[ryanSrich]

Having lived in DC and now Portland I can confidently say that DC's tech scene is several orders of magnitude larger than Portland's.

Portland is one of my favorite cities I've lived in but it's not a tech city by any means. If you're looking for tech culture you should definitely look elsewhere.

This can also be said about a number of other cities.

> but really any city

...is not that great of an answer. I mean look at Philly. Philly is a massive city but it's not a tech giant nor does it have a huge tech culture. Houston, Dallas, San Diego, etc. These cities are not necessarily known for their tech culture.

But this is all relative. To me Portland doesn't seem like a tech city because I've lived in DC where they average > 1000 attendees at tech meetups.

Edit: Portland OR, not ME

[sbierwagen]

  Portland is one of my favorite cities I've lived in but it's 
  not a tech city by any means.

Are you talking about Portland, Maine, rather than Portland, Oregon?

[ryanSrich]

Ah sorry. No I'm speaking about Portland, Oregon. Certainly a growing city but by no means a tech/tech-startup city.

But then again it's all relative. Someone coming from the bible belt might consider Portland to be a tech city.

[poulsbohemian]

When were you last in Portland, OR? I bounce between there and Seattle and I'd say Portland has at least as vibrant a tech/startup scene as Seattle, even if there isn't as much VC activity. It isn't just Intel and HP in Portland anymore either.

[ryanSrich]

I actually currently live in The Pearl. I've found that the gap between DC and Portland, in terms of startup culture, is shocking.

Here is why I think Portland's startup/tech culture is lacking:

1.) In DC I had ~12 co-working spaces to choose from. All of which had both bull-pen and dedicated office space. One of the spaces I worked out of had ~10 startups with their own offices, and that was just at the single location in Arlington. At their other 3 locations they had just as many if not more. In Portland I maybe have 2 solid co-working spaces to choose from and as far as I know none of them are supporting any well known startups.

2. Meetups in Portland are very low key and don't draw very many attendees. I mean check out this meetup in DC[1]. It had close to 900 confirmed attendees. From experience I'd say at least 70% of those confirmed actually showed up. Portland on the other hand has only 70[2] confirmed attendees for a very similar event.

3. There's a lack of startup accelerators and incubation in Portland. PIEPDX seems to be the largest (and looks awesome). Nike moved FuleLab to SF this year[4] and everything else that I've researched seems to have closed down. In DC you have 1776[5], Acceleprise[6] and The Fort[7].

Perhaps comparing the two isn't fair as DC is a larger city. These are simply my observations as a person who has lived in both places.

It could also be that I'm just not looking in the right places. I know startups like Simple, Treehouse and New Relic are all in Portland, I just haven't seen any presence from them (be it at meetups or otherwise).

To be honest, one of the reasons I love living in Portland is because it's tech/startup culture is smaller than other cities. I'm excited to be part of it's growth.

• 1. http://www.meetup.com/DC-Tech-Meetup/events/154948792/

• 2. http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech/

• 3. http://www.piepdx.com/

• 4. http://www.nikefuellab.com/

• 5. http://1776dc.com/

• 6. http://acceleprise.vc/east-coast/

• 7. http://fortify.vc/Fortifyventures/

p.s. - Let me know if you're up for a coffee the next time you're in town. I'm always interested in meeting HNers.