Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community
Portland startup and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
Remember in the early days of this startup community when someone would release a new app and we’d all jump at the chance to download and use it as a sign of support and buying local? (Shizzow, anyone?) I’d like to see if we can get back in the mode of doing that. As a community. And I think I’ve found a really good opportunity to do that.
If there’s one thing I know for certain about Portland, it’s that buying local is super important. I would love to see that same “buy local” mentality motivating us to support local startups. We should be buying local. For everything. Literally buying. Spending money to support these businesses. Because being a customer of a startup is the best way to support startups.
When you’re working on your startup, sometimes it’s difficult to carve out time to attend events. Even though you realize that they’re important. That’s why I’m always glad that we regularly have workshops as part of Portland Startup Week.
Portland has no shortage of coworking spaces. And there are more opening every day. Providers from outside town — like WeWork and Industrious — recognize the market potential around here. But we have homegrown coworking spaces, too. And if you want to test drive a couple of them, Portland Startup Week is the perfect time to do so.
If you’ve had the feeling that it’s getting even more startuppy around these parts as of late, it’s no wonder. Last week was PIE Demo Day 2019, Built Oregon has launched a new accelerator program, and the Startup Champions Network just wrapped up a three day event, here in town. April promises to be just as awesome thanks to Portland Startup Week with concludes with TechfestNW.
PIE, the Portland Incubator Experiment, turns 10 this year. And it’s been five years since the last PIE Demo Day, where founders from the accelerator program take the stage to share stories about the companies they’re building. But now, the clock has been reset. PIE Demo Day 2019 took place on March 14 (Pi Day, course). And the replay is already available for your weekend viewing.
There was a time when the Ignite format was (ahem) hot around these parts. You couldn’t swing a HDMI cable without hitting one. But like most things Portland, there’s a certain ebb and flow to activity. So recently, they’ve been a little more difficult to come by. Which is why it was nice to see Faces of Agile: Portland Ignite Agile Event.
As always, I’ll start this with the caveat that I promised Bill Lynch, cofounder of Jive, that I wouldn’t just write posts that celebrate funding for the sake of funding. Which is actually more work. (Thanks, Bill.) But in the long run, I’m hoping my bag-full-of-cats startup-history brain full of tangential facts and likely little known context can be helpful in providing a broader picture of why these funding events are important.
It’s no secret that I’m pretty bullish on Portland startups and the community that surrounds them. But it’s always nice to see that confidence validated by other organizations. Like Startup Grind. Which just selected Portland startup IOTAS as its growth stage startup of the year.
It’s a little weird when you meet someone who shares your birthday. It gets even weirder when that birthday is the exact same day. Like day, month, year. Same, same, same. And then, what if you were both working a similar sort of job? Now imagine putting those two — Libras, mind you — together on a podcast. And that’s pretty much what you get with Saul Colt’s “We now join the program already in progress” podcast — with me as a guest.
