It’s become a tradition. Stephen Green and Built Oregon share images and stories of Black founders, daily, throughout the month of February in celebration of Black History Month. And then I come along and try to capture all of that content in one place so that you have it in an easy to access format — all year long. They’ve done their part. Now, it’s all on me. That’s how the tradition goes.
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More than 500 people gathered in The Patricia Reser Center for the Performing Arts in Beaverton, Oregon, last night to participate in PitchBlack, the pitch competition conceived and organized by Stephen Green. Attendees were rewarded with a wide variety of pitches from Black founders and business leaders. And when it was all said and done, three companies walked away with capital to support their concepts — but it’s really the entire community that won, last night.
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Last week, I took the opportunity to sit down and share some thoughts — and concerns — about the Portland startup community that had been rattling around in my head. Even questioning, to some extent, whether it this iteration even behaves as a “community.” I’m always heartened when these sorts of posts (okay, rants) spark more conversation. And that’s exactly what’s occurring over on the Portland Startups Slack.
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No single event on the West Coast does more to showcase — and support — Black entrepreneurs than PitchBlack. So it only stands to reason that the next version of the pitch competition will take place during Black History Month. What may come as a surprise, however, is where the Portland-born event is taking place, this time around.
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Things change fast around here. It seems like just six months ago we were talking about Karin Power taking over the interim executive director role at Business for a Better Portland. But now, Karin has been pulled back into service at the state level by Oregon’s new governor Tina Kotek. So that’s where Stephen Green comes in. For the next 90 days, at least.
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“This was an early acquisition. I didn’t expect it,” said Paez, who said that selling so soon was definitely not part of his plan. “You can’t time these things. As a founder you can only do so much to plan and predict your future and the rest comes down to opportunity and these moments of potential and you capitalize on them or you don’t.”
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If Stephen Green and Built Oregon are going to share stories of amazing Black founders and businesses in Portland and throughout Oregon every day of Black History Month, then I’m going to provide a recap of those posts for posterity. That’s how the tradition goes.
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It’s become an annual tradition for Stephen Green to spend the month of February featuring one amazing Black business every day on Twitter in honor of Black History Month. A few years ago, Built Oregon joined the effort. And then my part of the annual tradition has become capturing all of the tweets in a single post. So let’s take a look at Black History Month 2021.
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“It’s simple… but it’s not easy.” That’s how Portland’s Stephen Green describes running a business. So how do you make it easier? Stephen shares some tips for running and investing in any business — with a particular focus on Black businesses — as a guest on the Let’s Talk Marketing podcast with Nathan Webster.
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It’s become a bit of tradition around here. Started by Stephen Green and accompanied by the Built Oregon social media presence, February is focused on helping to raise the visibility of some of the amazing Black owned businesses in Oregon — startup or otherwise. As always, I’ll compile a recap at the end of the month. But if you’d like to follow along, day by day, that would be awesome.
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