Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
There’s a whole bunch of experimentation with bots as of late. Some of it serious. Some of it silly. But it’s all pretty darn compelling. And Portland is no stranger to mucking around with these little buckets of artificial intelligence. Take Mimic, a new bot designed by the creative technologist over at Wieden+Kennedy‘s The Lodge. Read More
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Portland is filled with tons of interesting people. Interesting people who generally—as luck would have it—seem to hide here because they’re not terribly self-promotional. Honestly, that was my inspiration to start Silicon Florist. And now it’s inspired others to start a new video interview show. Meet Output PDX. Read More
It’s no secret that there’s a limited number of investors in Oregon. Which means there’s not a lot of crossover between the startup investment community—unless folks are raising. But there aren’t a lot of conversations, information sharing, or mutual understanding. It’s often just checks—or lack thereof. That’s why it’s always nice to hear from the investors, firsthand, about their world and what sort of things they’re looking for. Read More
Used to be, back in the day, folks would blog. And sometimes, I’d take a snippet of those amazing blog posts and try to raise the volume a little bit. By posting on my own blog. But that doesn’t happen as much these days. Or when it does, it tends to happen on platforms that have their own volume mechanisms. But Portland founder Mara Zepeda just wrote something that I wanted to make sure that you saw. And so I’m trying to raise the volume a bit. Like we used to. Read More
It’s always interesting to watch companies form. And while my vantage point usually has me monitoring startups, I’ve got to say that following along with the founding, formation, and funding of a venture capital firm is equally interesting. And likely has some valuable learnings for everyone. That’s why I was drawn to today’s news from Elevate Capital, our newest homegrown fund. Read More
Early stage activity in town has quieted a bit. Not really calmed down. Just quieted down. That’s why it’s always nice to see some folks making some noise. And showing investors what’s going on in town. Which is exactly what the Portland Seed Fund is doing today with their latest class—which includes six local tech companies. Read More
Not a day goes by that Oregon doesn’t bemoan its perceived inability to grow the type of talent that builds billion dollar companies. But fact of the matter is we do create that kind of talent. Retention is more of the issue. And sometimes, even if we lose the founders, their impact is still felt locally. Cases in point, AppNexus and WeWork. Whose founders met in high school. In Eugene. Read More
You know me. I love a good Demo Day. And I love it even more when there are awesome Portland companies on stage. So wouldn’t you know it, when Techstars Seattle holds a Demo Day and there’s a Portland company on stage…? It’s going to be post worthy. And GeekWire calling them out only makes it moreso. Meet Reflect. Read More
A few years back, I would have a hard time even fathoming that Portland would even appear on a list of startup cities. So let’s just start there. It’s awesome to see Portland listed among the top 25 startup cities pursuing “Innovation that Matters.” But now that we’re on there… c’mon Portland. We can do better than this. Read More
Back in the old days of Silicon Florist, I used to highlight other blog posts that were awesome. Mostly, because a lot more people used to blog back then. And I am lazy. Well, guess what? Even though fewer people seem to be doing the blogging thing like they used, I am still categorically lazy. Plus this piece by Oscar Godson was great. So I’m sharing it. Read More