Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community

Bend Venture Conference is only a couple of weeks away. And the last pieces are starting to fall into place. They recently announced the early stage competitors taking the stage. And now, they’ve revealed the folks in the growth stage who will be pitching, as well.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Portland’s rise: A city rebuilding through public-private partnership

Earnestness, community collaboration, and peaceful civic engagement are what brought Portland back from our hardest days. That unity is what will propel our city into a brighter future. It makes our democracy resilient and worth defending—and it will carry us through whatever comes next. We invite you to the city that we love and call home. We’ll welcome you to see for yourself the roses and the thorns.

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

Startup Location Strategy in 2025: Does It Still Matter Where You Build?

Business location once defined your entire brand. A company based in SoHo or Palo Alto was perceived differently than one in Boise or Bratislava. But perception has shifted. Customers care more about product quality and support than your HQ. And investors now hunt for deals in unexpected places, especially if the burn rate is lower and the talent pool untapped.

If you’re a solo founder working on a SaaS product, you’ve like encountered MicroConf in some form or another. Because you are their target market. And in a place like Portland, there are a lot of folks just like you trying to figure out how to take their bootstrapped SaaS product to the next level. So it only makes sense that MicroConf US is heading here in 2026.

There are any number of awesome AI events that happen in evenings and mornings, month to month. But what about deeper dives? Day long events that explore AI and the industry? Well, now there the Northwest AI Summit, “a day full of cutting-edge AI discussions and networking.”

Here’s a roundup of interesting startup links I came across today:

A Research Thinking Toolkit to Speed Up the Discovery Phase

UX research expert Jeanette Mellinger shares a toolkit for deeper discovery of your customers, your team and yourself.

Remember a few weeks back when we were talking about coworking and I mentioned that there was a new coworking space and incubator launching in Vancouver, Washington…? Well, whether you do or not, a new startup incubator has, in fact, launched in Vancouver, Washington.