{"id":4473,"date":"2015-02-01T10:14:30","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T17:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/blog\/?p=4473"},"modified":"2017-04-12T21:58:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T21:58:40","slug":"geekwire-startup-day-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/blog\/geekwire-startup-day-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Lessons from GeekWire Startup Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I attended the 6th annual GeekWire Startup Day in Seattle. The sold out event<\/a> at the Showbox SODO opened with Mayor Ed Murray talking about how Seattle is now the fastest growing city in America (recently overtaking Boston for the title). And not only that, but Seattle is also the best city to build a startup due to its culture and talent pool.<\/p>\n

\"Mayor<\/a>

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray Opens the event
Image Source: GeekWire<\/p><\/div>\n

From the string of success stories that crossed the stage throughout the day, it became clear these were not just the worlds of a mayor pumping up his own town.<\/p>\n

In between all the Go Hawks!<\/a> chants, speakers gracing the\u00a0stage included 2014 Entrepreneurs of the Year <\/a>Matt Ehrlichman of Porch and Dan Price of Gravity Payments; Sarah Bryant, CEO of Koru; former Napster and current co-founder of Ivy Softworks, Jordan Ritter; and many others. Exiting co-founders of Concur, Rajeev Singh & Mike Hilton (who recently sold their company of 22 years to SAP for $8.6B) showed up on their last day of work to talk about their entrepreneurial journey.<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurs Focus on the Importance of Culture and Passion<\/h1>\n

Amidst a host of great stories and insights, the one theme threaded throughout nearly every conversation was the important of culture and passion to a startup’s success. Why are you doing what you are doing? What are you trying to build? How can you get it right from the start? Vital questions.<\/p>\n

Here are some key lessons I took away from the speakers.<\/p>\n

Lesson\u00a01:\u00a0Culture must be intentional from the start<\/h2>\n

Kristen Hamilton<\/a>, CEO of Koru, discussed her experience at Onvia, where she served as CEO and helped take the company public during the dot-com bubble. Founded in 1997, Onvia was generating $147 million in revenue by the time they went public in March of 2000. But when the bubble burst, the team didn’t hold together.<\/p>\n

\"Kristen<\/a>

Image Source: GeekWire<\/p><\/div>\n

Sporting a T-shirt that read \u201cBuild-Break-Learn\u201d as though to emphasize her story, Hamilton explained what she is doing differently at Koru. Creating a winning culture requires being intentional and starting early (both points that were echoed by others throughout the day). She suggested establishing your startup’s culture before the company grows to 50 people.<\/p>\n

Hamilton shared a few of the values that comprise Koru’s culture:<\/strong><\/p>\n