Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
For the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a really compelling program hosted at Portland’s Lewis & Clark College over the holiday break. They call it “Winterim.” And it’s designed to expose college students to startups and entrepreneurship through a series of talks, mentorship, and a weeklong sprint to build a concept for a company.
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I’ve lost count of how many press releases I’ve written over the last 25 years or so. It’s become such a common occurrence for me — either for my projects or for helping PIE companies — that I sometimes forget that composing them is still a dark mystic art for most folks. But then, inevitably, I get an ill-formed attempt at a press release from a startup and that fact is brought into sharp relief — at the startup’s expense.
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A long time ago in a startup community fa… um. Well actually, quite near near away. I had the opportunity to help start a little tech event. Back then, it went by a different name. These days, it’s called TechfestNW. And even though all of us are all virtual all of the time these days, it’s still happening. So you should go. For free.
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While any number of startup accelerator programs have been struggling to convert to a virtual program during this time, always virtual programs — like Founder Gym — hasn’t missed a beat. Because they’ve always been virtual. Their latest class just graduated. And it included a number of Portland area participants.
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It makes sense that I’m composing this post while sitting in a Workfrom cafe. I mean, it’s a virtual cafe. But still. More on that later. What’s top of mind right now is that Workfrom has received a $50,000 non dilutive investment from Google for Startups as part of the Black Founders Fund.
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What do you do when you have insomnia? Well, of course you… What’s that? Oh. Wait what? Oh yeah. That’s a good idea. Damn. But I meant that you could also… Huh? Oh. Oh man. Yeah. That’s super solid. Truly. Shoot. I totally should have thought of that. What I meant to say was — maybe I should rephrase — what do I do when I have insomnia? That’s right. I spend time sifting through the new Y Combinator alum database to figure out which Oregon companies have been through the most preeminent of startup accelerator programs. Duh.
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You’ve no doubt heard it said that getting started is easy. It’s the ability to keep going that’s difficult. Which makes the continued activity around 31 startups admirable. Even if none of these companies hit their goal of being cashflow positive in 90 days.
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When folks are building new things, they have a tendency to build them from their own perspective. And with that, comes the danger of building something that is inaccessible for part — if not all — of the target market they’re looking to serve. That’s why it’s never too early to think about accessibility, so that products are available to and usable by the broadest user base possible.
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It’s practically inevitable. During a downturn, startups are often forced to freeze hiring and reduce headcount. It happens time and time again. And it’s a grim situation for anyone who has to live through it. But from a purely objective viewpoint, having a better understanding of the actual metrics can be an important part of understanding and projecting the potential for recovery from a downturn. So I’m sharing this layoff tracker so folks can keep an eye on it.
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