Portland Oregon Startup and Tech News
Back 11 years ago, when I started this blog, one of the things I appreciated most about the Portland startup community was its transparency. Everybody was blogging. About what they thought. About what they were building. About everything.
I’m tired, Portland. For any number of reasons. But mostly because — after more than a decade of writing this blog on a weekly basis — this community still feels like it needs a ton of work. You must be tired, too. Because you have all made a ridiculous amount of progress against any number of odds. And you’ve created and innovated and persevered. But there’s still so much more to do. And not a lot of help to do it.
It’s always a joy to see new startup accelerator programs starting in the Portland startup community. One might say that, with this one, my tail is wagging. My tail… Ahem. *tap tap tap* Is this thing on?
Back a dozen years or so, before I started this blog, I happened upon COLOURlovers, a Portland founded startup that was unlike anything I had seen to date. It wasn’t a business to business site. It wasn’t software. It was consumer focused. And social.
Digital healthcare has long been one of Portland’s strongest areas of startup success and support. But like so many awesome Portland things, it’s also a tightly knit community for which it can be difficult to figure out where to start. That’s why OTRADI Oregon Bioscience Incubator started a regular happy hour. So that making those connections could be easier.
While our only local connection to Techstars programs was a brief stint as the home of the first powered by Techstars accelerator, Portland startups have long had great collaborations with Techstars programs all over the place. With Portland folks heading off to Techstars programs in Seattle, San Antonio, New York, Chicago… the list goes on an on. Now, you’ll have the chance to meet with three different program leads to get all of your Techstars related questions answered—but without leaving town.
As someone who works to build community—and is, at best, mediocre at it—I’ve been super impressed, inspired, and astounded by the Zebra Movement, as one of those striking a chord movements that provides a space to collaborate with a likeminded community. And now, to continue their momentum, they’ve partnered with Institute for the Future.
This Spring, I was given the opportunity to take the stage for TEDxPortland. Which, I later learned, is among the top three TEDx events in the world. And it’s a good thing that I learned that later, because that definitely would have tempered my acceptance of the opportunity. But as someone who suffers from stage fright—and someone who did not yet understand the stature of the event—it seemed like one of those interesting personal challenges. A growing experience. I mean, what could go wrong?
It’s the end of the week. A time to reflect. And prepare for the week ahead. And for many startups, it’s a time to realize, yet again, that startups are just hard. And difficult. And messy. You don’t always have the answers. You don’t know where to find them. And you’re often lost. But there are folks who want to help. With things like Startup Therapy Office Hours.
