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After a long career as a VP at Microsoft in the 80s and 90s, Laura Jennings had a big vision for eCommerce. After founding Knack, her masterplan didn't play out exactly as designed. She was working out of a basement, shipping boxes, and learning how to sell merchandise with little experience. Her principles remained, but she updated her strategy after watching and listening. She created a culture that responds to mistakes by asking "what are we going to do about it?" instead of "who is at fault?" Now Knack is a growing profitable business and Laura is still looking forward.

No technical co-founder, no domain expertise, and entering a market that nobody believed would buy tech. Julian didn't look so hot to VCs. Everyone said to pivot. Fast forward to 2021 and Logixboard was growing 30% M/M, raised a $13M series A led by RedPoint, and Julian's vision for freight forwarding software is coming true. Julian's story isn't a blind confidence in the face of doubt. It's about how to listen selectively and build conviction based on market understanding.

Being a founder wasn't in Jessica's plan. After 15 years of climbing the ladder and checking off her goals, she was looking for a new definition of success. Instead of writing a new life plan, she starting opening to possibilities and "winging it" at times. She dug into her own problems and frustrations when getting child care for her young kids. Many iterations later she founded LegUp (legup.care) to fix the childcare enrollment process for providers and families.

Gordon co-founded Outreach in 2013. Now a multi-billion, 1000+ employee company, he's reached rare air. But he's starting again with Spot.xyz... all the way back to the ground flood. That means writing code, recruiting, and establishing a culture from the ground-up. Why would he do it again? Hear his founder lessons on this episode of The Built in Seattle Podcast.

Laura Clise didn't intent to be an entrepreneur. She spent most of her career running corporate social responsibility programs at bigger companies as a self-described "intrapeneur." But she saw the need for Intentionalist after developing a strong point of view about the power of consumer spending choices. While Laura's mission is about social change, she specifically decided to take a business-driven approach to the problem. She's now growing her marketplace that helps consumers spend with intention and gives small businesses a platform to tell their story.

Katie was SVP at Zillow where she had an 11-year career building their data-driven PR and brand strategy. Now she's Founding Partner at KMG (kingstonmarketing.group). Her story goes from small town Illinois to journalism and ends up landing her in Seattle's tech scene in Zillow's early day. She goes behind the scenes on principles for great PR, the "patience game," lessons from scaling Zillow's brand, and how to demystify marketing and PR in startups.

After starting his career at Microsoft, Dave was the first marketer at Bizible. As the company grew, Dave scaled to VP and then took on marketing leadership roles at Marketo and Adobe via acquisitions. He's now founder and CEO at Inflection - a new stealth marketing tech startup. Dave operates with a small-town Ohio style and says he cares more about the process than the destination. He talked about managing energy, growing from contributor to manager to executive, and learning through customer development.

Routable's growth and $30M Series B are impressive headlines. But their customer discovery process really stood out. Omri interviewed over 300 customers before writing a single line of code. After learning from past pivots and mistakes, he was relentless in the process. That work give him conviction to move fast. Just 4 years later, Routable has raised $46M, accelerated growth, and earned the love of customers like Ticketmaster, Re-Max, and Snackpass. Omri went behind the scenes on his story and shared the principles driving Routable's growth.

Highspot has reached a $2.3B valuation, 500+ employees, and $397M raised just 9 years since founding. What's made that possible? Robert Wahbe (Co-Founder & CEO) is a strategic thinker who has found many non-obvious strategies and frameworks to scale his business. He went behind the scenes on his story and shared the principles and lessons driving Highspot's growth.

OwnTrail is a platform that advances women by helping members share their *real* paths through career and life. With seed funding and an all-star team, OwnTrail is growing fast. CEO and co-founder, Rebekah Bastian, is a role model for staying open to possibility. She didn't have a masterplan and it wasn't a straight line. She joined Zillow as employee 20. Fifteen years at Zillow took her from Product Manager to VP of Product, and then VP of Community and Culture. Then author. And now founder. She goes behind the scenes on her story and OwnTrail's mission.

Joe.Coffee went from 15%/month growth to 3x in a month when the pandemic hit. They have raised $3.5M to help local coffee shops run digital ordering. But it was a long and winding road just to get started. Nick Martin (Co-Founder & CEO) shares his story of overcoming anxiety, finding conviction, and connecting with the work.

Stackline grew to 10s of millions in ARR with $0 funding. After getting profitable with over 2,000 customers, they raised $50M from Goldman Sachs to go bigger. Michael Lagoni (CEO and Co-Founder) goes behind the scenes on profitable growth, living on the frontlines, promoting from within, and thinking in bets.

Flying Fish Partners is a venture firm focused on AI, machine learning, and robotics. Heather Reman is an operator turned investor who co-founded Flying Fish. Her mantra is about community. And she applies this across domains - from startup investing to non-profits, education, politics, and leadership. She goes behind the scenes on the psychology of investing, the power of community, and her lessons on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We all know Starbucks today. But it was just a startup when Howard Behar joined in 1989. As the President of North America, he grew from 28 regional stores to over 15K stores around the world. Even at scale, he was often seen in the stores talking with baristas and customers. He'd wipe the counters. He'd pick up trash. This was key to his servant leadership. He goes behind the scenes on 21 years of building Starbucks and 50 years of studying and practicing servant leadership.

Detlef Schrempf is an NBA Legend, community leader, and Director of Business Development at Coldstream. He played 16 years and over 1,000 games in the NBA. He was 3x All-star, 2x Olympian, and a key player on the dominant SuperSonics teams in the 1990s. He went behind the scenes on his basketball career, the challenges he faced transitioning to business, giving back, and the common sense principles that guide his life.

RealSelf is a growing team of 170 people that's raised $42M. James Coyle went from Amazon to startup executive and now CEO at RealSelf. He's made unconventional career choices that got him leadership roles all over the world, access to great mentors, and accelerated his learning. James goes behind the scenes on his leadership lessons and the frameworks that he uses to navigate life and business.

TUNE grew to $80M ARR and 350 people over the last 7 years, resulting in two acquisitions. They raised $36M from top VCs, but it wasn't the typical VC-backed startup. Peter Hamilton started as a marketer when he responded to a Craigslist post and later became CEO. He shares how TUNE built two distinct product lines, found profitable growth, innovated on brand and customer service, the parallels between oprah singing and company building, and how TUNE's acquisitions unfolded.

Syndio just raised a $17M series B to help companies fix gender and racial pay equity problems. It's a big, complex, and new category. They already have 100+ customers like Nordstrom, Salesforce, and Adobe. Maria was previously co-founder at Smartsheet and a tech veteran. She is all about focus and precision. And she explains how parenting 6 kids, working with veterans, startup marketing, and big companies have all helped her find focus in her mission at Syndio.

Happy Holidays! I will be back with more interviews of Seattle's top entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders in 2021. This episode is a cross-post of a conversation I had with Kyle Lacy on The Revenue Diaries podcast. We talked about my ice cream obsession, raising kids in the pandemic, managing stress, building habits, risk taking, and my obsession with tidiness.

Salesforce paid $15.7B to buy Tableau. Elissa was Tableau's long-time CMO from startup to IPO and over $1B in revenue. Now she's helping other high-growth companies as an advisor and board director. She goes behind the scenes on her journey, high-growth marketing, and the principles that she's seen work from 11 years at Tableau to multiple startup boardrooms.