Transcript
Hello, if my energy level seems a little low, it’s not you, it’s been a week.
I hope it’s been a productive week for you.
For me, I moderated a panel, I haven’t done that in a while, I’ll tell you more about that in a second, but I also took some personal time to get some stuff done, and it was exhausting, but it was well worth it, which makes me think we should start off with, maybe we should all take some personal time and relax this weekend, and a perfect way to do that is the Portland Retro Gaming Expo.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been, but if you haven’t and you like old video games, you should definitely check this event out.
It used to happen a little later, like mid-October, it’s been bumped up to this weekend, so you gotta get there this weekend.
But the set up is amazing.
It has old kind of cabinet video games, so like Pac-Man and Dig Dug and Dragon’s Lair and all the ones that you love, Xevious.
And what’s the one with the flying face thing?
I can’t remember, but they have a lot of it.
There’s Centipede, they have Centipede.
Burger Time, probably.
Burger Time, if you like the Burger Time.
Me as a huge fan of Tempest and Missile Command, and they usually have those cabinets there as well.
They have, sometimes they have Pinball, free to play as well.
But the other thing they have is old consoles.
So if you’ve really been like wanting to play an Atari 2600, maybe you wanna play some Pitfall Harry.
You can do that there.
You can play the Atari Jaguar for whatever reason you’d want to do that.
Or Colecovision, maybe you wanna do the Colecovision.
Anyway, all that being said, Portland Retro Gaming Expo happening this weekend.
If you like retro games, go there.
If you like new games, there’s also a reason to go there.
I’m not sure if it’s happening this year, but in previous years, the folks at Pig Squad, the Portland Indie Game Squad, the folks developing their own games, also had a little area of the Retro Gaming Expo where you could try new games that are being built, bug test them, or try them pre-release.
So that’s another important reason to go there.
But it’s always a great event, always brings a lot of joy and is just a great way to relax and bask in some nostalgia.
Clearly, I wish I can remember the name of that game where the guy’s face comes together and you have to try and blow it up.
It’s a space game.
It’s a big anime.
If you know the game I’m talking about, please put it in the comments because it’s driving me nuts.
And Berserker, no, nevermind.
You probably know.
Just let me know.
Thank you.
Okay, so go to Retro Gaming Expo.
Now let’s get in to what happened this week.
First story, big story.
I do regular searches on Portland startups and that kind of thing, but also people send me stuff all the time.
And early morning, I can’t remember, Monday or Tuesday, a lot of people started sending me this thing.
They’re like, oh, have you heard of this company?
They just raised $70 million.
It’s a Portland company.
And TechCrunch says Portland company just raised $70 million.
I don’t think so because I haven’t heard anybody talking about it.
Like, sure, I don’t get all the news.
But like if a company was raising $70 million, I would like to think I maybe would have caught it somewhere else.
And so I was like, how did this, how does this, what is this talking about?
And it turns out it was a company that used to be here, used to be here, formed out of another company, was here, had to get exit, team got back together, formed a new company.
That company changed names while I was here, but then relocated its headquarters, I think, back east to New York.
But there was still some, some lint on Google that when you searched for this company, it was like, oh yeah, they’re in Portland.
So that’s clearly where TechCrunch got that.
So no fault there.
I mean, they were doing their research.
It was just, the information was incorrect.
And, but it had me thinking of usually when this happens, and it happens more often than you would think.
It’s because of Earth Class Mail.
And if you haven’t heard of Earth Class Mail, long time Portland startup, like way back, like predating even Silicon Florist.
Like I think they were around doing things before I started writing the blog 17 years ago.
And their whole focus was basically digitizing mail.
So you set them up as the people to receive your business mail or personal mail or whatever.
They receive the mail, they scan it, they send you the digital files and you can either keep those or you can tell them to destroy the mail.
Like sometimes you get a check and you’re like, no, you need to forward that to me, whatever.
So they handle that.
Basically like modernizing the idea of a PO box and preventing you from needing to go to said PO box to get your mail.
So a good idea, you know, there was some drama there because they relocated to Seattle for a while and then they came back.
