Startup Weekend

Speakers

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  Mike Crill

  Speaking: Friday evening

  Topic: Entrepreneurship

  Bio: As a high-tech CFO since 1995, Mike has provided financial stewardship to almost 100 high-tech startups, typically focusing on their initial years of intense growth.

  He has helped raise over $80MM in angel and venture funding in more than 30 different funding rounds and has managed mergers and acquisitions. Mike typically contributes to overall business strategy and oversees the preparation of the business and financial plans as well as financial systems implementation. He often culminates his assignment by hiring a full-time CFO as he did at ExpertCity.com, Sandpiper and Callwave. You can see more of Mike's work with technology firms in the Clients section. Mike's prior work history includes assignments as a division controller and plant manager with AlliedSignal, an operations analyst with Data General, as a cost accounting consultant and, earlier, an officer supporting the US Army's elite 82nd Airborne division. He left active duty as a Captain in 1989. Mike holds BS from Syracuse University, magna cum laude, with majors in Finance, Personnel and Industrial Relations, and Managerial Law and a Military Science minor. Mike graduated at the top of his class with an MBA from Duke University. Mike is a winner of the US Army's George C Marshall award and was recognized as the top cadet in the Eastern US region. He was one of the first AlliedSignal employees to be recognized as a Master Black Belt for his work in quantitative methods. Mike is also a past president of Seattle's West Precinct Advisory Council and has received commendations for volunteer work from the city of Seattle. He sits on NWEN's board where and has served as chairman of the screening committee for ESIF. Mike has built or re-designed three homes and does his own architecture, general contracting, electrical and other work. His efforts have been recognized in several local groups and publications. He has been the keynote speaker at UCSB’s Engineering School Entrepreneurial Awards, a guest lecturer at UW's entrepreneur classes, as well as a speaker at the Band of Angels and a panel member for the MIT Enterprise Forum, The Indus Entrepreneurs, and the California Coast Venture Forum When he's not working with a start-up, you can often find Mike out running, at the gym, starring in commercials, or with his beautiful young bride and daughter.

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  Andy Sack

  Speaking: Saturday morning

  Topic: Entrepreneurship

  Bio: Andy Sack has over 15 years experience running and investing in high tech businesses, most recently as co-founder and CEO of Judy’s Book, a local search social network.

  Prior to founding Judy’s Book in 2004, Andy co-founded three successful Internet technology companies: Kefta (acquired in 2007 by Axciom), a leading provider of real time customer interaction solutions; Abuzz, (acquired by New York Times Digital in 1999), an enterprises knowledge management solution named number one in the Internet software category by Red Herring Magazine and the top company to work for by Boston Magazine; and Firefly Network, an Internet company that pioneered internet personalization technologies (acquired by Microsoft). Andy also spent time as an entrepreneur in residence for SOFTBANK Venture Capital (now Mobius VC) where he founded and served on the board of three companies: BodyShop Digital, Quova, and Kefta. Andy currently serves on the board of and advises a number of companies including: zango, Cooler Planet, and Orange Line Media. Andy was also a founder and board member of Students for Responsible Business, and is a regular lecturer at the University of Washington Business School. Andy received his undergraduate degree from Brown University in 1990, and his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. Andy lives in Laurelhurst with his wife and two children.

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  Dan McComb

  Speaking: Sunday afternoon

  Topic: Entrepreneurship & SHINE

  Bio: In my former life, I was a photojournalist whose work appeared in newspapers and magazines like Time and Newsweek. After realizing that journalism was going to change me before I changed the world, I left the profession in 1998 and taught myself how to build websites for a living.

  I found self-employment hugely rewarding but surprisingly isolating. I was surprised to be turned away when I tried to join a local business networking group because "we only have room for one person from your profession, and your spot has been filled." In 2005, Lara Eve Feltin and I cofounded Biznik (http://biznik.com), with a simple premise: business networking shouldn't suck. Today Biznik is an award-winning community that connects more than 21,000 forward-thinking business people in 120 countries. And we always have room for one more, no matter what profession you represent (as long as it's legal!). Members connect using Biznik's social network and strengthen relationships at more than 100 member-hosted events every month. In October 2008, Lara and I were honored to be included in Seattle's top 25 most innovative entrepreneurs list by Seattle Business Monthly, and included in Seattle Magazine's 2008 Power Players list of most influential people. I am approaching my goal of completely forgetting what it was like to be a corporate drone. And I'm on a mission to connect great minds with interesting work. What Dan does best I'm best at team building and collaboration. I love working on interesting, cool projects with fun, talented people, and don't mind constraints - I enjoy finding ways to do a lot with a little. What does Dan need? Your small business to be successful. That's what I want right now more than anything else, because it'll be good for the economy, good for me, and good for you. Education University of Montana, Syracuse University, BA in journalism, 1991. Experience Co-founder of Biznik. Part owner of Visual Contact from 2000-present. Senior Developer, Cypress Consulting, 2004-2005. Publication Designer, Sasquatch Books, 1998-2000 Staff Photojournalist, The Spokesman-Review, 1995-1998

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  Roy Leban

  Speaking: Saturday afternoon

  Topic: Entrepreneurship

  Bio: Roy Leban is the founder of two Seattle-area startups, Groupthink, which provides people coordination services over the internet, and Puzzazz, a puzzle site.

  A serial entrepreneur, Roy is a veteran of seven previous startup companies, including ones sold to Ashton-Tate and AT&T. In the Seattle area, he spent five years at Microsoft, where he worked on Microsoft Access, Microsoft Office, and the bCentral web service.

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  Mike Koss

  Speaking: Sunday afternoon

  Topic: Entrepreneurship

  Bio: What Mike does Got tired of working at home alone, so we started a shared office space for Seattle Software Development startups.

  Besides office space, we also interested in organizing educational programs and providing help to the startup community in Seattle. Also working on my own software startup - PageForest - a software development platform for hobbiest web developers. Education MIT '83 Experience 19 years at Microsoft as a development manager.

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  Brandon Watson

  Speaking: Saturday morning

  Topic: Product Management For Hackers

  Bio: Brandon Watson is Director of Microsoft's Azure Services Platform Ecosystem. He rejoined Microsoft in 2008 after nearly a decade on Wall Street and running successful start-ups.

  He has both an engineering degree and an economics degree from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MBA from The Wharton School of Business, and blogs at www.manyniches.com.

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  Scott Guthrie

  Speaking: Friday evening

  Topic: Kick-off

  Bio: M

  y name is Scott Guthrie, and I am a Corporate Vice President in the Microsoft Developer Division. I run the development teams that build the following products/technologies: CLR and the core .NET Base Class Libraries ASP.NET Silverlight WPF IIS 7.0 Visual Studio Tools for ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight and Mobile