Building a startup venture from scratch can be a daunting and lonely experience.
That’s why we created The Playbook, a new speaker series where entrepreneurs, founders and investors connect in a casual setting to hear what really happens inside startup companies.
Our next event — taking place on June 26 at The Ninety in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood — will feature an in-depth interview with professional sailor-turned-entrepreneur T.A. McCann. A limited number of tickets are available here.
A serial entrepreneur and angel investor who has sold startup companies to Google and Blackberry, McCann now serves as a managing director at Seattle-based Pioneer Square Labs where he helps supercharge new startup ideas.
We are thrilled that McCann is joining us, not only to share lessons from startup life, but also from the sea.
A former professional sailor who won the America’s Cup in 1992 aboard America3 and competed in dozens of other high-profile races in the 1990s, we’ll talk with McCann about how teamwork, technology and culture help sailors — and startup founders — gracefully cross the finish line. McCann, who previously co-founded Senosis, Gist and Rival IQ, holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, where he attended on a swimming scholarship.
At the next Playbook event, we’ll hear why McCann loves empowering smart people to create “side projects” and the importance of persistence.
“To be an entrepreneur takes a tremendous amount of courage, and it takes a tremendous amount of courage to continue to dust yourself off when you fail,” McCann said at a University of Washington event eight years ago.
We hope you’ll join us on June 26 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
A big thanks to the sponsors of The Playbook speaker series: Lane Powell and Seattle Bank.
