It’s the middle of the year. But it’s also a time of unfortunate layoffs rippling through the community. So it seemed like a good time to throw out a little refresher on ways to get more connected to the startup community, both in Portland and throughout Oregon. If you’re new to town or have been recently impacted by a layoff — or know someone who has — I sincerely hope this helps.
Staying informed
You’ve made the first step. Because you’re here. If you’re looking to stay informed about what’s happening in the Oregon startup community, I do my best to keep you and all of your soon to be new friends in the community up to date. If reading blogs is your thing — or if you’re still rocking a feed reader — this is the spot I post most everything that comes across my keyboard. If you’re more into listening or watching the news, there’s a YouTube channel and podcast that provides a weekly recap of startup news. There’s also a newsletter which comes out once a week, that crates up all of the above. The same way it has for the last 800 weeks or so.
Sharing your profile
We’ve recently kicked off a collection of profiles from folks working in, on, and around the Oregon startup community. If LinkedIn is a little too crowded for you to find your people, this collection of folks who are looking to connect with others in the startup community may be helpful. Of course, you’re also welcome to add your own profile — even if you’re just starting to dip your toe into startups.
Chatting with the startup community
While online communication can have its drawbacks, there’s no better place to connect with folks in the Oregon startup community than the Portland Startups Slack. This free Slack instance has been running for years. And while it’s amassed 7500+ profiles, it’s a small ragtag team of folks who use it day to day. So it’s a manageable way of connecting and conversing with folks. Channels like general, engineers, and AI happen to be the most active currently — but there are ton of others from which to choose. As a reminder, by participating in this Slack, you’re agreeing to abide by the Code of Conduct.
Meet people in person
If IRL is more your style, there are opportunities for that, as well. And a couple of calendars designed to highlight upcoming events that might be of interest. Calagator is the aggregated tech calendar for Portland. So it’s all things tech, not just startups. The Portland Startup Events calendar is… well yeah. It’s Portland startup events. These calendars are maintained by the community.
Me in particular
If you wound up here because someone told you to talk to me — or you just found your way to me through some other path — Hello! Welcome. I’m on the Internet in a variety of spots, if you’re into connecting with folks that way. Please feel free to connect with me on any and all of the platforms below (listed in order of most active to least active):
Need a deep dive…?
Not seeing the resource you need…?
Totally understandable. But we’ll still figure out how to get you what you need. There are a couple of compendiums of community resources that the community works to keep up to date. On GitHub, you’ll find the Portland Startup Community documentation. It’s a list of how tos, coworking spaces, regular events, job boards, and the like, designed to help folks find their way around the startup community. Or if you’re leaning more towards tech there’s the Portland Tech Communities Mega-Index which has a whole bunch of tech-oriented resources. Again, both of these resources are maintained by the community, so if you find another resource that should be there, please take the opportunity to add it.
More Oregon startup news
