Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
Things are weird, Portland. And not in a “Keep Portland Weird” kind of way. And it shows no signs of slowing, given the growing concern about the spread of COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus. Today, annual destination tech event TechfestNW announced that they were postponing their annual event until August.
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If you know Portland, you know that the “P” in PDX stands for “procrastinate.” So I realize that planning ahead isn’t exactly in our DNA. But that’s what Portland Startup Week is going to ask you to do. Yes, it’s not until April 2020. But you should start thinking about what events you want to put together, right now.
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I know you’re juggling a lot. And planning ahead may not be in your vocabulary. That’s why I always like to give you reminders. Especially when they’re reminders about planning ahead. Like kicking off planning ahead for Portland Startup Week 2020.
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A few years back, I started Portland Startup Week. And as the starter, I became its de facto lead organizer. Despite the fact that I wasn’t terribly good at it. And I kept doing it because I wanted Portland Startup Week to be a thing. Over time, a number folks have pitched in to help pull it together making it an incredible celebration of the Portland startup community with nearly 100 events, from free coworking to panels to hackathons.
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While startup accelerators have become part of the parlance of early stage technology companies, the format may not be as familiar to other industries. That’s why Built Oregon is holding a question and answer session about their new startup accelerator for interested applicants and potential future applicants who are building consumer products in Oregon.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: Portland has an incredibly promising AR/VR/Mixed Reality community. From folks who create content to companies that are building the infrastructure and tools to deliver it, we’ve got a wealth of interesting startups and creatives in this still nascent market. And it’s always good to get all of those folks together. Which is what’s happening during Portland Startup Week with Immersive Startups.
A couple of years ago, Stephen Green put together an amazing Reverse Pitch event that I got the chance to attend. (If you’re not familiar with the format, a “reverse pitch” is where investors get on stage to describe the types of startups they’re seeking.) During the event, I had the pleasure of hanging out in the audience with a newcomer to the venture capital world who was visiting Portland. Her name? Arlan Hamilton.
It’s starting to get exciting now. As we draw closer to the beginning of Portland Startup Week, I always get a bunch of inbound requests from amazing Portland folks who are interested in doing something. Which is awesome. What’s not awesome is when folks are stressed about what to do. Sometimes they’re struggling to come up with a concept or event that works. Sometimes they believe that it’s more difficult to participate than it is. Sometimes they’re not even clear on what the options are. With that in mind, I thought it might be helpful to provide some examples of what other folks are doing.
It used to be that Portland was the land of the Camps. BarCamp, ProductCamp, WordCamp. Camp camp campity camp. These days, we seem to be more into the Weeks. Design Week, Maker Week, Sneaker Week, Startup Week… Clearly, our week game is strong. (Ahem.) So it makes perfect sense that WeWork Portland is leveraging International Women’s Day—March 8—into a whole week of activities for women. Meet She Leads PDX.