Founded & Funded

In this episode, Madrona managing director Matt McIlwain sits down with Jason Knight and Luis Ceze of OctoML to talk about how they are helping companies deploy models and helping hardware providers be ML optimized.  The company just announced a Series A raise of $15 million  (and they are hiring!) Built on open source technology that the team initiated four years ago and is now actively supporting, OctoML enables a broad set of developers to access and leverage machine learning technology to create intelligent applications. 

In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Hope Cochran talks with three companies with distributed workforces to better understand their experiences with building a culture of trust, hiring remotely, and the right level of communication. With the onset of COVID-19, Barry Wark, CEO at Ovation.io, Carlos Vega, CEO at Tesorio, and Kara Hamilton, Chief People and Culture Officer at Smartsheet share how they have already been able to make working distributed work for their company and employees.  They talk about the importance of connecting with your employees and being there for them – especially if working remotely is a new experience.

These are uncertain times. The certainty is that it’s not up and to the right. In this special Founded and Funded we hear from the CEOs of Redfin, Qumulo and Highspot on how they helping their companies, employees and customers steer through the coming weeks. There is insight here from the 2008 downturn and the unique situation we find ourselves in now. Steve Singh shares his experience at Concur which he grew through the downturn to an acquisition by SAP in 2014.

Madrona managing director, S. Somasegar (Soma) sits down with Eric Rudder and Joe Duffy, co-founders of Pulumi, to discuss their journey as entrepreneurs bringing an open source based solution to market.  They talk about how their experiences at Microsoft helped them recognize and leverage the promise of open source technology and their journey to build a company that empowers both its employees and its customers.

Listen to Madrona Managing Director, Matt McIlwain, and the Founder of Placed, now CEO of Foursquare, David Shim sit down to talk about the founder journey from startup employee to startup founder.  David has consistently recognized big trends and he saw the promise of mobile phones for location data early on,  building Placed around that opportunity.  He was conservative with venture capital and  he and Matt talk about how this approach helped give the company urgency to find product market fit.  David reflects on how hard it is to give up your idea of what the product is, even when the market is telling you it’s something else,  and he gives advice to would be founders.  Placed was acquired from Snap by FourSquare in 2019 and David became the CEO of Foursquare later that year. 

www.placed.com

https://foursquare.com/

In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Tim Porter, sits down with founder of Onvia and Koru, Kristen Hamilton. They take a ride in the Wayback Machine to map Kristen’s journey through entrepreneurship and to explore the unwritten rules of fundraising that have resulted from years of truth-telling and being her most authentic self. If you are looking to fundraise or are just curious about how venture capital works, this is a must listen.

Listen as Madrona Director of Talent, Shannon Anderson, and the founder of Reverb, Mikaela Kiner, sit down for a wide ranging and fascinating conversation about building a workplace that supports your mission, how startup founders hate “HR” but want good people (and culture), and why even Mikaela had to consult an expert to understand why she was having trouble building a diverse team.  They bring personal stories to illustrate how the lessons from Mikaela’s new book, Female Firebrands, are experiences they have lived through. Some great tips in here for startup founders who are looking to build an organization that lasts! 

In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Tim Porter, sits down with the founders of Algorithmia.  They talk about how a six month backpacking trip through the outback (with a laptop) was the genesis of the company and how they learned how to work together by living in a tent together.  They also talk about their core business of machine learning and where we are in the cycle of innovation.    

In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Len Jordan, sits down with iSpot.tv founder, Sean Muller to talk over his journey from wanting to know more about who was responsible for the creative in ads to tying effective advertising to business outcomes.  Sean’s journey is like many in entrepreneurship – you begin with a great idea, buck some trends (and advice) and then find your true path once you start executing. Sean talks about finding the product market fit for iSpot.tv – and seeing the future clearly enough to bet the company on one big partnership. 

In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Scott Jacobson, speaks with Drew Green, the CEO of Indochino.  Drew, an accomplished entrepreneur and operating executive,  joined Indochino, a made to measure men’s clothier, as it was at crossroads and he and Scott tell the story of their journey to China to help save the business and forge a meaningful partnership with one of the leading suit producers.  Drew talks about the sometimes difficult task of building partnerships as a startup with a larger company. They discuss omnichannel selling and working with sports stars and teams  - Indochino recently launched their line with Knicks player, RJ Barrett, as this was recording.