All that being said, and it just went down a historical rabbit hole.
I apologize.
But it is interesting because of this one thing.
Well, it may be interesting because of other things, but to me it’s interesting because of this one thing.
All of their PO boxes are Beaverton, Oregon.
So I’ll regularly get these emails or searches that say, oh, this Beaverton company just raised a ton of money, or this Beaverton company just hired a big exec.
And it’s because their listed mail address is earth class mail.
It’s the PO box there.
And so people assume the company’s in Beaverton, but it’s not.
So I thought this was one of those cases, but it was something entirely different.
It was outdated information elsewhere.
But just to clear things up, no, a Portland company did not raise $70 million this week.
I’m sorry.
I think there are many Portland companies that are capable of doing that and deserve to have that kind of capital to do what they’re trying to do.
But in this case, no, a Portland company did not raise $70 million this week.
I felt a little overwhelmed this week.
That’s why I’m so happy I subscribed to so many things that keep me informed about what’s going on.
And if you’d like me to help you do the same thing, all you have to do is subscribe.
I’ll be here every week keeping you up to date on what’s going on in the Portland startup community and throughout Oregon.
Okay, at the outset, I told you I had the opportunity.
There’s a great group called Rose City Techies.
They’re like four months old.
They’re already up to like 600 members in their meetup group.
They do regular meetups.
They have a variety of formats, book clubby kind of things, or like portfolio review kind of things or workshops.
This was really their first kind of paneled event that they’d done, I believe, in their four months of existence.
And they invited me to moderate it.
And of course, past Rick, given that he has no love for future Rick, said, yeah, of course, I’d be happy to moderate.
Future Rick would be happy to moderate that.
And it came up to this week.
And I’m like, I haven’t moderated a panel in quite some time.
I enjoy moderating.
Like, I used to be okay at it.
But I got the pre-show jitters pretty badly because I hadn’t moderated anything in a while.
But anyway, the group was amazing.
I got to talk to three founders, all who are of course using AI in some amazing way.
But here’s the big bonus.
So, did the talk.
The founders were amazing, insightful, inspiring, honest.
Highly encourage you to attend a Rose City Techies event if you can, because it was just really well put together.
Anyway, I get to the end and I’m like, look, you’re founders, you’ll need something.
Tell us as an audience how we can help you with your startup.
And two of them are like, well, we’re beta testing our product and we could use your help.
And then one’s like, well, we’re in market.
Then we would still like you to try our product and give us feedback.
So if you like trying products, if you like beta testing products, here are three companies that you should consider using.
The first one is Lumiro.
I think it’s lumiro.app.
I’ll link everything up so you have access to it.
Lumiro is walking tours like AI developed and refined walking tours for whatever city you’re in.
You want to see some interesting stuff.
You don’t want to have to go on like a big guided tour thingy-ma-jig or like hire a tour guide.
That’s what Lumiro is doing, get you out there.
You can even do it in Portland.
Do it in your hometown.
Like maybe learn some stuff that you didn’t know about Portland.
Maybe you’re new here.
Maybe you just moved here and you’re like, hey, I want to learn some interesting stuff about Portland.
That’s what Lumiro is for.
They are currently available on both iOS and the Google Play Store.
So go try that app out.
And if you like what you see, let them know.
If you have feedback that’s not necessarily positive, let them know that as well.
The next one is MiBot.
MiBot is currently in beta, but they’re allowing people to sign up for the waitlist and get signed up to beta test it.
MiBot is a kind of AI avatar play where you can create avatars that you can communicate with.
So one of the examples that Peter, the founder used was like, he has an avatar of his grandma who has passed away and he can still communicate with his grandma and have conversations with her and get her feedback and that kind of thing.
You know, it could be maybe somebody else in your life.
Or I’ve seen people use this like Suzanne Tong at the AI Science Fair had done this kind of thing, but for her boss.
So like she could chat with her boss’s avatar and kind of get some of her boss’s feedback, her thoughts on things that she was working on.
So it’s that kind of play.
