Silicon Florist

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t spent much time with Portland Startups Switchboard in the past year. But I’m working to change that. And I’d like to invite you to do the same. (And thanks to Mark Grimes for mentioning it on the Upstart Collective podcast.)

All good things must come to an end. But so does 2023. That’s why this Friday will be your absolute last opportunity to attend Upstart Collective’s First Friday gathering. In 2023. I mean, it will happen next year. But that will be different. A different year.

I told you. It’s that time of year. The time for all of the lists. Lists and lists and lists of lists. But I felt this list was worth mentioning. Because it’s from Inc. And it’s about Portland startups. So what are the Portland startups to watch according to Inc…?

Not a week goes by that I don’t have at least a dozen conversations with folks who are interested in getting more engaged with the Portland startup community. But if we haven’t yet had the opportunity to have that conversation, I wanted to help make that happen. At scale. So that you can get more connected to our community in 2024.

The more people you tell about your startup, the better. Not only does it help socialize your concept, it helps you get better at telling a story. And telling that story to a roomful of folks makes scaling that storytelling all the easier. That’s why pitch events are so attractive. So if you’re at a point where you’d like to share what you’re building in front of an audience — if only to get some practice telling the story — Demolicious may be the event for you.

The Spotify embed has been a bit — ahem — spotty. So here’s the link to the episode.

Struggling to figure out where to start on your startup idea? Strapped for time? Well, get ready to be happy. Because Mark Grimes is going to spend three hours helping you figure it out.

There are any number of impressive technology folks with ties to Oregon. But the person most definitely having their moment in the sun as part of the AI fueled technology world of today is Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia, an alum of Aloha High School and Oregon State University. The New Yorker recently featured Jensen in a piece that shares more about Jensen’s life, including building the chipmaker that is “powering the AI revolution.”