Coffee capital entrepreneurs and investors told to wake up

Two venture capitalists — one from Seattle and another from Silicon Valley — had some frank advice for the local technology community Friday at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network’s monthly breakfast meeting.

Compiled by Seattle Times technology staff

Dino Vendetti, a general partner with Cupertino, Calif.-based Bay Partners, told the crowd that it must de-emphasize its reliance on Microsoft and Boeing and help the region become a magnet for new companies.

"It feels like the Seattle community is just letting these companies leave," Vendetti said. "You may wake up and find Washington Mutual is gone two years from now (because of acquisition). Who else is going to leave this town?"

Vendetti — who previously managed investments in telecom, wireless and Internet infrastructure for Paul Allen’s Vulcan Ventures — also had some choice words about Microsoft, the problem being that the software company is "predatory toward all companies," including startups.

"Rob Glaser is my hero," he said, referring to the former Microsoft executive-turned-competitor who started RealNetworks. "He is really the one Microsoft alum that has been able to build a really big business and succeed in a sustainable way against big brother in Redmond."

Dan Rosen, managing partner with Frazier Technology Ventures and chairman of the Seattle Alliance of Angels, cautioned entrepreneurs to focus only on breakthrough technologies vs. betting five years of their lives on tech of incremental importance.

The key to success?

"You have to get almost every aspect of the business model right and you have to do it simultaneously," he said.

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