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!

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.