So if you’re interested, you have somebody in your life that you don’t have all the access you would like, or somebody who’s passed away or you’ve lost touch with, this is designed to give you access to their, their memories and their thoughts and the ability to chat with them.
So if that’s interesting to you, MiBot currently in beta, check that out.
And then the final one is MyFitCheck.
MyFitCheck is really the most interesting thing about this one was just how thoughtful Araba was about the founder, was about the product because she’s like, I wanted to use AI and I needed to find an opportunity to do it where it didn’t have to be right.
So I picked fashion and style.
And she’s like, the beauty of MyFitCheck is like, it doesn’t necessarily have to be right.
It just has to provide you with direction.
So if you’re not hip to all the lingo with kids these days, MyFit is basically what I’m wearing, my outfit and how I’m put together, my fit, get out, fit, get it.
So you’re welcome for the kid chat 101.
So basically, this uses AI to help you.
You kind of say, this is my style, this is what I think I want to wear.
And it not only provides you with guidance, but also provides you with imagery to show you how to put that fit together.
And they’re early, beta, have a wait list.
If that sounds interesting to you, my head automatically goes to clue lists where Cher is in her closet, matching the clothes together.
That’s immediately what I always think about.
But if you’re interested in trying something like that, if you need help with your fashion, clearly I’m dialed on my fashion with the hat and the t-shirt constantly.
Sometimes I wear a long shirt underneath my t-shirt, and that’s really all I need in terms of fashion.
So if you’re more fashionable than me, or you would like to be more fashionable than me, maybe check out MyFitCheck as well.
Again, I’ll link all this up, so you have the opportunity to beta test those too, or download the production version of Lumiro.
Next up, an event that I love dearly called Pitch Latino has happened here regularly in Portland, but you know, they’re growing up.
They’re the Latino Founders Crew.
They hired Juan Barraza as the Executive Director.
Now they’re doing their events all over the place.
So they do Pitch Latino Portland.
They did a Pitch Latino Seattle.
And October 1st, they will be doing Pitch Latino Bend.
This one’s slightly different.
It’s free to attend.
Usually you buy a ticket to kind of kick in to the prize money because everybody gets prizes.
But this time in Bend, totally free.
Get to go see some amazing Latin led companies, Pitch.
And then, you know, the audience votes and the big winners get kind of bigger prize money like the top winners, but everybody gets something for their time.
Everybody gets prize money.
The thing I like most about Pitch Latino and Pitch Black, which is the competition that Pitch Latino was kind of inspired by, not kind of, it was inspired by Pitch Black.
But what I like about both of those is they’re not typical pitch competition, founder as tribute, get up there and entertain us by pitching your startup and maybe a few of you get something out of it, but the rest of you feel like, well, that was a great opportunity to practice my pitch, but that’s really all I got out of it.
What I like about Pitch Latino and Pitch Black is everybody gets something.
Sure, the crowd favorites get more capital, more prize money, but everybody gets something for participating, everybody gets some form of capital for taking the time to take the stage and pitch their companies.
And so if that’s of interest to you and you’re in Central Oregon and you’re interested in Latin led startups, or if you’re just interested in startups in general, like go to Pitch Latino.
It’s always a great show, always some amazing presenters.
That’s taking place October 1st in Bend, Oregon.
Pitch Latino Bend 2024.
Please attend.
You know, I like the affinity maps.
I love when like there’s, there’s like buzz cut, which is all about like non-alcoholic opportunities.
There’s Everywhere is Queer, which is like queer owned and queer friendly establishments around the world.
It’s like this huge database of things.
You know, back in the day, one of my, one of the first companies I ever wrote about was, was Placial, which was early affinity mapping.
Before there were things like Google Map layers that you can do.
And then there was, you know, on Thirsty, on Thirsty was a happy hour finder affinity map.
Well, now there’s an Oregon Beer Trail affinity map, which will let you know about all kinds of different breweries, brew pubs, bottle shops, places that sell beer in Oregon.
It’s still in the works as an app, but the map has been released as a web accessible map.
So if you are a beer aficionado, if you’re like, I need something besides yet another IPA, maybe take a look at the Oregon Beer Map and maybe plan your next road trip.
