When Oregon native Andrew Hyde and I originally started chatting about Portland having its very own Startup Week—the concept that he, the Startup Weekend creator, had dreamed up to help towns celebrate their startup scenes—I was already toying with a few ideas. When he suggested that the launch date should be Groundhog Day, it was settled.
You see, I’d been noticing a few things around the Portland startup scene recently. Things that were extremely reminiscent of the startup scene a decade ago.
Granted they were now at an exponentially larger scale compared to back then. But they were the same problems.
A lot of awesome people working on awesome projects. But a waning sense of community beyond a few events here and there.
And so I had been thinking, what solved this problem back then? And that’s when it hit me.
Ned Ryerson?
Oh wait. No. That wasn’t it. This was it: If we’re experiencing similar problems, why not solve them the way we solved them the last time around?
And so, as part of Portland Startup Week. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.
All—or at least of good smattering—of your favorite retro Portland startup scene events are back again.
- Demolicious: Our favorite geek demo event, born from Portland Web Innovators back in the day, returns with a whole bunch of new demos.
- Portland Lunch 2.0: Hosted by CrowdCompass, Portland Lunch 2.0 will once again be doing what it was originally designed to do: allow companies to show off their digs while feeding the masses.
- Ignite Bridgetown: While other events helped us meet people in their professional roles, Ignite became the first event that allowed us a glimpse of our Portland peers’ personalities and passions. No pitching. Just humans talking about stuff they love. I can still remember Josh Bancroft tweeting about this concept which motivated me to snag the URL. Time after time—moreso than any other event—this one connected us. In a really weird and distinctly Portland way. It will be awesome to have it back.
- Beer and Blog: Bar none, the grandaddy of all Portland startup networking events. From its humble beginnings as a handful of us gathering at the Hawthorne Lucky Lab and actually worked on our blogs to the event which—at its height—drew upwards of 300 Portland startup and tech types to the Green Dragon, every Friday. All thanks to Justin Kistner—when he was still @metafluence—taking a chance and having a vision. This event seems to be an incredibly poignant way to round out the week.
But Portland Startup Week is more than just a nostalgic stroll down memory lane. There are a bunch of new events—many of which could become the underpinning of this generation of events—that you should attend. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing. No pressure.
For more information, joins us at Portland Startup Week.