Month: December 2024

The Portland startup community — as well as folks from Bend and a few other spots — packed into the McMenamins Mission Theater last night to watch eight companies take the stage. Each of those companies had one thing in common: a win at one of the monthly Demolicious events. But when the dust cleared and the crowd votes were tallied, one company was named the Champion of those champions for 2024: Airbuild.

As a startup founder, it’s rare to get the opportunity to pause. But the end of the year often presents an opportunity to do so. But what should you reflect upon exactly…? I found these 25 questions from First Round to be a pretty compelling starting point.

I’ve been telling people all about this one, but I wanted to remind you one more time… Our friends at AI Portland and Rose City Techies have combined forces with the Technology Association of Oregon to host a holiday get together for the entire Portland tech community. And you’re invited.

When it comes to vacation rental management, the name Vacasa should be familiar to folks. What may come as a surprise is that Eric Breon, the founder of Vacasa — along with cofounders with a depth of Vacasa experience — are taking another run at revamping the industry with a new startup called Fairly.

Must have missed this one yesterday. But I wanted to wedge it in before folks checked out for the weekend. Sightglass has raised $3 million in Seed.

I realize I change tooling out of my work stack on a regular basis, but I never considered doing an annual retrospective on what I’m using at the moment. That’s what intrigued me about this ongoing effort by Jonathan Hays at Silverpine.

It’s hard to believe that 2024 is drawing to a close. But that means that it’s time to start thinking about 2025. And what better way to start the year than meeting new folks, connecting with old acquaintances, and feeling the growing buzz of energy in the Portland startup community…? Oh. Well yeah, I guess that does sound pretty cool. What’s that? Sure. Sure. That too. Okay. I get it. Just hold on a second. Because this could be an equally good way to do that too.

I mean, by default if you throw a huge event in January, it’s going to be the biggest tech event of the year. But based on how amazing and awesome the inaugural Silicon Forest Tech Summit was, it can probably hang onto that ranking throughout 2025. You should definitely go, either way.