Save the date. More details soon.

Just because we're still socially distanced doesn't mean we can't connect.

There's no better time to reconnect with folks in the community with whom you've lost touch. And there's no better way to gather with a random smattering of your startup community peers than Portland Lunch 2.0.

No agenda. No talks. Just lunch with your community.

TiE Oregon Software & Internet SIG is kicking off the first session devoted to Launching and Building Software & Internet Companies.

We will be hosting three special guests who will share their experiences on How They Did It, and offer perspectives on company growth.

Michael Berkley - CEO, Splashcast Media. SplashCast is a content syndication service for social networks and mobile devices. SplashCast enables brand advertisers and content owners to reach out and engage consumers through micro-channels of content that people want and share. SplashCast has raised funds from prominent angel investors in the last two years. Mark Friess - President and Co-founder, wired.MD, Inc. wired.MD helps patients and their families make informed healthcare decisions through access to patient education videos and comprehensive solutions that also benefit treatment providers. Following angel investor funding between 2000 to 2005, wired.MD took on debt financing in 2004 and 2007 from PDC and others before being acquired by Krames/StayWell, a division of MediMedia USA in 2008. Ranjit Pandit - Founder and VP, RNA Networks. RNA Networks makes makes memory a shared network resource to deliver high performance on commodity hardware utilizing existing data center resources, without application changes. Investors include Oregon Angel Fund, Divergent Ventures, Menlo Ventures and Reference Capital. Whether you are thinking, planning or in the midst of a startup, this is your opportunity to get insights from the diversity of industry, funding and growth experiences represented by these entrepreneurs.

Find Cofounders - or Find a Startup

Looking for cofounders? Give a 1 minute pitch about your business, and what kinds of people/skills you need, and then network with the group to make connections.

We'll provide pizza and beverage! We do this about once a quarter (it's been a bit longer this time...) and it's always a great event.

We're a group of solo startup founders, business owners, and entrepreneurs. This is our first meetup to share stories, advice, and resources. If you're one of us, RSVP on the meetup website and we'll look forward to seeing you there!

Every week we have a new local entrepreneur building an amazing company here in Portland. They give a short presentation followed up with a great Q&A session where you get to ask questions and ask about the real challenges and triumphs behind the business.

As always we welcome everyone interested in startups and founders building great companies here in Portland.

Come and check it out and bring a friend.

A week chock full of interesting startup events designed to get Portland's founders and entrepreneurs chatting and collaborating.

For more details, visit http://portlandstartupweek2016a.sched.org/

Want to try coworking? DeskHub Portland will be opening its doors to offer free coworking space for the entire week of Portland Startup Week 2016!

Grab some coffee. Drink it black. Coffee is for closers. Find a fellow startup founder who is drinking coffee. Introduce yourself. Know they are a fellow startup founder because they're there at 8:30am in the morning and ready to tackle the week and get shit done.

Startups are hard. You don't have to do it alone. Let's challenge the assumptions of what it means to be a startup founder, a person of color and build a diverse startup ecosystem here in Portland. Redefining diversity to be more inclusive (even including white males, go figure). Come for coffee. Meet other founders. Then get to work. Hosted by Yu Te, founder of MacPCX (and Startup Weekend Organizer) [email protected] or 971-998-9511

As Portland's longest running women's weekly startup group approaches our one year anniversary, there is a lot to celebrate. Let's start with you.

Please visit us during Portland Startup Week on Wednesday February 3rd at 7:30am and meet fellow women's startup founders who are working heads down on growing their company and building their product/service in a meaningful way.

The Weekly Founders Roundtable is comprised of Portland women founder who are focused on growing their startup and very focused on revenue, sales and marketing. We are a peer-to-peer support group of amazing women, building incredible things, who want to change the world....and understand that big sales and hockey stick like revenue growth is the way to achieve this. We don't talk, we do. We don't pontificate, we focus on milestones. We don't hyper focus on ideas, we focus on revenue. We make things happen. Our combined group of 10 women founded startups will have collective sales in excess of one million dollars this year.

Please come join us this Wednesday between 7:30am-8:30am and grab a cup of coffee on us. We'd love to hear about the company you've founded and where you're at.

See you here

Lin Carson, founder XFounders, and CEO BAKERpedia

Do you want to start your own technology company, but don't know where to get started? You are not alone. Every day millions of people go to jobs they don't enjoy, but few do something about it. At the “Employee to Entrepreneur” event, you can hear the stories, tips, and best practices of those who left their jobs to pursue their own startup company. Listen to the experiences of people just like you that have made the transition, and discuss any questions or concerns that you have. How do you know if you have a good idea? What are the first steps in an entrepreneurial journey? Join us for a fun evening!

At this free fundraising workshop, We will host a successful Entrepreneur who has successfully raised capital for their company and experienced Investor that funds startups, will walk you through the process to raise capital for your own idea.

This is NOT a startup pitch competition, or an opportunity to pitch investors your ideas.

Join us on Wednesday, April 20th for the next event in the series, Confessions of an Entrepreneur.

Jay Haladay is the founding partner of 10 Branch, an investment and advisory firm that is associated with the Haladay Family Office. Jay spent over 40 years in the technology field, working for the first 10 years at the IBM Corporation. The last 30 years have been spent founding, developing and operating vertical market software businesses. He recently retired as CEO and Chairman of the Board of one of these firms, Viewpoint Construction Software. Based in Portland, Oregon Viewpoint serves over 8,000 construction customers in 26 countries. With almost 800 employees, Viewpoint is the largest dedicated provider of construction specific software to this large global market. In elevating Viewpoint to this stature, Jay was responsible for raising over $500M in growth equity during the past 6 years. Jay and his wife have four married children and five grandchildren are Oregon residents. 10 Branch is dedicated to providing both financial and operational support for growing businesses in Oregon.

This event will be moderated by Ajay Malhotra, Vice President, Technology & Media Practice, CBRE.

Do you have an idea for a technology company, but don't have all of the skills necessary to bring the company into reality? Then join us for Startup Co-Founder 101 event.

This event begins with a workshop to help aspiring founders understand what to look for in a co-founder, and effectively pitch their startup idea to prospective co-founders. Then, attendees speed-pitch their idea to other attendees, based on the type of co-founder they are looking for and industries they are interested in. Join us for a fun night where you can build the team to make your business happen!

Who Should Attend?

• Anyone who is starting or planning to start a technology company

• Anyone who is interested in co-founding or joining the team of an early stage technology company

• Anyone interesting in learning how co-founder arrangements typically work

What is the Agenda?

• Welcome and Socializing

• Overview of "What to Look for in a Co-Founder"

• Overview of "How to Effectively Pitch Your Idea" for Potential Co-Founders

• Discussion and Drinks at a Local Bar or Restaurant

Invite your startup friends. Invite the other Founders you know and come and detox with some great cocktails and conversations. Its a booming startup town that hides behind the veil of anonymity. Put down the laptop, drop the iPhone and meet other passionate founders.

Starting companies is easy. Keeping them going is hard.

Join us for an unfiltered, uncensored discussion with the founders/CEOs from Treehouse, Puppet, ClientJoy, and Cozy, people who've been in the trenches and found ways to succeed. We'll cover everything from raising capital, hiring and firing, and cultivating culture, to doing everything you can to stay alive. Stephen Green will field your questions and moderate what's sure to be a lively discussion!

Doors open at 6:30pm and the panel will begin at 7pm sharp. Light snacks provided. Seating is limited, so please register to attend.

Conversations at Cozy is a series of talks and lectures for the community. Follow @CozyCo on Twitter for details about the next event.

