The finalists for the GeekWire Awards Young Entrepreneur of the Year category are at the cutting edge of their respective industries — and they’re all under the age of 30.
This year’s cohort of up-and-coming tech leaders are innovating across a number of important industries: customer feedback and discovery; workplace camaraderie; productivity and organization; healthcare supply chains; and medical payments.
These startup founders are growing their business at a time when it’s becoming increasingly difficult to raise funding. We asked them what their advice would be for other entrepreneurs leading a company — read below for their answers.
Last year’s winners were Esha Joshi and Varun Puri of Yoodli, an AI-enabled software platform that analyzes speech delivery and gives tips for improvement. The startup went on to raise $6 million in August.
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 May 1, combined with feedback from judges to determine the winner in each category.
We'll announce the winners on May 18 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.
Submit your votes here or below, and keep scrolling for descriptions of each finalist for Young Entrepreneur of the Year, presented by TalentReach.
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Devin Ajimine, Pouya Rad and Marisa Chentakul
LifeAt Spaces employees, from left: Devin Ajimine, Ashika Mulagada, Pouya Rad and Marisa Chentakul. (LifeAt Spaces Photo)
Before founding LifeAt, Devin Ajimine worked as a product manager at T-Mobile. He teamed up with former University of Portland computer science classmate Pouya Rad, who worked as an engineer at Vimeo, and Marisa Chentakul, a former product designer at TikTok.
While working remote, the trio could not find a productivity product that would help them stay focused, so they built one for themselves over a weekend.
The result is LifeAt, a platform that consolidates productivity tools onto a single screen. Users can create a digital space that houses notes, calendars, music, video calls, and other tools. The idea is to reduce the amount of clutter on a desktop, limiting the digital distractions.
Since launching, LifeAt has been downloaded more than a million times and has gone viral on social media multiple times. All three co-founders were recently featured on Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.
Advice for other entrepreneurs: “Empower your startup by staying curious about your customers and their adjacent challenges. Embrace feedback and leverage it to fuel continuous learning and improvement. This customer-centric approach will not only drive your product’s success but also build a loyal community around your hypothesis and experiments.”
Previous coverage: Forbes ’30 under 30′ entrepreneurs raise $3M for remote work productivity startup backed by Meta
Ana-Maria Constantin
A Harvard graduate in computer science and astrophysics, Ana-Maria Constantin was a software engineer at Microsoft for more than five years before starting Cascade Health.
Founded last year, the startup is an AI-powered platform that helps patients and others understand healthcare costs. The company, formerly called Gondwana, was a finalist at the 2022 MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.
Advice for other entrepreneurs: “My No.1 tip is to prioritize collaboration and intentionally build a very strong team with a diverse set of skills. I learned the value of collaboration during my time at Microsoft — to achieve anything at scale, we had to work together within and across groups. As a startup, our challenges are very different from those of large organizations; however, fostering a collaborative environment is even more important. Everyone needs to bring their best ideas forward and work well together, so we stay focused on our vision, gain a competitive edge and grow. This holds especially true in healthcare, which is a more fragmented industry. I always encourage my team to collaborate, move fast and fix things.”
JT Garwood
Formerly a senior account executive at Microsoft, JT Garwood got his start in entrepreneurship through a startup he co-founded called PPE.Exchange, an online marketplace for PPE and other medical supplies.
This led to the launch of bttn (pronounced “button”), a startup that aims to reduce costs and eliminate the middleman in the procurement of medical supplies.
Garwood co-founded the company with software engineer Jack Miller.
Bttn has raised more than $26.5 million, propelled by supply chain disruptions and demand for healthcare supplies during the pandemic. During its last public funding round, the startup reached a $110 million valuation.
Bttn’s two co-founders were recently featured on Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.
Advice for other entrepreneurs: “Start now. There are so many young, brilliant entrepreneurs with world-changing ideas who never start. It won’t be perfect, you’ll trip all over yourself, but once you start — you will be on the path and learn as you go. That’s what matters most, just start now.”
Previous coverage: Tiger Global leads $20M funding round for Seattle-based medical supply startup
Shane Kovalsky
Before jumping into entrepreneurship, Shane Kovalsky worked at the Seattle freight forwarding marketplace Convoy, where he called thousands of truckers and helped land more than $50 million in revenue for the company.
In 2019 Kovalsky founded Glue, an AI-powered connection platform that uses machine learning and network analysis to find the connection opportunities among employees and teams.
The platform automatically examines workplace tools where employees digitally interact, such as Slack and calendars, and generates data to help HR leaders take action. It has raised more than $22 million.
Kovalsky has steered the company through multiple COVID-induced pivots to reach a $100 million valuation. Glue was previously called Mystery, helping employers coordinate events and team-building activities.
Advice for other entrepreneurs: “Lean into your strengths and find ways to delegate your weaknesses.”
Previous coverage: Employee engagement startup Mystery rebrands as Glue and uses software and AI to boost stickiness
Elena Zhizhimontova and Andrew DiLosa
Elena Zhizhimontova and Andrew DiLosa spent four years at Amazon as software engineers on the Fire TV division before launching Spiral.
The startup, which graduated from Amazon’s Alexa Accelerator program, sells artificial intelligence software that scans multiple channels of customer feedback. Spiral aims to help companies spot bugs or other issues raised by customers to quickly rectify them.
Spiral raised $1.25 million in November, growing its workforce by tapping into a network of Amazon employees impacted by recent layoffs.
Advice for other entrepreneurs: “Customer discovery is everything and it never stops. Prior to making any major changes, make sure to interview at least a dozen customers and understand their true problem.”
Previous coverage: Spiral, a Seattle startup that analyzes customer feedback, raises $1.25M
Thanks to gold-level and category sponsors: Wilson Sonsini, JLL, Blink, BECU, Baird, Fuel Talent, RSM, Talent Reach, WTIA, Meridian Capital, Bank of America, and T-Mobile. And thanks to silver level sponsors: First Tech, Remitly, Fuel Talent, and SolluCIO Partners.
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