Like maybe you want to go off the beaten path the next time you’re traveling through Oregon, because you’re like, oh, there’s this really interesting brewery over here, or this is a brew pub that I didn’t know existed, and I would like to take a break.
Maybe I grab lunch there and try something new.
Really, my favorite thing about Affinity Maps is both like, not only do you learn a lot more, because they’re so focused and kind of, kind of not niche, but like nuanced to a particular focus.
I love that part about it, but I almost love more the fact that somebody is getting to express their passion about a particular subject through geographical reference, which is just, which is amazing.
Like the fact that they can build these things that help them show how much they know about a particular topic and make it available and accessible to you, if you care about that topic.
I think that’s what I love most about Affinity Map.
So if you’re a beer drinker, if you’re looking for some new places in Oregon, please check out The Oregon Beer Trail Map and stay tuned for an app coming soon.
Speaking of beer, beer kind of falls into this consumer products realm.
So like CPG, which is consumer packaged goods or consumer products like apparel and footwear, food, beverage, all that kind of stuff.
Like Oregon is ridiculously good in that space.
We have amazing companies.
I always try and quote my co-founder at Built Oregon, Mitch Doherty, who says, you know, really insightful and cute things like Oregon is the Silicon Valley of consumer products.
And I always paraphrase that as the Bay Area, because I just like Silicon Valley, really.
Anyway, no fault to Mitch.
He’s not in the tech realm.
He thinks Silicon Valley.
It’s fine.
So the other thing he likes to say is, you know, most colleges or professional teams have their stadiums named after banks or insurance companies or whatever.
And in Oregon, we have some named after companies that make potato salad, like Reeser Stadium.
Yes, they make potato salad.
They make salsa too, but they started with potato salad.
If you do not know that, that’s your trivial fact for the day.
Reesers potato salad.
I knew them were for salsa.
So if you thought it was salsa, that’s fine.
That’s what I knew them for too.
Anyway, so Mitch built consumer products, all that kind of thing, built Oregon, the voice of consumer products, the nonprofit designed to help everyone from the Nike’s and Columbia’s of the world, the Reesers and the Tillamooks, down through the earliest stage startup, just working at that farmer’s market, trying to figure out how to make a product work in the market, that’s who Bilt represents.
And Bilt has just turned 10, and we will be celebrating that next week at Bilt Festival 2024.
The main event takes place on October 4th, 10-4.
10-4, good buddy.
It’s pretty much an all day event, starts in the morning, goes through early evening, late afternoon, early evening, like late afternoon with the actual panels, and then after party kind of thing.
But anyway, if you are interested in consumer products in Oregon, if you are in the consumer product space, and you’re like, I talk to everybody I work with, but I would like to talk to more people from the community, that’s what the Bilt Festival is designed to do.
It’s designed to bring the community together, to celebrate what’s happening here, to get people connected, and as luck would have it, tickets are still available.
So, if that sounds interesting to you, tickets are $45, and it’s well worth every penny, not only will you see speakers, people will be tabling and showing products, so you get to talk directly to people who are making the products.
Like, it’s just a good time.
You get to meet a bunch of different people, you get to meet people outside your discipline, you get to meet food and beverage and knives and coats and shoes and everything.
So if that sounds even remotely interesting, we would love to see you at BILT Fest.
I’ll be in the AV play, I’ll be running the slides or something, so you probably won’t see much of me.
But Mitch would love to see you, as would all the other people in the community.
So please come join us on Friday, October 4th, 10-4.
Good buddy.
And we would love to see you there, help us celebrate 10 years of BILT Oregon and celebrate all the wonderful and amazing companies being built here in Oregon, in the consumer product space.
All right, that’s it.
Again, sorry, my energy level was a little down.
This has been a week.
There’s been a lot of stuff happening.
I hope you had a good week.
I hope everything went well for you.
I hope this news was interesting to you.
There’s some fun, trivial facts in there, kind of thrown in and all that kind of thing.
I hope you’re hanging in there.
And until we get the chance to chat again, please keep up the good work.