Announcing the inaugural event in Portland!

Founders LIVE Portland is an unforgettable happy hour competition where up to five handpicked startups take the hot seat, with only 99 seconds to pitch their company and describe their value proposition in front of an eager audience. After the pitches and audience Q&A, the crowd will vote on a winner who will not only receive recognition from the crowd but also the opportunity to talk more about their product or service. So bring your friends and coworkers, grab some food and drink, get to know your local entrepreneurs and vote for what you think will be the next big thing... built in Portland.

About Founders LIVE:

Founders LIVE (founderslive.com) is a community and media channel created to inspire, educate and entertain entrepreneurs around the world. The Founders LIVE experience includes unique and unforgettable 99-second pitch competitions sweeping into cities across the nation, which have the potential to create local startup celebrities and burst open additional pockets of creativity and entrepreneurial activity. Additionally, an online network delivers curated articles, videos, livestreamed expert talks and AMA’s, posts and private messaging to members that together develop world-class entrepreneurs.

Details:

Date: May. 19th, 2017

Time: 5:00pm - 8:00pm

Location: CENTRL Office Pearl

Cost: $10

Provided: Great food, beer, wine and non-alcoholic beverages

Attendance to Founders LIVE Portland is free for Founders LIVE Members

Agenda:

5pm: Drinks, food, and networking

6pm: Demos start

7pm: Networking

8pm: Afterparty

oin us for a morning coffee and a friendly mingling with like-minded Portland entrepreneurs! Every week on Wednesday morning we have a new local startup team building an amazing company here in Portland giving a short presentation followed up with a great Q&A session where you get to ask questions and ask about the real challenges and triumphs behind the business.

1 Million Cups is a great opportunity to network, and as always we welcome everyone interested in startups and founders building great companies here in Portland.

Come and check it out - and bring a friend.

P.S. We are always happy to hear about newcomers in the PDX startup scene. If you are one and would like to present your startup to our audience you are more than welcome to apply at www.1millioncups.com/portland

oin us for a morning coffee and a friendly mingling with like-minded Portland entrepreneurs! Every week on Wednesday morning we have a new local startup team building an amazing company here in Portland giving a short presentation followed up with a great Q&A session where you get to ask questions and ask about the real challenges and triumphs behind the business.

1 Million Cups is a great opportunity to network, and as always we welcome everyone interested in startups and founders building great companies here in Portland.

Come and check it out - and bring a friend.

P.S. We are always happy to hear about newcomers in the PDX startup scene. If you are one and would like to present your startup to our audience you are more than welcome to apply at www.1millioncups.com/portland

Join us for a morning coffee and a friendly mingling with like-minded Portland entrepreneurs! Every week on Wednesday morning we have a new local startup team building an amazing company here in Portland giving a short presentation followed up with a great Q&A session where you get to ask questions and ask about the real challenges and triumphs behind the business.

1 Million Cups is a great opportunity to network, and as always we welcome everyone interested in startups and founders building great companies here in Portland.

Come and check it out - and bring a friend.

P.S. We are always happy to hear about newcomers in the PDX startup scene. If you are one and would like to present your startup to our audience you are more than welcome to apply at www.1millioncups.com/portland

Each week 1 Million Cups hosts great local founders. We hear a short presentation about their company and where its roots and genesis. Then we have a great QA session where you get up real answers about how they built their businesses. It's a great learning experience as well as networking with some of the up and coming startups in our region.

Immersive technology like augmented and virtual reality is creating a rapidly growing new industry. A report from Tech Trends’ Editor-in-chief, Alice Bonsaio cites this fast growing sector estimated to be $162B by 2020! Far beyond gaming and entertainment, there is potential for this technology to disrupt everything from healthcare and architecture to changing the way we maintain global supply chain. Join us for an engaging evening of conversation with early startup founders and those that support them, as we explore the experience of being on the ground floor of this new immersive reality.

The evening will start with a presentation from Russell Ladson, the Founder of Drop, a ViveX company. Russell will then be joined by two to three other local startup founders in the immersive tech space. We will have a candid conversation about their experiences as founders in the new field, the current state of this technology and where it is headed, along with Q&A from the audience. It will be an insightful and engaging panel.

It's been a while since we've met, but we're using Portland Startup Week as an excuse to resurrect this incredible meetup.

About Coffee w/ Co-Founders: As a business owner you are faced with many challenges. You're forced to make decisions every day that could make or break your business. Coffee w/ Co-Founders is a way to network with other Entrepreneurs to allow free flowing information with the intent to collaborate and help each other. So often we're challenged and there's very little we can do to express our challenges with the people we work with or the people we care about. Think of Coffee w/ Co-Founders as your own personal support group for business owners. We're all here to help!

Founder and former CEO of Moz and one of the world's leading experts on SEO, Rand Fishkin, exposes the ups and downs of startup life that most CEOs would rather keep secret with his new book Lost and Founder.

Pitch Club is an ongoing monthly series where entrepreneurs can practice their pitch and receive feedback from their peers and TiE Oregon Charter Members including TiE Angels.

Robin Jones, TiE Oregon Charter Member will be the event Emcee, join her as she creates a dynamic and safe environment for you to receive feedback on your pitch - sales pitch, concept pitch, or investor pitch!

Participants are given the opportunity to role-play being an investor to other entrepreneurs giving them a better understanding of what the investors are looking for.

Are you a founder struggling to explain your startup in a clear and compelling way? Does it take too long for people to “get” what your company is about? Would you like to feel more confident in your pitch?

Get the breakthrough you need to tell a bolder story about your startup...no matter how complex your product is. Join me, messaging strategist Emma O’Brien, for a workshop to help clarify and strengthen your startup’s story.

In this small workshop, you’ll learn 3 proven strategies -- illustrated by real-life examples -- to frame your startup in a way that gets people genuinely interested. You’ll be guided through simple exercises to get started, plus the opportunity to get on-the-spot feedback.

Whether you’re just working on an idea or trying to attract investment, this workshop will help you uplevel your messaging, pitch your startup, and allow you to move forward with clarity and conviction.

(We realize that not every potential PIE or PIE Shop company can make it to events during the day. So we'll be holding a pre-work morning session to get your questions answered. And yes, there will be coffee.)

Thinking about applying to PIE or PIE Shop? Have questions about the program? Curious as to what an accelerator even does? Wondering if the format is right for you? Cool. Let's talk about that. All of that.

Please join PIE at the home of PIE alum — and PIE Shop partner — Uncorked Studios for a question and answer session to get more information on our programs and the benefits for early stage startups.

Questions about the differences between the two programs causing you to second guess whether you should even show up? Well, let's get that one answered first. Yes. The answer is yes. If you're a founder of an early stage startup, you should show up.

And in terms of the differences? PIE is an accelerator designed to support startups building digital products. PIE Shop is an incubator/accelerator designed to support startups manufacturing physical products.

We're looking forward to seeing you, bright and early

Already ready to apply? Here's a cheat sheet that will help you prepare your application: https://bit.ly/PIE2019cheatsheet

Thinking about applying to PIE or PIE Shop? Have questions about the program? Curious as to what an accelerator even does? Wondering if the format is right for you? Cool. Let's talk about that. All of that.

Please join PIE at Autodesk for a question and answer session to get more information on our programs and the benefits for early stage startups.

Questions about the differences between the two programs causing you to second guess whether you should even show up? Well, let's get that one answered first. Yes. The answer is yes. If you're a founder of an early stage startup, you should show up.

And in terms of the differences? PIE is an accelerator designed to support startups building digital products. PIE Shop is an incubator/accelerator designed to support startups manufacturing physical products.

