Madrona Venture Group Is Pretty Darn Smart

Madrona threw a fantastic event on Oct 14th at their downtown Seattle offices.  The focus of this event was online advertising.  We all agreed that we weren't going to blog about the actual content of the meeting.  Madrona pulled together execs from the most promising startups in Seattle as well as some several larger companies, including:  AdReady, Amazon, Blue Kai, BuddyTV, Expedia, Marchex, Mercent, Revenue Science TeachStreet, WetPaint, WildTangent, Zillow, and etc.

The main reason (for the no blogging rule) is that we had extremely open and frank dialog with folks like Microsoft SVP Brian McAndrews (former CEO aQuantive) and Google VP David Rosenblatt. 

The main gist of this blog post is to highlight how smart Madrona was in arranging this event for the following reasons:

1. Good local mojo – they invited the appropriate portfolio companies as well as non-Madrona funded portfolio companies (like me). Not only was this a classy move, but, they (Madrona) displayed a lot of leadership by doing this.  This leadership will pay large dividends to all of the entrepreneurs in the room which means we'll want to work with them.

2. Positioning for their portfolio – Microsoft and Google execs in an intimate setting is very special.  Even more special that Madrona portfolio companies get extra attention in these events.  Of course, this could pay off for these companies in terms of strategic partnerships or exits.

Kudos to Madrona.  Excellent work on the actual event as well as building a world-class experience for the Seattle-based entrepreneurial community.