Posted by Greg Gottesman

All of us at Madrona are looking forward to welcoming TechStars for its big reunion event here in Seattle on November 4. TechStars is a mentorship-driven incubation program/seed investment fund with operations in Boulder, Colorado and Boston, Massachusetts. Every year, TechStars funds 10 very early technology start-ups in each city and provides an intensive boot camp for those companies, involving dozens of mentors from the start-up community.

TechStars has been operating for three years and has funded about 40 companies. Some alumni companies have already had positive exits, including IntenseDebate (acquired by Automattic/WordPress), Socialthing (AOL), and Brightkite. Every year the TechStars companies get together for a reunion in a different city, and this year the reunion is in our Emerald City.

As part of the reunion event, TechStars reserves a part of one afternoon to highlight its companies that are still raising money and has them pitch to investors. To date, about 75% of the companies that come out of TechStars have been angel- or venture-backed. The pitch session is a great opportunity to see a bunch of interesting early-stage companies. In addition to company presentations, there will be a panel on angel and venture investment trends that will include Brad Feld (co-founder of TechStars and Managing Director of The Foundry Group), Andy Sack (Founders Co-Op), Steve Hall (Vulcan Capital), David Cohen (co-founder of TechStars and angel investor), Chris Sheehan (CommonAngels in Boston), and yours truly. It should be a lively discussion, followed by the pitches.

If you’re a Seattle-area VC or angel investor, please contact me, and I’ll get you an invitation to the event. Hope to see you there!

Here is the introduction to my guest post on TechFlash today.

For the last decade, I have been convinced that the three most important factors in determining the success of a start-up are (1) team, (2) product or service, and (3) market (timing, size, etc.). Take an A+ entrepreneur, with a great idea for a new product or service, at the right time, and about as fast than you can tweet Susan Boyle you’d have a success brewing.

Recently, I have added one factor to the must-have list: the right start-up culture. In other words, add a dose of bad culture to a team of superstars, a killer product and good market opportunity, the result is almost always death by a thousand backstabs.

What defines a great start-up culture? Justice Stewart’s “I know it when I see it” standard seems particularly apt here, but not actionable. I am hoping to start a dialogue about what a great start-up culture is and what it isn’t from those of you who are actually living it day-to-day. To kick off the debate, below is my best attempt at defining the characteristics of a great start-up culture. I was aiming for a top 10 but ended up with a bakers’ dozen (because in life it’s hard to beat a free bagel). How does your company’s culture stack up?

To read the list click over to Techflash.