It’s that time of year. When we’re all thinking about how to make the next 52 weeks better than the last 52 weeks. Often, that means you’re overcome with a desire to get more engaged. To get involved. To get connected. But then, you’re like…
Where to go? What to do? Who are you going to call…?
Well unfortunately, Portland as a community can be more confusing than most in trying to figure this out. There is no obvious resource or welcome wagon. No immediately obvious hub of activity. Even though we’re a metropolitan area of nearly three million people, we still can’t seem to get past thinking we’re a town of 50,000 people. So it’s harder than it should be. And it will take more time than you expect it should.
But there is hope! You can do something right now — or at least after you get done reading this — that will immediately get you a step or two closer to connecting with the people and orgs you need to know. How…?
1. Join Portland Startups Slack
Portland Startups Slack is an open Slack instance designed to help folks get connected to other folks in the community from the comfort of their own desktop or mobile device. There is no cost. It’s completely free. Just sign up. Then introduce yourself in #001_intro. Or brag about something you’re doing in #040_hype. Want to lurk a little…? #030_engineers and #090_ai tend to be the most active in terms of regular chatter.
2. Peruse Calagator and Portland Startup Events
Portland has no shortage of events happening. And the best place to find your people and your events are in one of the two leading event aggregators (I know, I know), Calagator for tech events and Portland Startup Events for, well, Portland startup events. Thumb through the listings. Find an event or two. Show up. Meet folks. Get connected.
3. Thumb through this list of folks
While the submissions have trailed off over the past few months, there are still a bunch of interesting people from the Oregon startup community who are open to connecting with folks. Take a look at their profiles, filter by things like founders or location. Find some folks who you would like to meet and reach out to them. Interested in being listed? You can do that too.
This is a good starting point. But there’s still a lot of work to do to find the connections you need. Don’t get discouraged. Just start poking around and connecting. Portland is a very one-on-one coffee meeting sort of place. It’s not a one-networking-event-to-rule-them-all sort of place.
Good luck. See you on Slack.
