more effectively. Tony has flown a plane, blogged on the Iditarod Trail, been buried alive in a snow cave, and has eaten the better part of a moose. In his spare time he blogs at www.tonywright.com, reads sci-fi, cooks, plays lots of casual pickup sports, and works on his nearly fixered fixer-upper with his extremely tolerant wife.
Kalid is a local entrepreneur/geek who escaped from Microsoft to work on new technologies. In his spare time he blogs at Better Explained and helps you crunch numbers at InstaCalc. His Y-Combinator Summer 07 project was ContestMachine, a self-service marketing platform for bloggers.
Mike is an Assistant Professor of Physic at UW and cofounder of Cloudant (YCombinator, summer 2008). Cloudant is an integrated data management, search, and analytics engine that fundamentally changes the way businesses, from startups to large enterprises, manage and analyze data. Cloudant sprouted from the founders experience and frustrations with building globally distributed systems to manage the world’s largest data sets for science. The company was spun out of MIT, received seed funding from YCombinator, closed Series A venture funding 6 months after inception and is now actively growing first revenues.