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by poulsbohemian
4261 days ago
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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. |
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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.