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The rooftop park on Ocean Pavilion offers views of the Seattle skyline and Elliott Bay. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)
Seattle’s startup scene needs more swag and more big swings.
Better storytelling and highly ambitious entrepreneurs are two ingredients that can help boost the city’s startup ecosystem, according to local venture capitalists speaking on a panel I moderated last week hosted by TiE Seattle.
Seattle doesn’t have the capital or sheer number of startups compared to Silicon Valley or New York City.
But its tech talent ranks among the best in the world, buoyed by Microsoft and Amazon. The region has also produced some sizable acquisitions and a handful of public offerings in recent years.
So why aren’t there more billion-dollar unicorns sprouting in Seattle or more giant exits?
Some say Seattle could use more founders aiming for massive, disruptive growth rather than just steady, linear growth.
“You’re taking venture dollars — swing for the fences, try to build something really big,” said Sabrina Wu, an investor at Madrona. “That’s your goal, that’s what you want to do.”
Founders should be OK knowing they might fail by taking a bigger swing, she said.
“That’s part of the journey,” she said. “There’s no issue with that. You’ll get back up and do the next thing.”
And along that journey, founders should amp up the way they talk about their vision, said Brendan Wales, founding partner at FUSE.
“We get a lot of great technical talent — but people aren’t great at telling the story around why it’s them, why the product should be there, why they’re gonna win, ultimately, in the market,” he said. “That’s where it’s lacking.”
Investors have long argued that Seattle entrepreneurs have trouble articulating what their companies look like at scale, especially relative to Silicon Valley.
Seattle’s startup scene certainly does not lack fast-growing companies — take a look at the GeekWire 200, our list of top privately held tech companies.
The “flywheel” of successful startups needs to keep spinning, said Elisa La Cava, principal at Trilogy Equity Partners.
“It’s a sheer numbers game for building those bigger companies,” she said. “You have more people exposed to successful startups who feel inspired to start that next startup.”
Seattle sometimes gets knocked as a “company town” with the likes of not only Microsoft and Amazon, but other homegrown corporations such as T-Mobile, Expedia, Zillow Group, F5, Costco, and others. That’s not to mention significant satellite offices of Meta, Apple, Google, and more than 100 companies with engineering centers in the region.
It’s been hard to convince talented tech leaders at these large corporations that they should leave cushy jobs and take a risky startup leap.
But that trend could be shifting.
“We’ve had so many founders approach us … and a lot of them are coming from Big Tech,” said Palvi Mehta, CFO at Pioneer Square Labs.
Mehta said Seattle founders have a tendency to stay in “stealth mode,” perhaps out of fear of competition or being modest. But there’s likely already another company trying to do what you’re doing.
“You might as well get out there and let people know, because that’s how you’re going to recruit great people,” Mehta said. “That’s how you’re going to tell customers what you’re doing. That’s how you’re going to get funding.”
To all you stealthy startups — you know how to reach me.
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