All posts by Rick Turoczy

More than mildly obsessed with the Portland startup community. Founder and editor at Silicon Florist. Cofounder and general manager at PIE. Follow me on Twitter: @turoczy

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An investment from Elevate Capital results in a new Beaverton startup

Rick Turoczy on December 11, 2019

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A company manages to land early stage capital and, in so doing, decides to move their headquarters from their founding city to a city closer to their investor. Of course you’ve heard it. It’s something that regularly happened to Portland companies not so long ago. But today, there’s a new twist. Instead of companies leaving town, folks are starting to relocate those headquarters to Portland. And this time, at least part of that decision was thanks to a local investor.

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Nothing ventured, nothing gained: Cowen Partners announces new non-tech early stage venture fund

Rick Turoczy on December 10, 2019

Apparently, it just takes a little while for an idea to gain traction. After years of founders bemoaning a lack of early stage funding, a new crop of early stage venture funds are taking shape here in Portland. First, 1859 Ventures launched a new early stage venture fund. Now Cowen Partners Venture Fund has launched.

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Envisioning a startup exit strategy that results in more winners and more sustained value

Rick Turoczy on December 6, 2019

When folks are talking about startup activity, there are generally a few topics that jump to the fore: starting companies, funding companies, and liquidity events, the euphemism for that point in time when founders, investors, and ideally employees generate wealth from their efforts. But what if that last event — that exit — could also benefit the folks who find the most value in what that company was providing? That’s the concept with Exit to Community.

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There’s a new seed stage venture capital fund in Portland, for Portland

Rick Turoczy on December 5, 2019

One of the issues with the current state of the Portland startup community is the negative of a positive. The positive? Formerly early stage funds have found success, returned multiples on invested capital, matured, raised larger funds, and are now writing larger checks for Seed and Series A rounds.

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Well that was quick: Portland startup Streem acquired

Rick Turoczy on December 5, 2019

If you’ve been around the Portland startup community for any amount of time, you realize that many of the startups in our midst generally have a significant period of time between their founding date and when they experience a liquidity event like acquisition or private equity. (Or I guess there’s always on IPO. But seriously, who am I kidding?) Suffice it to say, “overnight success” is not a term that has much traction here.

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Learning about Portland through a visitor’s experiences

Rick Turoczy on December 5, 2019

There’s a running joke among some of the startup community that the best opportunity to get to spend quality time with folks from Portland is to wind up together in another town for an event or some such. Now, I’m happily realizing that sometimes the best way to learn something new about our community is to have someone from outside of town tell you about it. This was recently the case with Anika Horn. And something similar just happened with Anthony Ware, who spent a couple of weeks in Portland, recently.

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Call it Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or Cyber Monday. Whatever you call it, it’s a job board discount. (But it’s a limited time offer.)

Rick Turoczy on November 27, 2019

The holidays are upon us. And with them, the beginning of the rampant discounting and voracious consumerism of the season. Suffice it to say that I, for one, don’t want you to feel left out. So I thought I would throw a discount your way.

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Puppet now has an active hand in supporting the next wave of Portland startups

Rick Turoczy on November 22, 2019

Earlier this week, Puppet announced that they would be serving as the workspace for more than two dozen early stage Portland startups. For some, this might seem like a surprising move. But in actuality, it’s core to the culture of the company. And has been a hallmark of its existence, ever since Reductive Labs relocated to Portland.

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If you listen to one podcast this week, make it this one

Rick Turoczy on November 18, 2019

You know how sometimes things on the Internet just blow up in the most positive of ways? And every so often, a Portland person gets inextricably tied to the ongoings in a way that not only furthers the conversations, but genuinely reflects the amazing caliber of founders that we have in our midst? Well that’s what happened late last week with a tweetstorm from David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails and cofounder of Basecamp (nee 37signals) about the Apple Card credit selection algorithm. And Portland founder Mara Zepeda wound up as part of the conversation.

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Helping underestimated founders prioritize mental health

Rick Turoczy on November 18, 2019

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: being a founder is hard. For everyone. But unfortunately, it’s even more taxing for founders who identify as women, LGBTQIA+, and/or people of color. That’s why I’m a huge fan of the work that Anthony Ware is doing. And as luck would have it, he’s in Portland this week. Focused on your mental wealth.

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