Portland is nothing if not collaborative. So it would only make sense that a bunch of the Portland startup community would band together to help welcome the newest startup support organization in to town, WeWork Labs Portland. And what better way to show that support than to gather in celebration of the launch of the project.
You may have heard of a little company called WeWork. (Actually, the company is called We Company, now, but bear with me…) They’ve got a few spaces where folks can, you know, work. They even have a few of those spaces here in Portland. But what you may not know is that they’ve recently launched an accelerator program for startups called WeWork Labs. And we’re getting one of those here, too.
I’m not one to celebrate financing rounds for the sake of celebrating rounds. But this one had some interesting local flavor. So, stick with me here. Because this will take a minute.
Okay. There’s a lot more to dig into here… but just to get the news out. We’re going to have WeWork Labs in Portland. Great right? Even better? It’s going to be headed up by none other than startup ecosystem builder extraordinaire and the unofficial mayor of Portland Stephen Green.
When it comes to Portland coworking, it’s a story of constant growth. And new players entering the game. But you have to take notice when the leading company in coworking, worldwide, continues to invest in Portland. So if you’re a startup looking for a workspace and you want to check out the newest WeWork, I’ve got some good news.
Call it the Pacific Northwest. Call it Cascadia. Call it… um… uh… oh yeah, the I-5 corridor. Call it even more things. Call it whatever you want. But if you want to work at a WeWork in our backyard? Well, things just got a whole lot easier. With the WeWork Cascadia Passport.
If there’s one thing that always intrigues me about modern business, it’s the constant creative fragmentation that makes things more and more accessible to individuals on an as needed basis. Cars, housing, stuff, workspace… it’s happening on any number of fronts.
We all know the myths. Scrappy founders creating something out of thin air, raising millions of dollars, becoming an overnight success, and exiting with wealth beyond their wildest dreams. And if you’re happy with those myths, then you can stop reading, right here. But if you’d like to hear the not-so-pretty-and-often-unhappy truth about being the founder of a venture funded startup, then you’re going to want to join Rand Fishkin when he swings by Portland to talk about his new book.
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.
When we originally heard the rumors that WeWork was considering opening a Portland branch, I can say the initial reception was best described as “cautiously optimistic.” We’d always expected it to happen at some point, given that cofounder Miguel McKelvey was from Eugene. But it took a while for those rumors to come to fruition.
