Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. Come share ideas, form teams, and launch startups.
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Andy has over 15 years experience running and investing in high tech businesses. Most recently Andy co-founded Lighter Capital to use revenue-based finance to disrupt the small business lending industry. Andy is also the Managing Director of TechStars Seattle and a Managing Partner of Founder’s Co-op.
Prior to Lighter Capital, Andy was the 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, Abuzz, and Firefly Network.
Bill Bryant has had early and instrumental involvement in over 25 leading software, Internet, digital media and mobile companies, as a founder, senior executive, investor and Board Member. Companies include Visio, Netbot, Qpass, Medio, Isilon, Swype, Winshuttle, Loudeye, Jabber, Opscode and Z2Live. He is currently a Venture Partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Donald is a user experience designer and storyteller. He is a partner at LIFFFT, a product studio that brings the speed and innovation of startups to major brands.
Prior to LIFFFT, Donald led user experience at Giant Thinkwell, a TechStars company funded by Madrona Venture Group. At Giant Thinkwell, he designed social video applications for mobile devices and Facebook applications for celebrities and brands. Before Giant Thinkwell, Donald designed new products for Google and venture-backed technology startups.
An occasional writer and speaker, Donald has been featured in national media outlets including GeekWire, GigaOm, and The New York Times.
Rebecca Lovell, GeekWire’s chief business officer, is the former executive director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network & the Alliance of Angels. She teaches a class on Venture Capital in the UW Foster MBA program, and is also serving as a mentor for TechStars & Founder's Institue and is also a community advisor for Startup Weekend.
Mike is the Managing Director of Atlas Accelerator, the largest venture accelerator in the U.S.. Atlas is a team of 30 tech professionals working in accounting, HR, sales, marketing, and development to help start-ups get to the next level. Atlas invests about $2MM in seed-stage companies each year and is one the top ten seed-stage investors in the country. Mike has sat on over 30 boards for public and private companies and advised over 100 startups. As an advisor, Mike focuses on funding strategy, corporate governance, go-to-market strategy, board and executive compensation, and contracts. He began his work in startups as a CFO where we served over 75 companies in that capacity over 15 years.
Mike's prior work history includes assignments as a division controller and plant manager with AlliedSignal where has was certified as a master black belt by the six sigma academy. Earlier, he served as an operations analyst with Data General, as a cost accounting consultant and, earlier, an officer supporting the US Army's elite 82nd Airborne division. He left active duty as a Captain in 1989, having contributed to winning the Cold War (you’re welcome). Mike holds BS from Syracuse University, magna cum laude, with majors in Finance, Personnel and Industrial Relations, and Managerial Law and a Military Science minor. Mike graduated at the top of his class with an MBA, summa cum laude, from Duke University.
Kevin Birrell is a student at the University of Washington studying Computer Science and Percussion Performance in the Class of 2015. He is only one of four Tetris Grandmasters outside Japan in the world, and has a passion for e-Sports and competitive gaming.
Stan is responsible for economic analysis and consuming-facing analytics at Zillow. He helped create the algorithms for the Zestimate® home value and the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) and oversees the production of Zillow housing market metrics and economic research that brings insight into current market conditions. Prior to joining Zillow, Stan spent five years at Expedia where he ran a team responsible for finding innovative ways to use data, building systems for personalization, pricing, forecasting, and fraud detection. Before Expedia, Stan served as a researcher and faculty member at the University of Virginia, and was previously with NASA where he negotiated international science agreements. Stan has also served in the United States Peace Corps, where he taught physics and chemistry classes in West Africa. Stan has a bachelor's degree in political science/economics from Davidson College, a master's degree in foreign service from Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. in government from the University of Virginia
Jay is the Sr Mobile Product Manager at Zillow and is in charge of mobile product strategy, design, and development activities. Prior to joining Zillow, Jay spent five years at Übermind as a senior user experience and engineering consultant working for a number of high profile clients such as Apple and FOX Broadcasting, and developing numerous award-winning mobile applications such as AllRecipes and the Target suite of applications.
Jay holds undergraduate degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Studio Art from Macalester College, and a Master of Communication in Digital Media degree from the University of Washington.
Scott is an entrepreneur, developer, project manager, and best practice junkie. With lots of experience participating, organizing and mentoring at Startup Weekend, he's a great person to ask about any part of the process, from first steps after forming your team to tracking down bugs to tuning your Sunday night presentation. You could even say that every day is like Startup Weekend at LIFFFT! Be sure to ask him about his current set of mantras and his obsession with fermented things.
Prior to joining Madrona Venture Group in Summer 2011, Julie was a senior product manager at Amazon on the Kindle team, where she managed online marketing/traffic for Kindle’s ebook business, both in the US and internationally. She also led the definition, design, and technical implementation of a (very soon-to-be released) Kindle Content product. Earlier in her career, Julie worked at Accenture, where she spent several years in product management within Microsoft’s SMSG Solutions Delivery space. At Microsoft, she launched the World Disaster Response initiative - now used by operations centers worldwide to deliver licenses and support to customers affected by natural or manmade disasters - and led the international rollout of order-to-invoice operations for Microsoft Mediaroom (formerly IPTV). While pursuing her MBA, Julie also worked in product and business development at TeachStreet. Julie is a trustee on the board of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. She is an avid photographer, musical theatre aficionada, and Seattle waterfront runner. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with honors, with distinction, and with both a Master’s and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She also received an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School.
