Why Portland is a great place for startups
centernetworks.com
centernetworks.com
And the quality of discourse at some of these local meet-ups is astonishingly progressive and technical. It feels like Portland's start-up scene isn't the best indicator of our technical culture and potential. Our traditional start-ups stand in the long shadow of Silicon Valley, and may expend too much energy wondering when someone will swoop down and invest.
Portland will make a name for itself by doing business in a much different manner than is done in the valley. The absence of venture capital will force us to invent better models.
BTW, have you guys seen Urban Edibles? It's a collaboratively developed wiki detailing where one can find food growing in Portland's urban areas. http://urbanedibles.org/
My roommate used it to make 3 jars of golden plum jam entirely from foraged fruit.
- If we just build this convention center, that'll put us Portland The Map.
- If we can build a successful light rail system, that will put Portland On The Map.
- If we could only attract a major league baseball team, that would put Portland On The Map.
There's a Map out there somewhere, and Portland really wants to be on it. Pick any thing that any big city has, and Portland will want one too, because that will be the thing that finally pushes it over the edge to where it is respected as a "real city."
This article sounds like more of the same. There are Startup Hubs to be had, and P-town needs one. Because that'll put it on the map.
Don't get me wrong. I lived in Portland for almost 10 years, and it's a great place. But it's got like 1/10 the population of Seattle, and I think that gives it a bit of a complex. I wish it would chill out and settle into its role of a comfortable small city where you can live and work downtown.
That's all you need to be, Portland. Stop trying to grow up too fast.
The crucial thing it's missing is a large technical school. And that's likely the reason it will never be able to touch Silicon Valley in terms of startups.
100 miles south of Portland is the OSU. I hope they do something about this.
I am currently in Portland and we started our company here (Mugasha) about a year ago. Cost wise, its much cheaper to live here which definitely reduces burn-rate. The community is pretty cool, lots of awesome people who are constantly throwing local tech events. Lot of designers and developers (creatives) in the area.
What is missing? For one. Statup types. Most people I have come across in Portland don't seem to be the type that would build companies. People seem to be working on mostly side-projects. The community is very "social media" driven and there is not a lot of chatter going around on about how do you build businesses?
Second, would be. Mentorship. It has been fairly difficult for us to find people who have been there and done it. People who have built companies in the past. There are no VC's here. Very few angels here, at least angels who are focused in the web/tech space.
I think Portland is a great place to start a project. Potentially meet co-founders. Although, It's hard for me to say that I would continue to build my company here.
The focus on partnering in this scene is fantastic though.
While it's easy to find people who are passionate about technology and building things, I don't feel it has the culture of ambition that's so prevalent in CA. Maybe it's because people are happy to be doing things that don't cost anything, like enjoying the outdoors or local music scene, and are less self conscious about what they drive.
http://credc.sterling.net/business/infocenter/Clark-Multnoma...
I've lived in both San Francisco and Portland, and anecdotally I found Portland's infrastructure and services to be far inferior to those in San Francisco: worse roads (climate doesn't help), more homeless, more difficult city bureaucracy, etc. This is of course somewhat subjective, so YMMV.
Personally, if I were to move from the Bay Area due to cost of living and taxes, I'd be looking at Texas.
Here in the Boston area? Oh hell yeah.
If those articles said that people were leaving because California wasn't "white enough" or whatever, I'd love to see them.
For me to get from my apartment in San Jose to my office in Palo Alto requires two train trips, one on VTA, one on Caltrain. Both trains are almost always off-schedule (by a lot) and have the shittiest ticketing systems in existence. Not to mention, the train schedules are totally useless (for my needs, at least) if I want to either get up at a reasonable hour, or make my morning meeting.
San Francisco's BART is a lot better, to be fair, although it's still not better than the trains I've been on in a handful of other countries (Canada, mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea).
And for all of this glory, the state legislature wants an extra 10% of my paycheck? Right.
California schools are their own unique mess, and that's too long of a rant. Water is also pretty lousy in a lot of areas -- the tap water at my office is on a par with the youth hostel I stayed at in Beijing.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...
For all the complaining people do about MUNI, I live in the city and need my car maybe once a month.
Also, the system is somewhat rational: trains for longer distance trips, busses for cities, and around the countryside. The train station and bus stations are always connected so that even in a city you don't know, it doesn't take long to figure things out and get where you need to go. The Bay Area is a complete mish-mash of systems. The first thing that comes to everyone's mind when they see it is "why doesn't BART go all around the bay?!".
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54568662@N00/1489675763/
It is a very interesting map because it contains the lines of most of the transit authorities in the Bay Area(apparently not all because transit.511.org has more). There are so many that they have to reuse similar colors for a few of them. There are agencies that you probably have never heard of on that map.
That is a scary thing and indicates the true scale of the transit problem - so many overlapping interests, no central authority. And looking at the transit agencies alone doesn't even give us perspective on how many other bureaucracies are getting in the way.
Trains in mainland China is cheap and fast. In Beijing it is just 2 Yuan to get anywhere by subway! I doubt that any other country has trains that are so cheap.
(sent from the Sheraton Portland Airport)
[X] is a great place for startups.
Where [X] = wherever you happen to be.