From Startup to Exit

TiE Seattle
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Welcome to the Startup to Exit podcast where we bring you world-class entrepreneurs and VCs to share their hard-earned success stories and secrets. This podcast has been brought to you by TiE Seattle. TiE is a global non-profit that focuses on fostering entrepreneurship. TiE Seattle offers a range of programs including the GoVertical Startup Creation Weekend, TiE Entrepreneur Institute, and the TiE Seattle Angel Network. We encourage you to become a TiE member so you can gain access to these great programs. To become a member, please visit www.Seattle.tie.org.

  1. 3D AGO

    Startup Spotlight: Aravind Bala, CTO, SeekOut.com - How to successfully pivot your company

    Send a text In this episode, we feature Aravind Bala, who is the CTO and co-founder of Seekout. SeekOut (https://seekout.io) empowers companies to go beyond LinkedIn in recruiting hard-to-find and diverse talent.  Prior to SeekOut, Aravind spent 14 years at Microsoft as a Partner Engineering Manager.  In this episode, Aravind shares the following: From Big Tech to startup leap: Aravind Bala shares why he left a 14-year Microsoft career to build a company “for real,” guided by Jeff Bezos’ regret minimization mindset—and the importance of finding the right co-founder (Anoop Gupta).The first idea (and why it didn’t stick): The team’s original startup, Next.io, explored a two-sided marketplace that used “money as signal” to cut through cold outreach—then hit the classic marketplace bootstrapping and consumer-virality challenges.A pivot born from survival + customer pull: With ~6 months of runway, a side project (“Career Compass”) drew strong recruiter interest, leading them to pivot into *SeekOut*, where B2B feedback loops felt more “debuggable” than consumer growth bets.How SeekOut differentiated vs. LinkedIn: Aravind explains the opening they saw: LinkedIn optimizes for member experience, while SeekOut could optimize for recruiter outcomes—especially by using *external signals* (e.g., GitHub/code, papers, patents, public profiles) and *diversity inference at scale*.When the market turned: The tech hiring downturn, recruiter headcount cuts, and shifting DEI priorities forced a rethink—plus a new reality: in a flooded applicant market, passive sourcing tools can feel less urgent.The “agentic” thesis: tools vs. outcomes: A core debate: most AI “agents” boost productivity (you still control everything), but SeekOut is pushing toward outcome-delivering agents—a “white-collar factory” model where humans supervise pipelines and give up more control to get 10x gains.What it takes to make agents reliable (and monetizable): Aravind breaks down why outcome delivery needs a factory-like pipeline with quality control, why some tasks need top-tier models, and why this shifts pricing from SaaS “all-you-can-eat” to per-outcome economics that can compete with recruiter/agency costs.Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

    45 min

  2. FEB 16

    2026 Investment Outlook and Predictions

    Send a text Listen to our 2026 Annual Investment Outlook Panel with four top VCs. Get their perspective on the investment climate in 2026 and their plans to invest specifically in AI based startups. See how they did with their 2025 forecast and what their big predictions are for 2026. Tim Porter, Managing Director, Madrona Ventures Tim joined Madrona in 2006 and invests in B2B software companies in the Pacific Northwest. He is currently interested in intelligent applications and SaaS, cloud-native software infrastructure, the modern data stack, machine learning, DevOps, and cybersecurity. He is also a board member of numerous Madrona portfolio companies. Sudip Chakrabarti, Partner, Pruven Capital Sudip is a partner at Pruven Capital where he works with companies that are transforming the enterprise, cloud and infrastructure markets.  Sudip's past investments include Exabeam, Heptio, Serverless.com, Datacoral, Spotnana, Temporal, Tesorio and Polly. He had also been a board observer at Databricks, Digital Ocean, Actifio, Mesosphere and Samsara. Kellan Carter, Founding Partner, FUSE Ventures Kellan Carter is a founding partner of FUSE where he focuses on early-stage investments in intelligent software in both horizontal and vertical categories.  He currently sits on the Boards of Zuper, Pictory, Avante, Owl, Xemelgo and PDM Automotive. Joaquín Gallardo, Senior Vice President, Tech Banking at Silicon Valley Bank Joaquín is a Senior Vice President at SVB, a division of First Citizens Bank, in our Seattle/PNW market focusing on enterprise clients. In his role we helps Series A and beyond clients to scale their finance stack with venture lending alongside global treasury and liquidity solutions. Before joining SVB Seattle, he lived in San Francisco, learned to code at UC Berkeley, and helped to co-found a pre-seed company. Joaquín holds a bachelor's degree in economics from George Mason University. He lives in Ballard, Seattle with his wife and two children. In his spare time, he gets to think about how he wishes he had more spare time. Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

    1h 51m

  3. JAN 23

    Building Category-Defining AI Startups with Yifan Zhang (AI2 Incubator)

    Send a text We’re excited to feature Yifan Zhang, Managing Director at AI2 Incubator, one of the most successful AI incubators in the world, born out of the Allen Institute for AI and backed by a newly announced $80M Fund III. Yifan is a 2x founder and CEO, Entrepreneur “50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs” honoree, and Forbes 30 Under 30 alum. Her journey spans building and exiting venture-backed startups, navigating extreme founder adversity, and now helping the next generation of AI founders go from idea to impact. In this episode of From Startup to Exit, Yifan shares: How AI2 Incubator works differently from studios, accelerators, and traditional VCsWhat they look for in founders, and why ideas matter less than resilience and executionWhy vertical, agentic AI applications are winning right nowHow AI startups are shifting from per-seat SaaS pricing to per-task, outcome-based modelsWhat it really takes to survive the founder “trough of adversity” and come out strongerWhy Seattle may be the most underappreciated AI startup hub in the worldThis conversation is a must-listen for AI founders, operators, investors, and anyone building in the agentic AI era. Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

