It seems that everything old is new again. First, Portland is once again home to a significant open source conference. And now, Raven Zachary is sharing his thoughts on the latest technology from Apple. Cyclical, indeed.
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First off, if you’re affected by this move, I’m sorry. Given Walmart Labs somewhat storied history in the Portland startup community, however, it seemed like it was important to let folks know that the Walmart Labs office in Portland is being closed.
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It’s another exit via acquisition for serial founder Raven Zachary. His latest company — the Microsoft Hololens agency he helped cofound, Object Theory — has been acquired by ARound. Small Society, the iOS development shop Raven cofounded prior to Object Theory — a preeminent player in the then burgeoning Portland mobile scene — was acquired by Walmart Labs in 2012.
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Way back when… as a previous generation of the Portland startup community was starting to come together, Raven Zachary launched something called “Portland on Fire.” It was a project that played a critical role in helping introduce members of our community to one another — and provided a starting point for deeper personal connections among various folks Portland. He called the process “slow social networking.”
Anyone who has chatted with me about “hurdles the Portland startup scene has yet to overcome” has heard me describe one of those problems as the dearth of serial founders in town. You know, the folks who founded companies or were early employees, built something, exited, and then started something else. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Well, a few recent news stories have me thinking that might be starting to happen with a little more consistency, finally. Read More
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: the Portland startup scene is grappling with adolescence a little later than a few other startup scenes. We’re a late bloomer, as it were. Mostly because we didn’t have many—if any—successful exits during the dotcom days. So we’re barely getting to the point of founders successfully exiting and then starting their next thing. Read More
So I’ve been feeling a little disconnected lately. And I’m not alone. The Portland startup scene has grown quite a bit in the past few years. New people have moved to town. New startups have sprung up. Existing startups have gotten bigger. Read More
Rumors were swirling last night that Small Society—one of the first big players in Portland’s burgeoning mobile startup scene—had been acquired by Walmart Labs, a division of Walmart that deals with social and mobile commerce.
And now Raven Zachary and James Keller, cofounders of Small Society, have confirmed it. Read More
Whenever someone asks me about the mobile scene in Portland, I always manage to rattle off a number of names of people who are doing some amazing stuff here in town. People who worked on the Obama app, folks who are building apps and powering communications for some of the biggest brands in the world, and people who are pushing the envelope on geolocation.
But for all the mobile awesomeness in town, it’s rare to get a bunch of that talent on one stage. Until now. Next Tuesday, May 24, TiE Oregon has brought a number of those folks together to discuss “Riding the Next Mobile Wave,” Tuesday evening Read More
IOS development shop, Small Society (@smallsociety) will be hosting Lunch 2.0 on April 6. Bring your iPad 2.
If you read here, you’ll know that Portland has a burgeoning mobile development scene. You don’t have to read here to know that, but we do talk about it a lot.
Small Society was in on the ground floor of the mobile app explosion (insert hipster meme here), and founders Raven Zachary (@ravenme) and James Keller (@semaphoria) have built a extraordinary team of iOS developers who crank out magical apps for big and small brands alike. Read More
