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Team “Stimma” pitches at Pioneer Square Labs on Wednesday in front of Seattle venture capitalists. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
Best class ever?
That was my thought after watching eight teams pitch their startup ideas on Wednesday in Seattle, the culmination of an entrepreneurship class at the University of Washington teaching students the ins and outs of building a tech company.
The 10-week program is a crash course in starting, growing, managing, leading, and exiting a new venture. Required background reading includes Zero to One, The Art of Pitching, and Amazon’s leadership principles — to help prepare for Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who was a guest speaker this quarter, along with Zillow and Expedia co-founder Rich Barton and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood.
Demand is high for the 75-person class, held each winter quarter — 80 students were turned away this year.
The class is led by Seattle venture capitalist Greg Gottesman, co-founder and managing director at startup studio Pioneer Square Labs (PSL), along with Ed Lazowska, a longtime computer science professor at the UW. This was Gottesman’s 25th year helping teach the class.
Energy was buzzing inside the PSL headquarters on Wednesday as students made the trek from campus to Pioneer Square to pitch their company ideas and product demos developed in just 10 weeks or less.
From left: University of Washington students Luciana Cheung, Jacob Berg and Jen Xu pitch their business idea for “Haven,” a package detection service for apartment complexes. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
Big themes included AI and computer vision, reflecting hot trends in the technology industry. Team “Lumora” pitched an AI-powered CRM app to help personal wealth managers; “Trove” demoed an intelligence and automation platform for professional resellers; and “Haven” showed off a parcel location service for apartments.
The audience included a group of Seattle venture capitalists — many of whom were also guest speakers throughout the quarter — that peppered students with questions about marketing strategy, competitive threats, and potential regulatory roadblocks.
Students gained unique insight into the mindset of investors as they assess potential startups in their day-to-day work.
“I come from an engineering background and I’ve never had real startup experience,” said Satish Jonnala, an MBA student. “This showed me the reality of the world out there.”
Pioneer Square Labs Managing Director Greg Gottesman (right), and University of Washington computer science professor Ed Lazowska (near whiteboard), deliberate student pitches with Seattle-area investors. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
After the pitches wrapped up, Gottesman and Lazowska gathered the venture capitalists in a conference room to deliberate. Investors discussed how the pitches reflected similar themes within their own startup portfolios.
At the end of the evening, each team received feedback on their pitch from investors.
“I felt like it was a very effective, really compelling solution,” longtime investor Stephan Roche told team VarsityLink, which built a marketplace tying brands with college athletes. “I congratulate you all for putting together a terrific business plan — great idea, great model. Well done.”
The winning team was “Stimma,” which built an AI bot to help consumers deal with customer service — such as trying to lower an internet service bill.
“The pitch was very memorable — I can’t understate how important that is,” Bryan Hale, an investor with Anthos Capital, told the class.
Heather Redman, co-founder and managing partner at Seattle VC firm Flying Fish, offers feedback on a student pitch. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
Jason Stoffer, partner at Maveron, pushed students to pursue entrepreneurship as they graduate and venture off into the working world.
“You don’t have a mortgage, most of you don’t have kids,” he said. “Now is the time.”
Another unique aspect of the class is bringing together students from across campus — the business school, computer science, and design. It’s “bridging groups of people who need each other, but don’t know each other,” said Aaron Altaget, an MBA student.
It also gave students a safe space to learn how to fail and pivot from different ideas — a crucial part of entrepreneurship.
“We went through so many things I could totally see happening in the real world,” said Aditi Joshi, a computer science graduate student.
“This is what startups are about,” Gottesman told the students as the evening wrapped up. “It’s about grinding, iterating, looking for product-market-fit.”
Greg Gottesman (left), Ed Lazowska (second from left), and team “Stimma,” which won the pitch competition on Wednesday. (Lawrence Tan Photo)
In some ways, the class is a reflection of what makes the Seattle tech ecosystem so special. There aren’t many places where future entrepreneurs going through school can be groomed with guidance from top venture capitalists and executives leading the world’s largest tech corporations.
“I came away from last night with renewed awe about the incredible pipeline of founders that Ed and Greg are helping UW build for the benefit of us all,” said Heather Redman, managing partner at Flying Fish. “The skills we want to see as VCs were incredibly well developed for such a short time in the trenches. Now they’ve been exposed to the deep pockets of funding in the region. Let’s go!”
