Appature’s Kabir Shahani: Startups are 95% luck, 4% timing and 1% hard work

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Appature CEO Kabir Shahani is one of the most energetic and charismatic young entrepreneurs in Seattle. He’s also wise beyond his years, with a startup flop and a big success under his belt. So, who better to speak to a group of emerging student entrepreneurs than the 30-year-old UW grad, who is still flying high… Read More…

Meet the clean water startup that just won 1st place in the UW biz plan competition

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When you think about innovation, water usually isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But there’s a big problem to solve in cleaning up contaminated water, making it safe to drink or re-use. And for the second time in the past three years, a startup company that promises to clean up contaminated water has… Read More…

Startup lesson #3: Don’t make up a brand, be yourself

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[Editor's note: Seattle entrepreneurs Barry Chu and Dave Cotter share some of their startup lessons in starting the new mobile app SquareHub. The three-part series is running this week on GeekWire, starting Tuesday with their thoughts about minimum viable products. In part two, they talked about figuring out key product features. Part three, running here today, covers startup... Read More…

Calling all entrepreneurs: Startup Weekend and Startup America launch UP Global

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Startup Weekend is joining forces with Startup America to launch UP Global, a new program designed to help entrepreneurs through the entire startup journey. As part of the effort, UP Global will combine the education-oriented programs of Startup Weekend with the regional community networking programs of Startup America. “Startup Weekend and Startup America Partnership have been among the drivers… Read More…

Card-counting startup founders look to place a bet on Google Glass

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Colin Jones and Ben Crawford have a tremendous story to tell, and one that you may have already read about or watched. In a nutshell, the Seattle natives went from waiting tables to becoming expert card counters at the Blackjack table to organizing a Christian card-counting team that was backed by investors, shared profit and won… Read More…

Bruce Montgomery biotech startup Cardeas Pharma raises $34 million

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It has been a good week for the Seattle life sciences community. On Monday, Seattle genomics tool maker NanoString Technologies filed for an initial public offering that could raise up to $86 million. Now, comes word that Cardeas Pharma Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company led by Seattle biotech veteran Bruce Montgomery, has raised $34 million in funding…. Read More…

From shopping advice to walking devices, startups with UW ties show off their successful ideas

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The entrepreneurial talent coming out of the University of Washington was on full display Tuesday evening at the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering. For the fourth installment of the Seattle Tech Meetup, five local startups with UW ties gave five-minute pitches to a crowd of several hundred on the UW campus. But perhaps the… Read More…

Chart: The top 10 biggest private tech buyouts (and where Tumblr ranks)

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In the wake of Yahoo’s blockbuster $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, Bloomberg News has produced a pretty nifty chart of the top 50 acquisitions of private technology companies. Skype leads the pack, but not Microsoft’s $8.5 billion buy in 2011 since at the time the Internet communications giant was owned by publicly-traded eBay. In fact, eBay’s… Read More…

SEO guru Vanessa Fox sells search analytics startup Nine by Blue to RKG

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Seattle entrepreneur Vanessa Fox has been bootstrapping her search analytics business, Nine by Blue, for the past six years. Today, the former Google employee is cashing out, in part because she’s found the right partner in Charlottesville, Virginia-based search marketing firm RKG. “We’ve built up Blueprint as a robust enterprise-level search analytics platform and are… Read More…

These sensor-infused socks track your steps and ID injury-prone running styles

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In the past few years, you’ve heard of smartphones, smart-watches and most recently, smart-glasses. Now, courtesy of a Redmond-based startup, we have yet another ordinary product attached to your body that’s becoming more intelligent: smart socks. Meet Heapsylon, a company founded two years ago by three Microsofties that is developing what is essentially a pedometer… Read More…

Startup Spotlight: Stride taps user feedback to build a CRM product with ‘love’

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It took just 24 hours for the self-described “startup junkies” at Stride to get their new customer relationship management service off the ground. But they didn’t stop there, and now just over a year after its formal launch, the team is still iterating and developing. The Stride app — created by Andrew Dumont, Nathan Carnes, Adrian… Read More…

Commencement speech showdown: Advice to recent grads from Redfin’s Kelman and Zillow’s Rascoff

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It’s that time of year when commencement speeches ring out across the nation, with everyone from President Barack Obama to philanthropist Melinda Gates to comedian Jimmy Kimmel offering words of wisdom to recent grads. Now, LinkedIn is taking a very special approach to the commencement speech tradition, asking several of its so-called “influencers” to write “Commencement… Read More…

5 things I learned while working on the original Xbox

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[Editor's Note: With Microsoft preparing to unveil the third generation of the Xbox on Tuesday, we asked GeekWire Chairman Jonathan Sposato to share his lessons learned while working on the original Xbox games effort, in this installment of his Startup Jedi column.] Before Xbox was an entire division of hundreds, it started out as a… Read More…

Fast-growing HasOffers raises $9.4M, promises to keep ‘bootstrapper spirit’ alive

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HasOffers built a pretty impressive business over the past four years, using the company’s revenue to fuel expansion as it grew to 79 employees and added profits to the bottom line. Now, after bootstrapping their way to success, the team is looking to supercharge efforts. HasOffers, which helps companies manage affiliate advertising programs, just scored… Read More…

How Silicon Valley VCs would react to a pitch from the greatest geek ever, Nikola Tesla

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GeekWire’s Greatest Geek of All Time is making headlines again, and this time it relates directly to the startup world. Palo Alto-based Northern Imagination produced the parody video above to help promote its Kickstarter campaign for a Wi-Fi-enabled Nikola Tesla statue in Silicon Valley. It’s a comical clip that sheds light on the short-attention span of impatient, distracted Valley… Read More…

Nike Accelerator Spotlight: FitDeck turns exercise into a card game

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Editor’s note: Nike Accelerator Spotlight takes a look at the ten startups participating in the Nike+ Accelerator, a three-month startup program based in Portland, Ore. and put on by Nike and TechStars. GeekWire is featuring each company leading up to the June 10 demo day.  Many bad ideas percolate inside college dorm rooms. Phil Black and his… Read More…

You did what? Why we chose debt over venture capital

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If you’re an entrepreneur, there’s a good chance that many of your conversations — and a good chunk of your inner dialogue — are consumed by thoughts of fundraising. You can’t open a web browser or email or Twitter without being bombarded by opinion pieces, research, case studies, and news on the topic. On this… Read More…

Digital marketing firm AudienceScience trims staff

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AudienceScience is cutting staff again. The Bellevue digital marketing company, formerly known as Revenue Science and digiMine, has laid off employees. “AudienceScience had a small strategic layoff to further align employee skillsets with its enterprise technology offering,” the company said in a statement. The company declined to say how many people were let go, though… Read More…

Bootlegs 2.0: Lively app allows you to take concert memories home for $9.99

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Has this ever happened? You just saw an amazing musical performance at one of your favorite concert venues, and you’d like to relive the action. Up until now, you’ve pretty much had to rely on low-quality YouTube clips if you wanted a replay of the show. But a new Seattle startup called Lively is looking… Read More…