To begin, my opinion of startup pitch competitions is the worst kept secret in the startup community. I’m generally — to put it kindly — “not a fan.” (Insert: Hunger Games “I volunteer as tribute” and Gladiator “Are you not entertained…?” gifs.) But that being said, I am a fan of more and better resources for founders. Resources that save them time. Resources that help them find their way around our community. So if someone is going to create an aggregated map of pitch competitions in the Pacific Northwest, I’m going to laud that effort. Regardless of my opinion.
I mean, we’ve got more than enough startup pitch competitions. Lots of them. Here. There. Every-fucking-where. But good luck figuring out which ones are currently accepting applications. Or which ones serve your region. Or which ones are even still running.
It’s one of those things where if you know, you know. But if you don’t know? You don’t know. So you’re stuck asking around. Or worse. Scrolling. Through Eventbrite. And Meetup. And Luma. And Calagator. And… and… and… Ugh.
The solution…? Exactly what you would imagine. An interactive map with startup pitch competitions happening across the region. You can filter by status — like who’s actually accepting applications right now — location, prize type, and tags. It tracks 12 host organizations, 21 entrepreneurial community groups, and even pulls in 3 live event calendar aggregators.
The project is a collaboration between Leila Kaneda of Kaneda Consulting — based out of Hood River — and RAIN Catalysts, with seed data from Matthew Spellman. And it’s open source, community-maintained, and free.
Look. If you’re a founder who has been meaning to get out there and pitch but didn’t know where to start? This is where you start. And if you run a pitch competition that isn’t on the map yet, there’s a submission form to get listed.
Check it out at pitchmap-pnw.com or follow the repo on GitHub.
More Oregon startup news