We're looking forward to seeing you.

Already ready to apply? Here's a cheat sheet that will help you prepare your application: https://bit.ly/PIE2019cheatsheet

(We realize that not everyone can make evening events. So our friends at WeWork Labs have graciously offered to host a lunch hour Q&A *with lunch*🙏)

Thinking about applying to PIE or PIE Shop? Have questions about the program? Curious as to what an accelerator even does? Wondering if the format is right for you? Cool. Let's talk about that. All of that.

Please join PIE at WeWork Labs for a question and answer session to get more information on our programs and the benefits for early stage startups.

Questions about the differences between the two programs causing you to second guess whether you should even show up? Well, let's get that one answered first. Yes. The answer is yes. If you're a founder of an early stage startup, you should show up.

And in terms of the differences? PIE is an accelerator designed to support startups building digital products. PIE Shop is an incubator/accelerator designed to support startups manufacturing physical products.

We're looking forward to seeing you.

Already ready to apply? Here's a cheat sheet that will help you prepare your application: https://bit.ly/PIE2019cheatsheet

(We realize that not every potential PIE or PIE Shop company can make it to Portland to ask their questions, face to face. But we still want you to have the opportunity to get those questions answered. So we'll be holding a virtual session to help get that done.)

Thinking about applying to PIE or PIE Shop? Have questions about the program? Curious as to what an accelerator even does? Wondering if the format is right for you? Cool. Let's talk about that. All of that.

Please join PIE online for a question and answer session to get more information on our programs and the benefits for early stage startups.

Questions about the differences between the two programs causing you to second guess whether you should even show up? Well, let's get that one answered first. Yes. The answer is yes. If you're a founder of an early stage startup, you should show up.

And in terms of the differences? PIE is an accelerator designed to support startups building digital products. PIE Shop is an incubator/accelerator designed to support startups manufacturing physical products.

We're looking forward to seeing you on the interwebs.

Already ready to apply? Here's a cheat sheet that will help you prepare your application: https://bit.ly/PIE2019cheatsheet

(Meeting details will be shared with folks who RSVP.)

Hard to believe, but it's been a decade of experimentation around how established organizations — like corporations, government, and educational institutions — can better collaborate with the Portland startup community for mutual benefit.

That's right. PIE is turning 10 years old in August 2019. So it seemed like a good time for a party. And our generous sponsors Autodesk (https://autodesk.com/) and SKB (https://skbcos.com/) volunteered to help us make it happen.

Join PIE, PIE Shop, our alums, our mentors, and the entire Portland startup community to celebrate this milestone. As part of the celebration, we'll be happy to feed you and provide you with a beverage or two. And there will likely be some PIE giveaways, as well.

NOTE: This is a family friendly event, so feel free to bring the kids.

at PIE, we love founders and founding teams. The passion, creativity, and grit that drive people to pursue their vision is a constant source of intrigue — and inspiration. And it’s a pursuit we want to encourage. And facilitate.

We believe that you should be building your company. And we want you to do that.

That said, after 10 years of doing this work, we recognize that one of the most challenging things about building a business is finding access to the people and resources that can help support you at the earliest stages. Before you’re popular. Before you’re a household name. Before you can afford an office. Before investors are lining up to fund you.

That’s why we’re here. To support you. Please apply: https://piepdx.com/apply

Time for friends, food and drinks as we remain cautiously optimistic that we'll get an extended summer and the rain will hold off...

Look for the tall brunette wearing glasses that blink. I might also be wearing my Minnie Mouse ears, depending on how I am feeling that day...

This year’s Marketing Loves Sales event will focus on the pivotal role Social Media plays for marketing and sales. For the first time, the event will have tracks dedicated to the nuances of social media for each of these teams. From planned marketing programs to social selling, our speaker lineup is packed with industry experts and practitioners who will deliver fresh ideas and innovative case studies.

Join more than 300 sales and marketing and sales professionals for a day focused on upping your social media game!

Join Zebras from around the world for an online Webinar exploring ways that the crowd can help finance Zebra companies and activities. While we'll touch on traditional crowdfunding, we're eager to share and explore newer "crowdinvesting" models that focus on financing through equity or debt.

Topics include:

• Pros and cons of crowdinvesting options
• TechSoup sharing experiences from the nonprofit world
• For profit Participant Assistive Products sharing insights on its Wefunder campaign
• How and why Zebras Unite is partnering with platforms like Wefunder for the benefit of the Zebra community

Speakers:

• Portland entrepreneur Astrid Scholz, Zebras Unite
• Dara Westling, TechSoup
• Keoke King, Participant

Please RSVP to join us on December 16, 2019, at 10:00AM Pacific Standard Time (-08:00 GMT)

Join us: https://zoom.us/j/213620080

Quick, what’s the difference between an incubator and an accelerator? How can each one help you? And how are they different from a co-working space? Our panel of experts will break it all down for you. They’ll discuss how to pick the right program based on your start-up stage, how to “win” the application, and more.

You’ll learn

• Key differences between an incubator, an accelerator, and a co-working space
• What support you should expect from each
• How to capitalize on what they offer to build your business

Learn from people in Portland Tech and hear from featured speaker Miki Demeter in this month's Out in Tech social!

About this Event:

Out in Tech PDX celebrates Women's History Month - but bringing a focus to intersectional practices and gender inclusion.

This event is open to all marginalized genders. Everyone is welcome including women, trans women, intersex people, gender non-binary people, gender non-confirming people, trans men, and those who may be questioning their gender.

Join us at The Riveter to learn from industry leaders while you network and hear a featured talk from Miki Demeter (she/her), Security Researcher at Intel and 2019 Best Speaker winner for Portland Women in Tech (PDXWIT).

Food and Drinks will be provided for all attendees.

Activity Table will be provided for youth - parents, please join us. We will not be providing childcare services, but we will be providing distractions.

This event is intended primarily for those of a marginalized gender. Allies are welcome. We will collect RSVPs up to the day of the event!

6pm - Doors Open & Networking

Sit and chat round-table with industry leaders in Engineering, Management, Data, Startups, Design and more.

7pm - Announcements & Speaker

Hear a featured talk by Miki Demeter and updates from your Out in Tech PDX Team

8pm - Goodbyes

Tremendous thank you to our sponsor team at The Riveter!

The Riveter is on a mission to change the future of work for all women. This means tough conversations, clear actions and key leadership on core diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) principles, advocacy and civic engagement.

Thank you also to our food sponsor, ProFocus!

ProFocus was built on a model of quality and integrity specifically designed to solve that problem for customers and candidates. Their business model is focused on only making careful introductions of the right candidates. They do this by fully understanding technology, our candidates, and the needs for each hiring position. _

Note: Out in Tech's Code of Conduct applies to all our spaces, online and IRL.

UPDATE: No in-person event this year. Online only. More details: https://medium.com/portland-incubator-experiment/pie-demo-day-2020-moves-to-online-only-32cf0a8da8b9

At PIE (https://piepdx.com/), we're hard at work, prepping a couple of new batches of startups — through both PIE and PIE Shop — who are eager to tell their stories. So we want to make sure that you're there to hear those stories.

We will be holding the next PIE Demo Day on Thursday, March 19, 2020 as an online event only. This change is due to concerns over COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus and ensuring the health and safety of the Portland startup community.

