Today we are announcing the nominees of the
Seattle 2.0 Awards 2010. If you can’t wait to see who they are skip this preamble, but you should also know
Jonathan Sposato, who just sold
Picnik to Google, will be the keynote speaker.
This is going to be the first time Jonathan will be addressing a crowd of this size since the
acquisition by Google, and as the former Picnik CEO, Jonathan certainly has a lot of lessons to share.
Picnik was the big
winner last year, taking four Awards home for Best Startup, Best Boot-strapped Startup, Best CEO for Jonathan Sposato and Best Designer for Peter Roman.
Now to the finalists. The process to get here was fairly straightforward. Anyone and everyone
was invited to make their nominations. We received more than
6,900 of
them. Then, the 36 people on the
selection panel got
to choose two nominees in each category, and the top five companies or
people with the most votes in each category became finalists.
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Best Startup: Apptio, Blue Kai, BuddyTV, Cheezburger Network and Redfin
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Best Boot-strapped Startup: BigOven, Biznik, Bonanzle, HasOffers and Survey Analytics
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Best Nonprofit Startup: Jolkona, One Bus Away, Startup Weekend, TisBest and Vittana
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Best Startup CEO: Rich Barton (Zillow), Sunny Gupta (Apptio), Glenn Kelman (Redfin), Andy Liu (BuddyTV) and Dave Schappell (TeachStreet)
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Best Startup Technologist: Damon Cortesi (Untitled Startup), Joe Heitzeberg (WhitePages), Darrin Massena (Picnik/Google), Daryn Nakhuda (TeachStreet) and Scott Porad (Cheezburger Network)
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Best Startup Designer: Alex Berg (ex-Wetpaint), Greg Bowers (TeachStreet), Aviel Ginzburg (Untitled Startup), Jenny Lam (Jackson Fish Market) and Matt Lerner (Front Seat)
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Best Venture Capitalist: Geoff Entress (Voyager Capital), Michelle Goldberg (Ignition Partners), Greg Gottesman (Madrona Venture Group), Nick Hanauer (Second Avenue Partners) and Andy Sack (Founder’s Co-Op)
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Best Angel Investor: Bill Bryant, Clark Kokich, Andy Liu, Dan Rosen and Kelly Smith
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Best Service Provider to Startups: Pearl Chan (CFO Selections), Geir Hansen (Silicon Valley Bank), Eric Koester (Cooley Godward Kronish), Craig Sherman (Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati) and Joe Wallin (Davis Wright Tremaine).
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Best Entrepreneur Blog: Inspired Startup by Andy Liu, Quick Sprout by Neil Patel, Redfin Blog by Glenn Kelman, Startup Front End by Tony Wright and Untitled Startup Blog by Damon Cortesi & Aviel Ginzburg.
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Best Event for Startups: Hops & Chops by Dave Schappell & Daryn Nakhuda, STS Meetings by Chuck Groom & Gaurav Oberoi, TechFlash Live by John Cook, Todd Bishop & Eric Engleman, Ignite Seattle by Brady Forrest et al., and Seattle Open Coffee by Andy Sack.
Voting opens today on the website and runs until May 11th at midnight. Also don’t forget to register for the Award ceremony event on May 19. We’ll have a lot of interesting things going on, including a Poker Tournament as a pre-event, open bar, food, a Startup Showcase and lots of interesting people for you to talk to.