As someone that tried very hard to raise even a little money in Portland before getting into Ycombinator and ultimately raising 6 million this idea is DOOMED.<p>We did the Portland Angel Fund (or whatever it's called) American Idol off for start-ups...total joke. The whole industry is dominated by 'service providers' that look to charge start-ups for everything while writing no checks.<p>They actually asked us to come back and speak at one of their conventions and wanted to charge us almost $400.<p>There is no follow on capital. There is no entrepreneur culture. I love Portland and Oregon (grew up there, went to OSU), but this is a waste of time and money.
Portland venture capital is picking up (and we've been lucky to be a part of that). An important note is that most of the money isn't coming from Portland and it's not coming in small amounts. Serious investments are coming in from out of state VC firms.<p>Dedicated entrepreneurs exist and are making a go at it here - and doing quite well.<p>I'm wary of most of these organizations, but I do have high hopes for the software startup scene here.
The problem with Portland is talent seems to be hidden. I haven't explored too much in the time I have been here, but the bits of exposure I have had didn't seem too promising. Contrast that to a larger area like Seattle, or a very talent-dense area like Silicon Valley, and you have the opposite problem of sorting through talent.<p>Additionally, there are very few resources for people just starting out. There is the Oregon Entrepreneurship Network, but with their fee structure it seems to be more of a business than a resource for a small business. You have to pay annual membership dues, and from there you have to pay entry into their events. Want to go to their monthly pub talk? Yeah, that'll be $30 for non members, and $15 for people already registered with the OEN.<p>Of course talk is cheap, why not put together something myself? From the few events I have been to, the SNR was poor enough to be intimidating. 2/3 social media consultants, 1/4 looking for a free lunch and the rest as lost as me.
Here's hoping they succeed. Portland would make a great tech center. It certainly has that counter culture attitude. And it's highly livable.<p>Now they just need the jobs and talent - that's the hard part.
Make non-compete agreements unenforceable there and I would consider moving there.<p>Now if you really want a leg up on California, also consider make non-poaching agreements unenforceable.
What they call "dogfooding" has a different name when it comes to the relationship between government and business - subsidy.<p>If shielding local industry from competition is the mayor's idea of creating a new market, Portland's efforts should probably start with getting a better mayor.
Yeah, this article really doesn't mention too many hard and fast promises but I am optimistic about the Portland seed fund. I got to talk to the two fund managers in charge and they seem to have the right idea about how to bet their chips. We'll see in another month or two if I'm right.