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Andy Sack. Photo via Randy Stewart

Andy Sack rushes into a conference room in the heart of Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood. The Seattle angel investor obviously has a lot on his mind, and a lot on his plate. And there's good reason for that.

Sack is performing what amounts to an entrepreneurial juggling act, with fingers touching three of Seattle's newest startup investment groups. As the leader of TechStars Seattle (seed-stage investments), Founder's Co-op (early-stage investments) and Revenue Loan (later-stage investments), there's hardly an Internet deal that goes unnoticed by Sack or his team of angel investors.

All of this entrepreneurial energy comes together under one roof in South Lake Union, just a stone's throw from Amazon.com's emerging corporate campus. If there were an epicenter to the Seattle startup community, this would be it.

On a recent afternoon, more than a dozen entrepreneurs -- most in their 20s and 30s -- sit at desks in a wide open space coding away on what they hope will be Seattle's next great software or Internet company. The room is split, with carpeting acting as a demarcation spot between the entrepreneurial babies of TechStars and the slightly more advanced toddlers of Founder's Co-op.

An East Coaster with a gruff edge, Sack oversees the activity from a stand-up desk in the middle of the action.

Inside the TechStars/Founder's Co-op space in Seattle.

"I am super slammed, and a little bit uncomfortably slammed," says Sack. "But I am loving it. I am having a great time. Professionally, I don't think I've ever been happier. It doesn't feel like work to me. I am doing stuff I love."

Sack's primary passion these days is TechStars, a startup incubation program that accepted its first class on August 15th. Ten companies received $6,000 per founder to participate in the three month program, with TechStars taking a six percent equity stake just as they do in Boston, Boulder and New York City. (More than 400 companies applied).

With wide support from the Seattle venture capital community, TechStars plans to "graduate" its first group of entrepreneurs during a Demo Day on November 11th.

"It is a process of organized chaos," says Sack when asked about running TechStars. "I'll let you ask them, but I think the program has been kick-ass. I thought it was really fucking cool and cool enough to do, and it has exceeded my expectations."

In addition to the TechStars' Demo Day, Sack also is helping to organize a version of Jason Calacanis' Open Angel Forum. That event -- slated for the evening of November 10th -- will feature five companies pitching to a group of 20 angel investors.

All of these programs tie together under one common vision supported by Sack and colleagues Chris DeVore and Geoff Entress.

"My main focus, other than the projects and the entrepreneurs that I am involved with, is the Seattle community," said Sack, who previously co-founded Judy's Book and upstarts which were sold to Microsoft and The New York Times. "I worry about the amount of support for startups. It is just about building up that community, and building up the people who want to take risk and want to grow something. I am nervous that there aren't enough people who are doing that."

TechStars -- with $800,000 in funding from Madrona, Ignition, Voyager, OVP and nearly every other major venture fund in town -- is one attempt to jumpstart those risk takers.

"It is hard to know," says Sack when asked whether the Seattle startup community is on the upswing or downswing. "I am in the middle of it. I have a pulse on it. But I am anxious about it. I don't have a sense of whether it is rising or falling, but I am driving to try to make it rise. Seattle should be more vibrant than it is, which isn't a knock on how vibrant it is. I just think it could be more."

The majority of the entrepreneurs in the TechStars program are from the Seattle area, but Sack notes that a few have been imported from other areas. Working together and sharing insights, Sack is confident that some notable seedlings will emerge from the first crop.

"We are a month in, and I am not surprised, but I am really pleased at the progress that the companies are making," he says. "And you never know how big a company is going to be, you just don't.... But there is no question that good companies are going to get built."

TechStars is holding back on the full list of companies which are participating in the program, hoping to generate some surprises at the Demo Day event next month. But Sack is hopeful that the incubator will, over time, establish itself as a place that attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurs.

"The thing I am most excited about when I think about the next year and the year after is that, Seattle wins," he says. "We've recruited a couple (companies) from outside Seattle, and they may stay. It is just good for Seattle. So, I am stoked."

Related post: "Video: An inside look at TechStars Seattle."