Join cofounder and general manager of PIE, Rick Turoczy, for an "ask me anything" session on the Portland startup community. He's looking forward to answering your questions about startups, startup accelerators, and Portland, in general.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/piepdx-turoczy-ama-20200407

Kasey is a startup growth strategist, community builder, event organizer, and people connecter. She is founder of A Better Jones a demand generation marketing agency that helps startups accelerate growth, sales teams fill pipeline, and leaders expand their influence as industry thought leaders. And co-founder and co-host of The Other Side of Sales, a podcast, Bravado community, and resource on a mission to make B2B sales culture more inclusive by celebrating the stories of underrepresented sales professionals.

Her latest endeavor is Our Galaxy, a community, resource, and coaching platform designed to diversify thought leadership, by helping founders, leaders, and business pros on the rise build authentic personal brands and expand their industry influence.

Stephen Green is a an economist, speaker, startup advisor and “recovering” venture capitalist. By day he is the director of operations for Pensole, the world’s only footwear design and development school based in Portland, Oregon. He has spent his career helping founders start, grow and prosper. His tireless advocacy for Black & Latinx founders has landed him on stages across the country speaking about the power of entrepreneurship.

One of his projects “PitchBlack” is a national pitch event that connects ecosystems with talented black founders in cities across the country. Since 2015, competitors in the Portland event have gone on to raise over $32MM for their ideas.

He is a husband to a brilliant wife and father to 3 wonderful children. Spreadsheets are his super power and sneakers are his kryptonite.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/piepdx-stephen-green-ama-20200413

Cami lives, works, and parents in the rainy city of Portland, Oregon. She’s had a love of WordPress and WordCamps since the last century, when she happened to stumble upon the first WordCamp Portland.

Since 2013, she has worked at Automattic, as a community organizer for the WordPress open source project. In that role, she gets to work with WordCamps and their organizers from around the world, every day. She continues to write on an irregular basis at camikaos.com where she explores concepts from the plight of modern parents to mental health to marveling at the seemingly mundane.

Cami is active on a number of social platforms but can be most readily found as @camikaos on Twitter.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/piepdx-cami-kaos-community-management-20200414/

The photography world has been upended a few times in the last couple of decades and with all professional photography on hiatus for the time being, we'll find out if this leads to another major change. What hasn't changed is that every business, from startup to corporation, needs to have images of their people, products, venues, and other resources. These photos end up on websites, social media, in print, at those things called conferences that we used to do, and elsewhere. Folks are going to notice the difference between an organization that has solid consistent imagery versus an outfit where you can tell that their visual brand was an afterthought.

What does photography and visual branding look like for a startup or other organization in 2020 and beyond? When should you hire a pro and when should you do it yourself? If you can afford the same gear as a pro, what else are they bringing to the table that you don't have? Should you invest in photography proactively, or react as you have a need for pictures? Let's talk about visual media and photography.

Join us for a mentor Q&A with Aaron Hockley of Hockley Photography and TechPhotoGuy.com. Aaron is a professional photographer with a background in the tech world; he's photographed quite a few Portland tech startups and organizations over the past 12 years. The Professional Photographers of America has recognized him as a Master of Photography and Photographic Craftsman, which means that he knows a thing or two (maybe even three!) about making and using effective images.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/piepdx-aaron-hockley-visuals-photography-20200415

We all rely on the bonds of our community in order for our businesses to thrive. We seek intros to VCs, backchannels to clients, advice from our peers and mentors. In normal times, these bonds heavily rely on in-person interactions — coffees, lunches, beers, and 1:1's.

Reading body language is a critical component to reinforcement of those bonds. In our most vulnerable moments, we want to ensure that the other party is present, listening, and empathizing. And beyond the 1:1 interactions, in social places like our coffee shops and coworking spaces, we create room for serendipity — that chance encounter that leads to something new and unexpected, whether it's a new business idea or a solution to an existing problem facing a member of our community.

During this pandemic, we've been stripped of the ability to interact as normal. Sure, we have all these video chat tools — but it's not a replacement of our in-person interactions, just a digital proxy. And while those proxies may suffice for our 1:1 meetings, they certainly aren't helping with serendipity.

So how do we form community in a time of crisis? How do we create space for chance? And how can we come together to listen, to engage, to be present, when many of us are already at our wits end staring at a video on a computer screen all day long?

Join us for a mentor Q&A with Marcelino Alvarez, Chief Product Officer at Fresh Consulting. He was formerly CEO of Uncorked Studios, which co-founded Safecast during the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and ensuing nuclear disaster. He'll share perspectives from then and now as he undertakes other efforts to maintain his community and pursue digital serendipity.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/piepdx-marcelino-alvarez-community-projects-20200416

Please join us for a Q&A session with PIE alum and mentor in residence Sylvia Salazar of Tono Latino, a media company that helps distill politics down to digestible chunks — with a special focus on informing Latinx and Spanish speaking communities.

Sylvia is a Colombian immigrant and a computer engineer turned political activist. Her passion is helping other people understand what is going on in the world of politics and encourage them to become more politically involved and vote. She is determined to change Latinx representation in politics and in media.

As her following has grown, Sylvia has experimented with a number of video formats and has a variety of creative ways to make short form video work. (You can experience her creativity firsthand on Instagram.) She's excited to share that expertise with you.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/sylvia-salazar-tono-latino-video/

*Ask Saul Anything Because He Knows Everything

Join PIE and long time PIE mentor Saul Colt for an AMA (but we recommend that you tap into his Word of Mouth marketing genius).

Saul is the Founder and Creative Director at The Idea Integration Co. In his career he has been named as one of the iMEDIA 25: Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators as well as been called one of Canada’s best community builders/experiential marketers. NYT Best selling author and Internet Pioneer Chris Brogan once referred to Saul as “exactly who you want representing your company” and that message has been echoed by media properties ranging from Inc to Forbes Magazine.

Saul has had many career highlights including being selected as the first international employee of Zipcar and the person responsible for launching Zipcar into the Canadian marketplace. Was the first marketing person and a key part of the growth of FreshBooks.com (The #1 Cloud Accounting service for Small Business Owners) as well as leadership roles at Rogers Communications and the first Chief Evangelist of Xero.com.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Saul is also a Professional Speaker and Consultant specializing in Word of Mouth Marketing, Stunt Marketing, Social Media, Customer Experience, Community Building and Business Courage.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/saul-colt-ama-word-of-mouth-marketing/register

Everyone needs hobbies. And if you follow PIE mentor Nick Lambert on Instagram, you'll see that the pandemic has been a good time for him to reboot a few of them: music, cooking, ridiculous short films… we all deal with this stuff differently.

We're happy to have Nick take moment away from his more creative efforts to join us for an "Ask Me Anything" session. Being a former startup founder, startup accelerator manager, and professional musician — and currently Customer Success Manager at local VR/AR/XR startup The Wild — you've got a wide range of topics at our disposal.

So please register to attend and start adding — and upvoting — the questions we'll be asking.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/founder-nick-lambert-ama/

With the onset of quarantine and social distancing, many of us have been settling into a somewhat surreal semblance of remote work. It doesn't feel quite right. But we're doing our best to fake it. And because of that we're not really working from home.

PIE wants to help. That's why we've assembled a panel of PIE mentors: one who helps lead a successful remote only company, one who has worked as a remote employee for a decade while working alongside an online school student, and one who has assembled the most fervent community of remote workers on the planet — all while leading a remote company, himself.

Join these incredibly insightful PIE mentors for an open and honest discussion about how to be truly successful as a remote employee. And how to manage remote teams. And deal with all the life that happens when that life all happens in a single place.

Any question you've had about working from home, these folks are going to be able to answer.

Invited panelists

• Barrett Brooks, ConvertKit
• Cami Kaos, Automattic
• Darren Buckner, Workfrom

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/working-from-home-remote-work-panel

Please join us with a former founder who has seen the ups and downs of the economy for insights on what to suspect — and some guidance that may help you navigate this new normal.

