Seattle Startups

By: Spencer Rascoff, Zillow COO | May 1, 2006

Startup companies are hard work, but they’re also very fun. It’s exhilirating to be part of something brand new, to create something from nothing. Zillow is proud to be part of a long tradition of Seattle startups, including Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco, Amazon.com, Expedia, drugstore.com, bluenile, and many others.

Ever since the venture capital industry got its sea legs back post-bubble, Seattle has become a hotbed again for startups. In addition to Zillow, here are some neat Seattle-based companies that are doing interesting things:

- Seatguru: provides information on airline seating

- Judy’s Book: local reviews of businesses by real people

- Triphub: allows you to plan group travel together

- Bagborroworsteal: think “Netflix for handbags” — pay a monthly fee and get different handbags on loan

- A Place For Mom: think “Expedia for nursing homes”

- LegalRev: a stealth Seattle startup founded by former Expedia exec Mark Britton

- And my favorite — Platial: allows you to build mashups of Google Maps in minutes. OK, I know, Platial is in Portland not Seattle. But we include our sister city only 3 hours to the South when it comes to stuff like this.

A great resource for information on Seattle startups is John Cook’s Venture Blog (he’s a reporter for the Seattle P-I). Let me know some of your favorite Seattle startups so I can check them out.

Stumble it!
Categories: Zillow

Comments

10 Comments so far

jason on May 1, 2006 2:31 pm

pacific northwest, sticking together.
Anonymous on May 1, 2006 3:11 pm

what about redfin?
Steve Murch on May 1, 2006 4:49 pm

Don’t forget Escapia.com (powering the vacation rental industry) and http://www.bigoven.com (160,000 recipes online and a community-driven Web 2.0ish approach to recipe swapping)… and an ex-Expedia executive at the helm of both companies.
Congrats, Zillow, on all the success!

- Steve Murch
investor and former colleague
Jocelyn Milici on May 1, 2006 5:29 pm

How about Festivals.com and Allrecipes.com? Great local sites!
Anonymous on May 1, 2006 10:46 pm

Although I think zillow.com is a nice tool, I do think it makes public records a little too accessible. I don’t want just anyone looking up the value of my home.
L Brown on May 2, 2006 1:58 pm

YOUR WEBSITE STINK

I HAVE AN APPLE AN NONE WORKS SO UPDATE YOUR SITE!
Bryan on May 2, 2006 2:36 pm

This is Bryan from Zillow.

Unfortunately we are unable to support Safari on OS X at this time. However, Zillow.com can be accessed from an Apple computer using Firefox (available from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox)

We are planning to add Safari support in the future. For more information please reference http://www.zillowblog.com/zillow_blog/2006/02/safari_support.html

Thank you for your interest in Zillow.com.
Tom on June 8, 2006 12:18 am

Like Mr Murch’s comment above, don’t forget RealSelf.com (Advice, options, and ideas for your anti-aging needs). We’re in beta and loving it.

- Tom Seery
former colleague
Spencer on June 8, 2006 8:44 am

Ah yes, sorry Tom — my bad. I don’t think that I knew about realself when I originally wrote this post.
Yes, check out this site — it’s cool!
San Diego on March 6, 2008 4:34 pm

Very insightful article. Thanks. You’ve given me something to think about.