Building a Scalable Revenue Engine, a Hands-On Dive Into AI Agents, GeekWire Awards Voting, and Seattle Tech Week Dates
Most revenue teams live or die by a handful of top performers. But if 70% of your revenue comes from just 20% of your reps, your sales engine isn’t built to scale. In a recent Madrona GTM AMA, we broke down what it takes to move beyond a quota-chasing culture and build a predictable, repeatable revenue machine.
Plus, in Aspiring for Intelligence, our investors go hands-on with AI agents—how easy (or not) is it to hack one together as a non-technical user? The New York Times took its readers into the 'vibecoding' future, with Bolt (by StackBlitz, a Madrona portfolio company), showing all that's possible when AI tools let anyone build software just by describing what they want.
And with 11 Madrona portfolio companies and 2 portfolio CEOs up for GeekWire Awards, we’re cheering them on and encouraging the community to vote.?Let's get into it.
Perspective
Beyond Quota: How Founders & GTM Leaders Can Build a Predictable Revenue Machine
If 70% of your revenue comes from just 20% of your reps, you don’t have a scalable sales engine — you have a hero-driven model that’s bound to break. Sales success isn’t just about closing deals — it’s about building a predictable, repeatable revenue engine that doesn’t rely on last-minute heroics. In a recent Madrona GTM AMA, Anna Baird and Loren Alhadeff explored what it takes to scale revenue the right way. Here are the key takeaways from that discussion with Madrona portfolio company CEOs:
- Why pipeline is more than a sales metric
- The importance of a pipeline council for cross-functional accountability
- Focusing on rep attainment vs. quota achievement
- Aligning compensation plans with business objectives
Aspiring for Intelligence
Hacking Together AI Agents:?A Non-Technical Exploration?
In Aspiring for Intelligence, Partner Vivek Ramaswami and Investor Sabrina Wu recently took a hands-on dive into AI agents. Inspired by the buzz around DeepSeek’s latest release and the growing accessibility of AI tools, they decided to test how seamless (or not) the experience really is for non-technical users.
Armed with ChatGPT as their co-pilot, they navigated debugging, configuration, and the inevitable friction points of local AI model deployment. While both have experience using AI-powered tools, this was their first time working under the hood — an experience they said was equal parts fun and frustrating.
This post unpacks their key takeaways: The promise and limitations of running AI locally, the trade-offs of API-based models, and how no-code platforms like Bolt.new are opening up new possibilities for AI-driven applications. Read & Subscribe here.
In the News
Finalists revealed for 2025 GeekWire Awards
11 Madrona portfolio companies + 2 portfolio CEOs are finalists for the 2025 GeekWire Awards!! A huge shoutout to our nominees across multiple categories:
- Startup of the Year: Yoodli AI Roleplays
- Next Tech Titan: Echodyne , Pulumi , Read AI , Statsig
- Deal of the Year: Jama Software , Lexion
- CEO of the Year: Read's David Shim & Highspot 's Robert Wahbe
- Innovation of the Year: Lassen Peak
- Health Innovation of the Year: Archon Biosciences
- AI Innovation of the Year: Groundlight AI & Rhythms
Voting is open until March 23, and winners will be revealed live on April 30 at Showbox SoDo.
New York Times: Not a Coder? With AI, Just Having an Idea Can Be Enough
Software creation is getting faster, cheaper, and more creative. A generation ago, the cloud made it radically cheaper for developers to spin up an idea, test it, and scale if it worked. That same shift is now coming to many creative areas, including software creation—not just for developers but for everyone.
The New York Times ran a great piece on “vibecoding†— how AI-powered tools are making it easier than ever to turn ideas into working software. It highlights Bolt.new from StackBlitz , an AI agent that lets users build and iterate on applications just by describing what they want. (We recently announced our investment in StackBlitz.)
Lowering the cost of experimentation ultimately means more visions can come to life, just as we saw with the cloud. Developers are moving faster, but what’s equally interesting is the rise of non-technical users creating fully functional apps — custom internal tools, workflows, even full-stack applications — without writing a single line of code.
When creativity isn’t bottlenecked by technical skills or long development cycles, people try more things. Some won’t work. Some will. But the shift is clear: Software creation is becoming more fluid, more exploratory, and more accessible.
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Founded & Funded
The AI Tug-of-War: Big Tech vs. Open Source Innovation
Who gets to shape the future of AI?
Right now, the AI world swings between two extremes:
?? Fear that only a handful of companies have the resources to build frontier models.
?? Excitement whenever a new open-source model drops, unlocking new possibilities for everyone.
At Madrona, we believe AI should be in everyone’s hands — customizable, adaptable, and built for real-world enterprise use cases on your data, in your way.
But the question remains: How do we balance innovation, accessibility, and responsible deployment?
In a recent Founded & Funded conversation, Jon Turow sat down with Databricks Chief AI Scientist Jonathan Frankle to break down this tension, what it means for founders, and where they see AI development heading. Listen/watch the full discussion on YouTube.
Save the Date
Seattle Tech Week 2025: July 28 - Aug. 1
Seattle Tech Week 2025 is coming! And we’re putting out the call for event hosts.?2025 Seattle Tech Week runs July 28 – August 1, and?registration is now open to host an event. From deep-dive discussions to casual meetups, this is your chance to shape the week and contribute to Seattle's vibrant tech scene.
For the broader community, stay tuned — we’ll share the official event calendar on May 15, and registration will open on June 19. Mark your calendar, get ready to connect, and let’s build the future together! More information on hosting an event here.
Events
Jon Turow at HumanX: What Does A VC Bring to Your AI Company
Madrona Partner Jon Turow is at HumanX in Las Vegas, digging into what a VC brings to AI startups. His session is March 12 at 1:30 p.m. and is titled "More Than Money, What Does a VC Bring to Your AI Company." Jon, Ben Sun (Primary VC),?Nina Achadjian (Index Ventures), and Becca Szkutak (TechCrunch) will explore how the right investor can accelerate growth, offer strategic guidance, and unlock opportunities that drive long-term success in a competitive market. More From Jon
Graham & Walker Founder Day
At G&W Seattle Founder Day on March 26th, top investors are coming together for a candid conversation on what it takes to raise venture capital today. Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu joins Founders' Co-Op GP Aviel Ginzburg, Maveron Partner Jason Stoffer, and mpathic Founder Grin Lord to talk about the impact market shifts, evolving investor priorities, and AI transforming industries have on fundraising.?This discussion will cut through the noise and uncover what truly moves the needle for early-stage founders.?Register Here
Portfolio Roundup
Read AI Founder David Shim joined the Slice of Technology podcast.
SeekOut Co-founder and CEO Anoop Gupta joined the Recruiting Brainfood podcast.
Deepgram launched Nova-3 Medical, its medical speech-to-text model.
Numbers Station partnered with Together AI to launch Model Switch, giving data teams the freedom to choose the most efficient open-source models for their AI-driven analytics.
Pulumi announced the Pulumi ESC GitHub Action.
Unstructured now integrates with Redis Cloud.
Echodyne CEO Eben Frankenberg joined the Autonomy Global Podcast.