Elia Freedman was founder and CEO of Infinity Softworks, which he started in 1997 as a senior in college, leveraging both his business training and programming ability. The company has helped more than 20 million professionals and students in real estate, financial services, math and science who use calculation every day to solve problems and generate proposals, both in the field and at their desk.

The company's primary app, PowerOne, has been in existence as apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Windows computers for more 20 years, Infinity Softworks re-launched PowerOne as a web and mobile service in 2018.

As a founder, Elia weathered both the dotcom bust and the mortgage crisis. Which is sure to inform a unique vantage on our current state of existence within a pandemic ravaged economy.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/founder-ama-elia-freedman-powerone

PIE is honored to be hosting Shelly Bell for a virtual Lunch & Learn. This is a rare opportunity to grab some time with one of the most impactful people in startups. So please come with questions.

Named as one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 100 Powerful Women in Business, Shelly Bell is a computer scientist, system disruptor and business strategist who moves ideas to profit while empowering people to live to build and foster better relationships. She connects entrepreneurs, investors, and corporations in order to diversify their talent pipeline, increase equity and grow their brands.

Shelly is among the nation's most sought-after transformational speakers in the DC Metro area with features in Forbes, Fast Company, The Washington Business Journal, NewsOne, Entrepreneur Mag, People of Color in Tech and on Politico Live.

Her organization, Black Girl Ventures (BGV) is a culturally converging ecosystem igniting economic security, civic engagement, and hyperlocal infrastructure at the intersection of STEM education and entrepreneurship for Black and Brown woman-identifying founders, funders, and veterans. Since 2016, BGV has funded 41 women, increased access to social capital for 168 program participants and launched their efforts in 10 cities. As a one of 8 Google Gurus across the nation and an Ecosystem Builder, she engages audiences from grassroots to government.

Through Shelly’s Return on Relationship (R.O.R) Method she is teaching intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs, and wantrepreneurs how to hold the ladder for others and/or how to find the person they need to hold the ladder toward moving to the next level of success. She has trained over 5,000 entrepreneurs, held over 300 events for empowering leaders, managed multi-million dollar contracts, and helped to scale over 200 businesses.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/shelly-bell-black-girl-ventures-ama

Join PIE as we talk with Leah Noble Davidson, Chief Experience Officer at Because Human.

Leah has consulted within Portland’s startup tech industry for 10 years, working with larger teams from Jive and Puppet to startups like Torch and BeyondPulse.

Having newly ventured into the role of a founder, she’ll be asking questions from the perspective of a female design professional who can speak the language — but is only now really learning how to juggle the risks and rewards firsthand.

Finding answers is one thing. Knowing the questions to ask is entirely another. Leah — a professional asker of questions — will help us hone in on the right questions, provide the necessary reality checks, and share ideas about leveraging the startup community to find the help you need as your startup grows from a concept into being a real business.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/leah-noble-davidson-because-human-ama

We're excited to have the chance to sit down with Kate Ertmann for a question and answer session.

Her life's work has been focusing on building from scratch — or rebuilding and reorganizing — the operational infrastructure for sustainable businesses. That includes everything from the elements of a business plan, the importance of Mission and Purpose and Values, the how-to of defining Roles and Responsibilities, and when to hire and how to best structure that management org chart — as well as the finance that runs in parallel with all of that.

Her distinct rallying cry through all of that work is the necessity of embedding equity and inclusion in all processes, procedures, and culture of an organization, and as a guiding principle in all leaders with whom she works — especially when it is "hard" or if there are uncomfortable conversations to be had.

Kate constantly seeks to leverage her privilege and position: applying constant pressure to the systemic structure of 20th century practices so there can be systemic changes that will define 21st century practices.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/kate-ertmann-ama

We're honored to grab some time with the best startup journalist in Portland, if not the Northwest.

Please join us for a Q&A session with Malia Spencer, a Portland-based journalist who covers startups, venture capital, and technology for the Portland Business Journal.

Her career has ranged a variety of media, starting with traditional print journalism at daily newspapers. She began at a large metro then at a smaller daily paper on the California central coast. As the media landscape shifted, she finds herself with one foot still in traditional print and one firmly online.

At the Portland Business Journal we produce award-winning reporting in a weekly print edition as well as daily work online. I also edit out technology and entrepreneurs focused newsletter, TechFlash Portland.

Please RSVP and submit & upvote questions ahead of time: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/malia-spencer-portland-business-journal

Ensuring that new employees are properly onboarded can always be a challenge. And in our new all remote, all of the time world, it can be even more difficult. That's why we're excited to get the chance to catch up with PIE alum Kristen Gallagher.

Kristen is the founder and CEO of Edify. She brings over a decade of learning and development and business partnership experience to Edify and has architected and delivered onboarding programs for companies such as AWS Elemental, Puppet, OpenSky Alibaba, Cirium (FlightGlobal), Cloudability, and more. She is a frequent speaker and instructor for O’Reilly, DevOpsDays, and other conferences.

If you have questions about employee onboarding, she has answers. Please join us to get those questions answered.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/kristen-gallagher-edify-employee-onboarding-ama

Join cofounder and general manager of PIE, Rick Turoczy, for an "ask me anything" session on the Portland startup community. He's looking forward to answering your questions about startups, startup accelerators, and Portland, in general.

A little background on our guest…

Rick Turoczy has worked in, on, and around the Portland, Oregon, startup ecosystem for more than 25 years. Throughout that time, he's worked for venture funded startups, founded failed companies, consulted, mentored, and worked to connect dots within and outside the community.

More than a dozen years ago, he started Silicon Florist, a blog designed to capture what he saw happening in the Portland startup community. That work led to the opportunity to start PIE, the Portland Incubator Experiment, an organization he continues to manage.

At its very most basic, PIE is an ongoing experiment designed to explore ways that established organizations — like corporations, governments, and educational institutions — can effectively collaborate with startup communities in mutually beneficial ways, thereby strengthening the entire ecosystem.

PIE currently exists as an early stage startup accelerator with three separate areas of focus: Software as a Service (in partnership with Puppet), manufactured products (in partnership with Autodesk), and traditional consumer products like food, beverage, and apparel (in partnership with Built Oregon).

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/portland-startup-community-ama-rick-turoczy-20200505

Join us for a conversation with Mitch Daugherty, cofounder and director of Built Oregon, an organization focused on championing the consumer product industry in Oregon.

The greatest joy Mitch has found is meeting with everyone in the statewide ecosystem. Listening to entrepreneurial challenges. Looking for opportunities to connect them to a resource that could help them get one step further down the road. Engaging in conversations about breaking down the silos and echo chambers.

He listened to stories and realized each one formed a piece of this tapestry that makes up Oregon.

As he looked back on his journey, he noticed the common theme in all his adventures and career choices has been the effort to bridge gaps through interaction and dialogue.

He cofounded Built Oregon as a way to build on a simple belief: that stories can raise awareness of companies and regions and help drive economic development.

Throughout that process, he's constantly reminded of what he has learned over his journey: Conversations matter. And the most important conversations take place with those outside of your sphere of influence, and with people who possess opposing views.

The value of a given dialogue hinges on conversations that are inclusive, honest and transparent.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/consumer-products-startup-ecosystem-mitch-daugherty-ama

As part of our celebration of Mental Health Month we'll be spending time with Anthony Ware who champions mental wealth.

Mental wealth is the collection of intentional thoughts, behaviors, and experiences—mental wealth deposits—someone uses to make a positive impact on their mental health. These deposits have a cumulative positive impact, especially during times when you’re challenged with mental illnesses and external events.

