Next up for Startup Weekend: Making government move at Internet speed

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn

You might say it is a bit of an oxymoron. But Startup Weekend is introducing a new event next month in Seattle designed to bring the fast-paced world of startups to the slow-moving world of city government. Dubbed Startup Weekend GOV, the event will follow the typical 54-hour brain and coding jam associated with other Startup Weekend… Read More…

Geeks Who Give Back: Mike Koss, StartPad.org

GeekWire calendar shoot

Long before it became cool to run a tech incubator, Mike Koss was opening his doors to Seattle-area entrepreneurs at StartPad.org. In addition to office space, the ex-Microsoftie regularly hosts brown bag lunches where developers discuss everything from the finer points of mobile app development to new startup business ideas. Koss flies his geek flag high, and… Read More…

CoinLab: New center for Bitcoin projects in Seattle

Peter Vessenes and Mike Koss

A group of Seattle entrepreneurs is forging ahead into the uncertain and intriguing world of Bitcoin with a new center for incubating projects and potential businesses involving the digital currency. Called CoinLab, it’s the creation of Peter Vessenes, Mike Koss and Tihan Seale, housed inside the StartPad co-working space that Koss oversees in downtown Seattle…. Read More…

Bitcoin: Tech vets explore potential of digital currency, try to avoid pitfalls

Peter Vessenes and Mike Koss (Erynn Rose photo)

Seattle tech startup entrepreneurs Mike Koss and Peter Vessenes joined us on the latest GeekWire radio show and podcast to talk about Bitcoin, the digital currency that has been getting lots of attention lately, good and bad. Koss and Vessenes have been exploring the world of Bitcoin and  thinking about starting a Bitcoin-related development center… Read More…

Mike Koss sells Faves.com, investors take ‘big loss’

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Faves.com is getting a second (actually, maybe even a third or fourth) chance. But the Seattle online social bookmarking service won’t pay the huge dividend that investors once hoped for. Mike Koss, one of the early backers and former co-CEO, tells GeekWire that he’s in the middle of transferring the domain name and service to… Read More…

How a Seattle startup missed its shot to become the next Facebook

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Faves.com had a smart team, top angel investors and big aspirations to become a dominant player in the emerging social network arena. But the 7-year-old upstart — founded at about the same time as Facebook — missed the mark. After a few years on life support, Seattle angel investor Mike Koss just decided to pull… Read More…

Nuclear fallout? Skip the tin foil, grab a cookie sheet

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Seattle startup guru Mike Koss of Startpad.org was watching news coverage of the crisis in Japan when he noticed people holding large sheets of cardboard over their heads, covered in tin foil, presumably hoping to protect themselves from radioactive fallout. Which raised an interesting question in his mind: Would that work? As he explains in… Read More…