This year’s finalists for Startup CEO of the Year at the 2022 GeekWire Awards lead a diverse group of companies, ranging from a fashion startup to an AI-powered service to assess legal contracts.
The five finalists are: Justin Beals of Strike Graph; Raghu Gollamudi of Included; Linda Lian of Common Room; Gaurav Oberoi of Lexion; and Ambika Singh of Armoire.
The award is for leaders of companies with 100 employees or fewer and is presented by Aon. Last year’s winner was Alessya Visnijc, CEO of AI application monitoring company WhyLabs.
This year’s finalists also have diverse viewpoints about what it takes to run a startup. We asked each of them the same question: What is the No. 1 tip you would give other entrepreneurs about leading a startup? Read below for their answers and more about what makes them stand out.
The GeekWire Awards recognize the top innovators and companies in Pacific Northwest technology. Finalists in this category and others were selected based on community nominations, along with input from GeekWire Awards judges. Community voting across all categories will continue until April 22, combined with feedback from judges to determine the winner in each category.
We’ll announce the winners on May 12 at the GeekWire Awards, presented by Astound Business Solutions. There are a limited number of table sponsorships available to attend the event. Contact our events team at events@geekwire.com for more information.
You can vote for your picks across all categories in the GeekWire Awards ballot below.
Create your own user feedback surveyJustin Beals, CEO and co-founder of Strike Graph.
Spun out of Madrona Venture Labs in 2020, Strike Graph makes software that simplifies the certification processes used by companies to ensure they meet security and privacy standards. The company landed $8 million in a Series A funding round last September.
Beals, a veteran of NextStep, Koru, Roundbox Global and other startups, believes that diverse engineering teams make for a healthy business and company culture.
No. 1 tip: “Bring a beginner’s mind to your work. If you can listen empathetically to employees, customers, and investors you will learn of opportunities to succeed. Leaning too strongly on egocentric convictions closes you off to tactics that could dramatically improve your company outcomes.”
Raghu Gollamudi, CEO and co-founder of Included.
Included’s software supports its customers diversity, equity and inclusion efforts with measures like evaluating the diversity of the candidate pool and interview panel.
Gollamudi previously launched Integris Software, a privacy tech company, which was acquired by OneTrust Data Discovery for an undisclosed sum. His interest in Included has origins in experiencing a variety of work cultures as an immigrant from India.
No. 1 tip: “Build inclusive teams from day one. Time and again we’ve seen the research support that diverse teams attract diverse talent and deliver the best business outcomes. For those who aren’t sure where to start, there’s tech that can help; at Included we offer an AI-powered solution to help hire and retain a diverse workforce.”
Linda Lian, CEO and co-founder of Common Room.
Common Room aims to help companies deepen relationships with their users and customers. The company’s tools act as a conduit between organizations and people in their communities, and integrate with communication apps such as Slack, Twitter, Discord, and more. Common Room has raised $52 million since launching in 2020 and last month released its “intelligent community growth platform.”
Lian is a former associate at Madrona Venture Group and senior product marketing manager at Amazon Web Services. Common Room is also a finalist for the GeekWire Awards Startup of the Year.
No. 1 tip: “Product market fit isn’t a moment. It’s a process and continual journey to build for the problems that your community of users, champions, and customers have. We built a community before we ever wrote a single line of code, and our community consistently pushes us to build better and do more. Your community is always telling you what you need, as an entrepreneur the most important thing is to listen!”
Gaurav Oberoi, CEO and co-founder of Lexion.
Lexion’s software sifts through legal contracts to surface relevant info, yielding an organized searchable repository and tracking key milestones and terms. The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence spinout landed an $11 million Series A funding round last year after rapidly adding dozens of customers.
Oberoi previously helped build bill-splitting app BillMonk and also created Precision Polling, an automated survey startup later purchased by SurveyMonkey.
No. 1 tip: “Obsess over customer happiness. Do it so much that it pervades how your entire team thinks and makes decisions. If you make customers successful, you have the foundation for a great business.”
Ambika Singh, CEO and co-founder of Armoire.
As her customers settled into sweatpants during the pandemic, Singh had to lay off employees from the clothing rental service she co-founded in 2016. But Armoire adapted and bounced back, hiring back its furloughed workers, opening a high-tech physical store in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood, and landing a new $3.5 million round of venture funding.
Singh, who got the idea for the company while she was working on her MBA at MIT, leads a team of about 45.
No. 1 tip: “Make work fun. If it’s fun, people will stick around — which is really one of the only things you need to be successful. Counterintuitively, it takes work to make fun happen. If people at work like each other, it makes the work of having fun easier — so try to crate an environment that encourages folks to like each other. But even if they like each other, remember that having fun at work takes work — and invest in the work!”
A big thanks to Astound Business Solutions, the presenting sponsor of the 2022 GeekWire Awards.
Also, thanks to gold-level and category sponsors: Wilson Sonsini, ALLtech, JLL, DreamBox Learning, Blink UX, BECU, Baird, Fuel Talent, RSM, Aon, Meridian Capital, and WTIA. And thanks to silver level sponsors: J.P. Morgan Chase, Material+, and Tomo.
If interested in sponsoring a category or purchasing a table sponsorship for the event, contact us at events@geekwire.com.