Mental wealth deposits include working with a therapist, spending time by large bodies of water to connect with nature, going on a vacation, or making time for friends and family.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/founder-mental-wealth-anthony-ware-AMA

Join PIE alum and longtime PIE mentor Mat Ellis, founder of Cloudability, for a conversation about his experience as a founder growing a startup from an idea to a successful exit, all of the lessons learned along the way, effectively engaging with and supporting the Portland startup community, and maybe just maybe, what's next.

According to The Oregonian, "Cloudability was among the most prominent of a generation of startups that emerged in Portland in the aftermath of the Great Recession. It helped clients such as BP, Sony and Siemens manage what they spent hosting their data in third-party data centers.

"Before its sale, Cloudability said it managed more than $9 billion in spending at Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud."

RSVP / Submit questions: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/founder-story-mat-ellis-cloudability

Please join PIE for a conversation with Juan Barraza from the Portland State University Center for Entrepreneurship, Invent Oregon (InventOR), and Pitch Latino.

At the PSU Center for Entrepreneurship, Juan works to propel students innovators to solve big problems that benefit our community. Through an exciting learning environment and program of events, students find the creative energy to expand their impact, explore new ideas, and bring their future into focus.

Invent Oregon is an exciting competition for college and university students with ideas for inventions to address today’s most pressing problems.

Inspired by PitchBlack, Pitch Latino is designed to give Latinx startup entrepreneurs a platform to connect with the regions growing startup ecosystem.

RSVP / Submit questions: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/juan-barraza-psu-center-entrepreneurship-inventor-pitch-latino

Join PIE for a conversation with Karthy Chandra, founder of Goalden Hour, for guidance on how to establish and maintain healthy habits and goals, even in the most challenging of times.

Goalden Hour is the first productivity app that connects the realms of task management, scheduling, and self-improvement to encourage you to make goals & habits an integral part of your planning process. We provide meaningful insight into the different areas of life and nudge you to reflect often, build better habits, and discover new ways to grow and improve. Our mission is to help people manage and master their lives.

Interested in learning more? Watch Karthy's presentation from PIE Demo Day 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RiIxNcC4HY

RSVP / Submit questions: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/karthy-chandra-goalden-hour-healthy-habits

Join us for a conversation with PIE alum and Techstars alum Julia Niiro, founder of MilkRun.

See Julia's story about MilkRun at PIE Demo Day 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbaIO9XltRg), her views on small local farms from TEDxPortland 2019, and the explosive growth MilkRun has seen due to the pandemic shared during Techstars Anywhere Demo Day 2020.

MilkRun works with farmers and producers in Oregon & Southern Washington to break down the access barriers to local food. The national average for how far food travels to get from the farm to your house is 1,500 miles. That’s wild! We’ve cut down our average to 35 miles and have designed a system that leapfrogs the industrialized food system. Less travel = less pollution. More access to food = fresher, healthier foods!

It’s not just about ditching the grocery store lines, it’s about keeping money in the community and supporting local producers. For farmers, we’re able to provide 6-7x what they’d make from a normal grocery store. It should be as easy (if not easier) to buy from local farmers as it is to order a cab or book a stay in someone’s house, right?

90% of the small farms in America right now are at risk of extinction. If mega-industrialized farming becomes our only option for food, we’ll have no more farmer’s markets, no more CSAs, no more farmers who are stewards to the land. Without radical new systems like MilkRun, the only options for food will be from huge corporations pushing profit over people, and we just don’t want to live in that kind of a world. We can do this, together!

RSVP / Submit questions: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/pie-founder-story-julia-niiro-milkrun

Join PIE for a conversation with McKenna Dempsey, cofounder and CEO of current PIE company Kamber.

At least 20 million teenagers are living with a mental health disorder in the United States and 70% of them aren’t getting the treatment they need. Kamber’s mission is to change that by providing easily accessible tools and resources that empower teens to prioritize their mental health and make space for self acceptance.

By creating a mobile app that provides exercises for difficult moments, coping techniques and education, teens will be equipped with the tools they need to begin managing their mental health and find ways to ground themselves.

For more, see McKenna's presentation from PIE Demo Day 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_vrmHAI4MQ).

RSVP / Submit questions: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/founder-story-mckenna-dempsey-kamber

Join PIE for a very special conversation with consummate ecosystem builder Anika Horn of Social Venturers.

Anika Horn is on a mission to support changemakers build purpose-driven careers, organizations and ecosystems without losing themselves

Rooted at the intersection of systems thinking, social impact and storytelling, she helps changemakers lead impact-driven careers and meaningful lives by equipping them with thought-provoking insights, field-tested resources and a strong peer community at Social Venturers. Through her advisory services, Anika works closely with selected purpose-driven entrepreneurs in the areas of strategy, communications, personal and professional growth. She leverages her global network to raise the profile of ecosystem building for social change as a contributing editor for Impact Boom (where she covers Europe and the U.S.) and Ecosystem Builder Hub (where she heads up the national campaign Unsung Ecosystem of Ecosystem Building) as well as co-lead of storytelling at the ESHIP Storytelling Initiative.

Previously, Anika co-founded Unreasonable Lab VA (Virginia’s first mini-accelerator for social entrepreneurs), CO.STARTERS VA (a startup program for idea-stage founders) and Rebelle Con (a boutique conference for entrepreneurial women). At the same time, she worked with high-growth startups at nationally ranked accelerator program Lighthouse Labs and spearheaded the B Corp movement in Virginia as the state’s official B Keeper.

Prior to her work in North America, Anika earned a Bachelor of European Studies and Masters of Sustainability Sciences in Germany, France and Australia where she spent a decade working in journalism, non-profits, government and the private sector.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/ecosystem-builder-anika-horn/register

Join PIE for a conversation with PIE alum Quincy Brown about how to create frameworks and strategies for equity within startups.

"As startups we have a chance to lead with equity as we develop our business plans, marketing, customer outreach, and the like," said Quincy. "From my perspective, equity includes including women, BIPOC, youth, elderly, and everyone undeserved by policies and programming."

Quincy is a young, native transportation planner from Portland. He began is transportation planning career volunteering at TriMet working directly with the HR department where he served as a volunteer translator and helped recruit Latinx employees.

Following his degree from Claremont McKenna College, Quincy engaged in post bac work at Berkeley in Sustainability and the Built Environment and City and Regional Planning. He won best research in Human Rights from the Mgrublian Center for Rights and was Claremont McKenna's first Mellon Mays undergraduate fellow, a fellowship for minority students interested in becoming PhD professors.

His research has consistently focused on creating sustainable and equitable planning and programming that support and involve people of color, people with disabilities, and low income residents. In all pursuits, Quincy is passionate about bringing equitable and sustainable practices to everyone regardless age, race, gender, sexuality, or belief.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/equity-framework-strategy-startup-quincy-brown/register

Feel free to submit (and upvote) questions ahead of time on Crowdcast

Running a startup is hard enough as it is, but with a worldwide pandemic, it became a lot more difficult. And it forced any number of founders and teams to consider pivoting their product and market to survive.

If you're working through similar thoughts with your startup, hearing from folks who have already turned that corner might be helpful. So we're inviting you to join us for a conversation about pivots with Alisia Ford, founder and CEO of PIE and XXcelerate alum Glory Skincare, and Jonathan Minori, founder and Chief Product Officer for PIE and Techstars alum Caravel.

We'll talk through their experiences, their recommendations for founders who are considering a pivot, and how to communicate your intentions and reasoning to your team.

