Why We’re Shouting “Thank You” from the Rooftops!

The email from Northwest Entrepreneurs Network telling us that we’ve advanced to the semi-finals of their First Look Forum encouraged us to “shout it from the rooftops” . . . thanks, don’t mind if we do!

Here’s the celebration scene from our team meeting last night:

First Look Forum is a semi-annual event where a dozen early-stage startups are selected to present to an audience of investors. Last fall, we made it to the second round and got great feedback from local angel investor Geoff Entress and my old Microsoft Ad Astra colleagues Jamen Shively and Elliot Cohen at findood won the top prize.

Of course, win or lose; there are huge benefits from the exposure and feedback you get during the entire process, so we’re thrilled and honored to be selected.

Qworky’s Great Adventure

Our first “screeching” meeting last Wednesday was equal parts screening and coaching — and a demo, since we ran it on the Qworky Meeting platform. Tim Porter of Madrona Ventures and Hoyt Prisock of Attention Sciences politely grilled us while making very helpful suggestions. Mikal was on a roll, our revised elevator pitch went over well, and preview version 0.07 rocked so it was a very good meeting.

It’s a real sign of how far we’ve come — and we’ve done so by staying true to our vision. Originally outlined in July’s blog post Qworky: the adventure begins:

To succeed, we’ll need to get initial input and ongoing feedback from a community that’s diverse in multiple dimensions, have a diverse team defining and implementing the product, and work with diverse groups of partners and advisors.

“Thank You” from the Rooftops!

image via Flickr Johnny Grim

So our grateful appreciation goes out to:

• The Qworky Community: our followers on Twitter and fans on Facebook, and especially Donna, Gloria, Loretta, Cheryl, Sam, Micah, Jacqui, and Cathy for the discussion during community meetings.
• The QX (Qworky Experience), Marketing, Community, and Engineering teams: Sally, Mikal, JoAnne, Dawn, Andrea, Brandie, Josh, Annie, Harry, Dan, Bill, Andrea, Denzil, and Alem for defining, designing, and implementing an outstanding preview version
• Qworky ‘Meetings’ Preview Testers: Emp, Gayle, Tilaye, Erica, Dan, Justin, Andrea, Greg, Deborah, Emi, Andrea and her students, @ergeekgoddess, and Get FISA Right
• Qworky’s Most Excellent Advisors: Doreen, Hank, Steven, Kathy, Kelly, Vin, Justin, Shireen, Gayle, Brad, Steve, Eve, Chip, Brandon and the many others who have given us guidance
• And everyone who’s helped us to create a diverse team and community: @humanfolly, @pnts, @skud, @womenwhotech, @hellrazr, my research partner Sarah, the Digital Eve mailing list and so many more

It’s a truly remarkable team of people, insightful and helpful and fun as well as multi-dimensionally diverse, and it’s a great pleasure to work with you!

So congrats to all, and now on to the semi-finals!

jon