    42 min

  4. JAN 1

    Best of 2025: From Startup to Exit Podcast

    Send a text Join us for a dynamic highlight reel featuring short segments from the 2025 season of From Startup to Exit, TiE Seattle’s flagship podcast showcasing world-class entrepreneurs, innovators, and industry leaders sharing candid insights from their journeys. Each mini-segment brings you the essence of these remarkable conversations — from foundational lessons in product and leadership to reflections on how technology shapes markets and culture.  We kick things off with Paul Maritz, discussing his pivotal role in Microsoft’s product strategy during the Windows and server era and how a deep commitment to innovation shaped a career spanning multiple iconic tech companies. Next, Jeff Raikes reflects on building transformative software platforms like Microsoft Office and his later work in global philanthropy focused on equity and systems-level impact. Robbie Bach takes you inside the historic launch of Xbox, offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at driving innovation within a legacy tech giant. Meanwhile Steve Wood shares foundational memories from Microsoft’s early days as the sixth employee, emphasizing the importance of grit and experimentation in startup culture.  We also spotlight Brad Chase on the launch of Windows 95 and the strategic decisions that made it a defining moment in personal computing; Laura Jennings on shaping MSN into a major internet portal; and modern voices like Sabrina Wu, who breaks down the future of intelligent applications and the role of AI in venture investing. Yash Wagh delivers insights from his startup journey with Gone.com and building sustainable commerce models. Ece Kamar closes with a forward-looking conversation on responsible AI, sharing how human-centered frameworks will guide the next phase of technological growth. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, technologist, or curious learner, this highlights compilation is packed with actionable wisdom from leaders who’ve navigated the path from startup to exit. Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

    51 min

  5. 12/04/2025

    Innovating for Impact: TYE Global Winners 2025 Share their Entrepreneurial Journey

    Send a text Join us as Team Kymavi, the TYE Global winner, discusses their groundbreaking solution addressing environmental challenges through biodegradable bags, and Team Key Beauty, creators of an AI-driven makeup matching platform for women of color, shares their journey in redefining inclusivity in beauty. The teams dive into their experiences with market research, customer validation, and developing sustainable business models, highlighting how mentorship and the TYE program helped them refine their ideas, build essential entrepreneurial skills, and prepare for global success. Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

    52 min

  6. 11/17/2025

    Building Responsible AI for the New Era: A Conversation with Ece Kamar, Director of AI Frontiers Lab at Microsoft Research

    Send a text In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Ece Kamar, Director of the AI Frontiers Lab at Microsoft Research, and one of the leading voices in Responsible AI. With over 15 years at Microsoft, Ece has played a pivotal role in shaping how AI systems are designed to collaborate with humans safely and effectively. She shares her journey from earning a PhD at Harvard University, where she researched how AI agents can become human partners, to leading responsible AI efforts at Microsoft and tackling challenges like fairness, reliability, safety, and hallucinations in large-scale models such as GPT-4. In this insightful conversation, Ece talks about: - How early research in human-AI collaboration laid the foundation for today’s AI agents - The evolution of AI through scalable data, deep learning, and generative models - Her pioneering work on Responsible AI frameworks at Microsoft - The emerging challenges and opportunities in the era of generative AI Whether you’re an entrepreneur, technologist, or researcher, this episode offers an inspiring look into how responsible innovation will define the next generation of AI systems. Tune in to learn how human-centered AI is shaping the future - responsibly. To ensure you don't miss other episodes like this, subscribe to our podcast! Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ecekamar/ Sponsored by: JPMC Private Banking Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

    59 min

  7. 10/20/2025

    Startup Spotlight: GONE.COM - Giving Goods a Second Life for a Healthy Planet

    Send a text Yashovardhan Wagh is the co-founder & CEO of Gone.com, a Seattle-based circular commerce company giving quality goods a second life through local supply chains. He previously built supply chains for Amazon and other Fortune 100 companies. His mission: to build a national circular economy so future generations can thrive on a healthy planet. Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

    32 min

  8. 09/10/2025

    Gen AI Series: Intelligent Applications in an Agentic World, A conversation with Sabrina Wu, Investor at Madrona Ventures

    Send a text In this episode, we talk to Sabrina Wu who is an Investor at the famed VC firm Madrona Ventures. Sabrina shares her thoughts about closed source vs open source, agentic applications and the emergence of multi modal applications.  Sabrina joined Madrona’s investment team in 2021 and focuses on sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities from Seed through Series C across Madrona’s core investment themes. She also supports the growth and strategy of current portfolio companies. Sabrina is particularly interested in intelligent applications, enterprise software, and data/AI products. Sabrina and Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami author the biweekly newsletter Aspiring for Intelligence where they share thoughts about the future of intelligent applications. Brought to you by TiE Seattle Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

    48 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Welcome to the Startup to Exit podcast where we bring you world-class entrepreneurs and VCs to share their hard-earned success stories and secrets. This podcast has been brought to you by TiE Seattle. TiE is a global non-profit that focuses on fostering entrepreneurship. TiE Seattle offers a range of programs including the GoVertical Startup Creation Weekend, TiE Entrepreneur Institute, and the TiE Seattle Angel Network. We encourage you to become a TiE member so you can gain access to these great programs. To become a member, please visit www.Seattle.tie.org.

Information

  • Creator
    TiE Seattle
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    35
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 From Startup to Exit
  • Show Website
    From Startup to Exit