And as always, we'll also spend most of the conversation answering your questions. So if you've got questions or concerns, please share them so that we can get you the information you need.

By participating in this event, you agree to abide by the PIE Code of Conduct (http://www.piepdx.com/code-of-conduct)

Feel free to submit (and upvote) questions ahead of time on Crowdcast

Thinking about applying to PIE? Have questions about the program? Curious as to what an accelerator even does? Wondering if the format is right for you? Cool. Let's talk about that. All of that.

Please join PIE online for a question and answer session to get more information on our programs and the benefits for early stage startups.

Questions about the differences among the programs we offer causing you to second guess whether you should even show up? Well, let's get that one answered first. Yes. The answer is yes. If you're a founder of an early stage startup, you should show up.

And in terms of the differences? PIE is an accelerator designed to support startups building digital products. PIE Shop is an incubator/accelerator designed to support startups manufacturing physical products. PIE Consumer is focused on traditional consumer products like food, beverage, apparel, footwear, beauty, pet products… you get the gist.

By participating in this event, you agree to abide by the PIE Code of Conduct (http://www.piepdx.com/code-of-conduct)

Join us as PIE mentor Stephen Green talks with Ian Hathaway, coauthor of The Startup Community Way: Evolving an entrepreneurial ecosystem, the follow up to Startup Communities: Building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in your city by Brad Feld.

If you have questions about startup communities — or what Portland could be doing to become a better startup community — you won't want to miss this conversation.

"The Startup Community Way is an explanatory guide for startup communities. Rooted in the theory of complex systems, this book establishes the systemic properties of entrepreneurial ecosystems and explains why their complex nature leads people to make predictable mistakes. As complex systems, value creation occurs in startup communities primarily through the interaction of the parts—the people, organizations, resources, and conditions involved—not the parts themselves. This continual process of bottom-up interactions unfolds naturally, producing value in novel and unexpected ways. Through these complex, emergent processes, the whole becomes greater and substantially different than what the parts alone could produce.

"Although we are living in a booming age for startups, we need to think about the future. When the boom times slow, what will happen to our startup communities, and how will we ensure that entrepreneurial success is still within reach for everyone? This book provides a framework for answering these questions, looking at startup communities as complex systems that—given the right resources and support—can help entrepreneurs succeed and benefit society as a whole.

"If you have been involved in any way in building a startup community or entrepreneurial ecosystem in your city, The Startup Community Way is key to helping you understand the next phase of your journey."

The book releases on July 28, 2020. Preorder your copy: https://amzn.to/2WKt4Qe

Please join PIE for a conversation with Steve Axthelm, Principal Software Engineer at Puppet, to discuss product accessibility and how that applies to startups and engineering teams.

During this session, we'll cover topics like

• Why you should care about accessibility
• The legal history of accessibility
• Accessibility standards like Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
• Composing a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)
• Questions you should ask your developers about accessibility
• Where to find more information

… plus answering any questions you might have.

Please join PIE for a conversation with Steve Axthelm, Principal Software Engineer at Puppet, to discuss product accessibility and how that applies to startups and engineering teams.

During this session, we'll cover topics like

• Why you should care about accessibility
• The legal history of accessibility
• Accessibility standards like Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
• Composing a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)
• Questions you should ask your developers about accessibility
• Where to find more information

… plus answering any questions you might have

RSVP https://www.crowdcast.io/e/accessibility-for-startups/

Thank you for your interest in PIE, an early stage startup accelerator focused on SaaS offerings; PIE Consumer, an accelerator focused on growth stage consumer products; and PIE Shop, an advanced manufacturing and prototyping incubator to support the next generation of product companies. These programs are each designed to connect participants with peers, mentors, investors, and other critical connections, all in an effort to build better founders and to encourage companies to go further and faster than they would be able to go on their own.

Selected startups will join us virtually to work with their peers, PIE alums, and the world-class PIE mentor network. We'll provide you with advice, connections, discounts, support, and other benefits.

Interested? Cool.

Most responses are optional. But more complete applications help us with our decision. All information submitted to PIE via this form will be considered completely confidential and will not be disclosed to anyone outside the PIE selection committee.

If you would prefer to upload a presentation or one pager instead, please visit https://piepdx.com/apply-deck

APPLICATIONS CLOSE Aug 9, 2020, 11:59PM PT

Need to think about your answers? We highly recommend that you begin formulating your responses using our cheat sheet https://piepdx.com/prep

Questions? Contact Marquita Jaramillo, Program Manager, PIE, at [email protected].

Want to stay in the loop? https://piepdx.com/newsletter

Remember in the good old days — like way back in 2019 — when we used to get together for events in person? Well, that's not an option these days. But that doesn't mean that we still can't get together for a good old fashioned Portland Lunch 2.0. Virtually.

If you've been looking for the opportunity to reconnect with your peers in the Portland startup community, you're thinking about starting something, or you're new to the area and looking to meet some folks amidst this pandemic weirdness, please join us for a virtual Portland Lunch 2.0.

No agenda. No talks. Just lunch with the community.

And while we'd love to buy lunch for you like we used to, this time, there is no such thing as a free lunch. You'll have to bring your own.

Have an idea for a new venture, or need help growing your existing venture? Want to learn more about equity financing and the options available in Oregon? Join Laura Kubisiak and Ana Chaud for an interactive session on resources available to entrepreneurs looking to start a new business, as well as existing ventures looking for higher growth.

Laura Kubisiak is the Venture Catalyst for Washington County and will talk about the services and resources for early-stage entrepreneurs, as well discuss equity financing to raise capital. She will be joined by Ana Chaud, founder of Garden Bar. Ana successfully sold the business in 2019 and is now giving back to the entrepreneurial community in a variety of ways, including as a TiE Oregon angel investor and an Executive Partner in Elevate Capital. She’ll share her experience as an entrepreneur, as well as her thoughts on working with angel investors and venture capital firms.

Topics to be discussed:
• The Venture Catalyst (VC) Network
• The VC Services in Washington County
• Equity Financing as part of the Funding Ladder
• Types of Equity Investors
• Local Venture Funds
• Straight Scoop from Ana on being an Entrepreneur and an Investor

The focus is on traded sector, but all business are welcome!
There will be plenty of time for questions.

Speaker Backgrounds:

Laura Kubisiak serves as the Venture Catalyst for Washington County. She is an “on the ground” resource for helping traded-sector companies start-up and scale-up. She meets one-on-one with entrepreneurs, assesses their business needs, and then connects them to people, programs and financial capital to help fuel their growth. Laura also leads programming to educate entrepreneurs and give them an opportunity to network with others in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Prior to this role, Laura served as a senior executive in marketing, sales and business development at companies ranging from start-up to Fortune 500.

Ana Chaud started her career as a financial and business manager in the San Francisco Bay Area. In January 2014, Ana co-founded Garden Bar, the first fast casual, salad concept restaurant in the NW. In five years, Garden Bar grew ~600% in revenue and expanded from 9 to 120 employees. In 2019, Garden Bar was acquired by Evergreens, which provided Ana with a full circle experience – from concept to exit. Ana recently joined the Board at TiE Oregon and will share her insights on being an entrepreneur, as well as investing in new ventures through TiE Angels and Elevate Capital.

StartOut Growth Lab (“SGL”) is a startup accelerator that offers top quality mentoring, education, and networking opportunities for young companies that happen to be founded or co-founded by LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs.

As a part of the application period, we’ll be hosting a virtual ‘Ask Me Anything’ info session to talk through the program and answer your burning questions about the application process, the program and what to expect.

This session will be facilitated by the StarOut team and will feature past SGL founders.