Steve holds a Ph.D. Psychology from Brown University and is the author of Designing and Engineering Time: The Psychology of Time Perception in Software. Prior to becoming an evangelist, he spent time with the product development teams at Visual Studio, Microsoft Surface, Windows Phones, and Xbox.
Kav is a software architect and educator. He works as a partner at LIFFT, bringing the speed and innovation of the startup world to major brands through product development and workshops on Lean Metrics, Agile Methodologies, and Design Thinking. Before starting LIFFFT Kav served as CTO of Giant Thinkwell designing and building highly scalable, massively multi-user, social video applications. Prior to Giant Thinkwell Kav worked on Microsoft's Visual Studio Platform designing world class developer tools and platform technologies.
Kav is a global facilitator for Startup Weekend teaching technology entrepreneurship and helping grow startup communities worldwide. Locally he runs the Seattle Node.JS meet up and serves as an advisor for several startups and developers.
Adam Philipp has been involved in the prosecution of patent applications in the computer science, electrical devices, consumer products and related fields since 1998 and with Internet and technology related law since 1995. He also counsels clients on intellectual property portfolio strategies and infringement matters. He has been participating in Startup Weekends events since they first came to Seattle. Adam is also a finalist as the “Schmoozer of the Year” award at the Seattle 2.0 Awards.
Ilya Braude is Co-Founder and Engineer at CloudMine - a platform that provides full backend support for applications via an API, allowing developers to build fast, scalable apps quickly. Prior to CloudMine, Ilya had a blast developing next-gen (“Jack Bauer”) mobile data collaboration systems for SWAT teams and managed projects at Drexel University for the DoD as a research staff member. Ilya graduated from Drexel University with BS and MS degrees in Computer Science. He loves to play with new technologies, talk tech, and keeps himself busy with activities such as Karate and rock climbing.
Andrew is a designer and entrepreneur. He co-founded GroupTalent, a marketplace for software projects, and attended Seattle's TechStars 2011 program. With a background in branding, UI and UX, today he has focuses primarily on customer development, user experience, and marketing. Prior to GroupTalent, Andrew was the product and design director for Seattle startup Whrrl, and (later) San Francisco startup JustShareIt.
He's passionate about helping designers cross the chasm between traditional design and digital. As a StartupWeekend participant alum, Andrew now attends events as a mentor helping teams focus on product design and pitch strategy.
He's passionate about helping designers cross the chasm between traditional design and digital. As a StartupWeekend participant alum, Andrew now attends events as a mentor helping teams focus on product design and pitch strategy.
MailChimp, a Startup Weekend Seattle sponsor, recently launched a new product called Mandrill. Mandrill is a transactional email platform that allows you to send one-to-one emails. If you’re an app-builder looking for an inexpensive, scalable way to communicate with your customers through email messaging such as sign-up verifications, password reminders and order confirmations, and need [...]
Calling all Startup Weekend alumni and soon-to-be-“Beakerheads” of the May 18th event: Let’s get together to talk startups! Startup Weekend is kicking off a new monthly tradition we’re calling “Beakers and Beers” and you are most cordially invited. The Startup Weekend Core Team and the Seattle Organizing Team will be co-hosting the event before the [...]
Makers doesn’t have designated parking, and to save you from fighting for spots in a lot, or running out to pay your meter in the middle of your breakthrough-genius-aha!-moment, Uber is offering a special deal for all Startup Weekend ticket holders. Uber is your key to a sleek ride anywhere in Seattle at any time [...]
We’re thrilled to welcome Michael Michelini as facilitator for Startup Weekend Seattle this May. An American social media & internet marketing specialist, Mike has been in China since late 2007, originally to source products for his e-commerce business – but has transformed into working with American companies market entry into China, as well as assisting [...]
Want to put your mark on the next Startup Weekend in Seattle? Help us design our t-shirt! Submissions are due no later than 5pm PST Friday April 20th via email to seattle@startupweekend.org Requirements We need to have the words “Startup Weekend”, the beaker image, and the “Powered by the Kauffman Foundation” text (albeit tiny) We [...]
The power and energy that comes of working in close proximity to like minded individuals is something we’re all too familiar with at Startup Weekend. So what better place to host our next Seattle event than the brand spanking new Belltown co-working space MAKERS? Startup Weekend Seattle has officially found a home in this fantastic [...]
As the teams recover from the event and Seattle is thrust into Snowpocalypse 2012, 4 attendees were eager to share highlights from their experiences over the weekend. Check them out by following the links below. Dwight – Team Surprise Part 1: http://blackartdirector.com/post/15990629218/law-order-startup-weekend Part 2: http://blackartdirector.com/post/16030339646/startupweekend2 Eric – Team Chicken Checkin http://ericbrooke.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/a-cold-startup-weekend-in-seattle-the-rise-of-the-designer/ Harmony [...]
The Schedule: Friday: 5:00pm – Doors open – Mingle @ HUB (delicious pizza and beverages provided by Launchrock) 6:15pm – Kickoff 6:30pm – Speaker Matt Shobe 8:00pm – Pitches Begin – (60 seconds per person) 9:30pm – Mingle and voting 10:00 – Team forming – then start working! 12:00am– Roll out Saturday: 9:30am – Doors [...]
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