Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community
Portland startup and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
While I don’t run — I played keeper — I recognize that there are a lot of folks out there who do. Sometimes, even for fun. And while grokking that concept is completely beyond me, who am I to prevent you from running, having fun, and giving to a good cause? Because that’s exactly what the 4K 4Charity is designed to do.
A year ago—a decade into writing Silicon Florist—it seemed like an interesting experiment (you know me, I like the experiments) to test drive Patreon, a platform that allows the community to provide financial support for folks who are making things.
I know it’s more difficult than it should be. I know you have to hustle harder than most. But you can do it. And I believe in you. So this weekend, I stumbled into a bit of a pep talk. So I wanted to capture it for you here.
Early stage investing has definitely changed. Huge seed rounds. Challenging pre-seed rounds. Organized angel groups that behave more like institutional investors. It can be confusing for the uninitiated. That’s why it’s always good to hear from folks who are in the thick of it. Like Shane Johnson, an early stage investor from Eugene, Oregon.
https://twitter.com/atonyc/status/1029171800943386626
Portland Kids Charities:
I want to use my replica Lightning McQueen to help run toy/clothes/blanket drives from @OmniPortland customers.
Let’s connect and deliver some smiles! pic.twitter.com/KMJ1Rz3R0z
— Bubs (Darius Monsef) (@bubs) August 13, 2018
Back 11 years ago, when I started this blog, one of the things I appreciated most about the Portland startup community was its transparency. Everybody was blogging. About what they thought. About what they were building. About everything.
I’m tired, Portland. For any number of reasons. But mostly because — after more than a decade of writing this blog on a weekly basis — this community still feels like it needs a ton of work. You must be tired, too. Because you have all made a ridiculous amount of progress against any number of odds. And you’ve created and innovated and persevered. But there’s still so much more to do. And not a lot of help to do it.
It’s always a joy to see new startup accelerator programs starting in the Portland startup community. One might say that, with this one, my tail is wagging. My tail… Ahem. *tap tap tap* Is this thing on?
Back a dozen years or so, before I started this blog, I happened upon COLOURlovers, a Portland founded startup that was unlike anything I had seen to date. It wasn’t a business to business site. It wasn’t software. It was consumer focused. And social.