For more information and to review guidelines on how to apply, visit: https://startout.org/growth-lab/

I (https://twitter.com/turoczy) have been looking for an excuse to user Twitter Spaces, the audio only Clubhouse competitor. And an idea dawned on my that was basically an audio version of Silicon Florist. What if I held a Spaces event where founders got to pitch their startup or startup concept to an audience?

We've had a number of amazing founders sign up to participate. Now, we need an audience to listen to their pitches. Won't you please join us?

If you’ve got a startup to pitch at a future event — it doesn’t have to be tech — please sign up. We'll ask you to deliver a three minute pitch on your company. And then I may ask you a couple of follow up questions, but we won’t open it up to a full Q&A. So it should be a safe space. That means, even if you haven’t perfected your pitch, it’s a good environment to practice.

https://airtable.com/shrbhvH34pzlSPArH

StartOut presents VC Relationship Building. Discover the best strategies and tangible steps on how to build authentic relationships in the small business world.

Our panelist will share their top tips on how to create and establish relationships with private investors.

Learn from their years of experience working with startup ventures and small companies to imprint actionable steps to grow your network.

Panelists:

Taj Ahmad Eldridge, Partner - Include Venture Partners Ngozi Bell, Partner - Trans-Sahara Investment Corporation (TSIC)

Moderator:

Kelly McDonald, Founder/CEO - Kyndoo

StartOut, a national 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is the largest national organization to support LGBTQ entrepreneurs with 17,000 members nationwide. Its mission is to increase the number, diversity, and impact of LGBTQ entrepreneurs and amplify their stories to drive the economic empowerment of the community. StartOut helps aspiring LGBTQ entrepreneurs start new companies; supports current entrepreneurs as they grow and expand their existing businesses; and engages successful entrepreneurs as role models and mentors, on its online portal and through targeted events nationwide.

StartOUT's VC/Fundraising Programming Board Presents an "Ask Me Anything" discussion on early stage fundraising paneled by some of today's leading stars in the investment arena!

For a founder trying to raise funding, sometimes it seems like the whole process is just a knotted mess of confusion. Wouldn't it be nice to have a room full of qualified investors to simply answer your questions and help untangle the process? Come to StartOUT's Early Stage Fundraising AMA for just that opportunity.

We've assembled a group of today's leading investors who understand the value of diversity and inclusion and are willing to answer your most pressing questions. Questions will be answered during the event, no need to submit in advance, so bring them with you.

Panelists:

Kelli Jones, Managing Partner - Sixty8 Capital Lorenzo Thione, Managing Director - Gaingels Charlie O'Donnell, Founder/General Partner - Brooklyn Bridge Ventures Rei Tran, Investment Associate - Acceleprise

Moderator:

Jessica Bussert, Founder/CEO - Wave Therapeutics

StartOut, a national 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is the largest national organization to support LGBTQ entrepreneurs with 17,000 members nationwide. Its mission is to increase the number, diversity, and impact of LGBTQ entrepreneurs and amplify their stories to drive the economic empowerment of the community. StartOut helps aspiring LGBTQ entrepreneurs start new companies; supports current entrepreneurs as they grow and expand their existing businesses; and engages successful entrepreneurs as role models and mentors, on its online portal and through targeted events nationwide.

Come as you are and unwind with StartOut entrepreneurs.

We'll have a new topic each month designed to facilitate a meaningful conversation and help establish connections that will help you on your entrepreneurial journey.

No matter how you arrive, you'll leave smiling and looking forward to the next one.

-

What's Blooming?!

Moderator: Kelly McDonald, Founder & CEO of Kyndoo

StartOut in partnership with Zx Ventures invites you to a panel conversation:

We welcome emerging brands, and LGBTQ founders, as we look to the future of CPG/B2C in the food & beverage industry and the impact of COVID-19 on consumer behavior.

How have consumers changed?

How do we need to change to meet the new needs of our customers?

In this conversation we highlight the experiences and challenges of consumer and community-centric brands and what they are planning for their re-emerging in a post-pandemic world.

Moderator:

Tanner Cohen, Co-Founder of Babe Wine

Panelists:

Kadi Findling, Founder of myCoffeePass

Kadi is the VP of Sales & Marketing at Los Altos Coffee and founder of myCoffeePass. She aims to inspire people to support local — local coffee shops & local nonprofits. myCoffeePass is dedicated to giving 5% of profits back to local nonprofits in Texas.

Matt Cortland & David Duckworth, Co-Founders of The Cauldron Company

The Cauldron® Co. is a technology-led entertainment studio that delivers immersive experiences & products through hospitality. We blend science & tech with food, beverage, and retail.

Brandon Burrell, Founder of Alkaline Fresh

Brandon Burrell is a former Wall Street Banker, Serial International Entrepreneur & Founder of Alkaline Fresh. After years of enjoying an alkaline diet, he realized that most consumers have limited options to purchase quick, healthy alkaline meals and created Alkaline Fresh.

Just because we're still socially distanced doesn't mean we can't connect.

There's no better time to reconnect with folks in the community with whom you've lost touch. And there's no better way to gather with a random smattering of your startup community peers than Portland Lunch 2.0.

No agenda. No talks. Just lunch with your community.

We know that investors often look for patterns, referrals and pedigree to make the investment process efficient, safely fitting into established norms.

The unintended consequence is that brilliant founders without the right connections are often passed over. This expresses itself in many ways but often we see that LGBTQIA+, Black, Latinx, and Native American founders are largely left out of the VC ecosystem.

Today, companies are creating specific, application based, Opportunity Funds - their goals being inviting more underrepresented founders into the global ecosystem. This looks like a diverse Investment Committee that includes members from both inside and outside of the investment institution, the goal being to review at early stage investments alongside growth investments.

The result? Underestimated founders have access to direct capital.

Join StartOut Founders, Morrison & Foerster, and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch as we discuss how investors set up these kinds of funds, what current programs look like, how to maintain these funds, and how to bring investors and entrepreneurs into this ecosystem.

Moderator:

Alexa Hall, Startup Program Manager - Google Cloud

Supporting Panelists:

Fredo Silva - Partner, Morrison & Foerster - Event Sponsor

Fredo Silva is one of the Partners of Morrison & Foerster. We are an international law firm with lawyers practicing throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe working with large businesses to secure their funds and support a diverse ecosystem.

Kimelyn Harris - SVP, ESG and Public Policy, Bank of America - Event Sponsor

Kimelyn Harris is an ESG Program Executive for the Racial Equality and Economic Opportunity initiative at Bank of America. In this role, she is responsible for executing programming to support the bank’s $1.25 billion, 5-year effort to advance economic opportunity, health care initiatives and racial equality, for people and communities of color. Kimelyn drives business planning and integration for this companywide initiative while also working to identify and build partnerships with organizations, institutions and community leaders.

Riana Lynn - CEO & Co-Founder, Journey Foods

Riana leads fast-growing software startup Journey Foods. The company is backed by top VCs in North America, Europe and Asia. Riana has served as a top consultant and VC to fortune 500 food and CPG companies. She's currently an angel investor and former Google Entrepreneur in Residence. She is one of just a few dozen black women that have raised more than a million dollars in venture funding. Riana has been featured in Forbes, MIT 35 under 35, USA Today, Fast Company, CNBC, Wired, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine and more.

A Chicago native and Austin-based that enjoys growing fruit trees, writing film scripts, and exploring black culinary and architectural heritage sites around the world. She currently sits on the board of AGLIFF, one of the country's largest annual and inclusive film fests.

Damola Ogundipe - CEO & Co-Founder, Civic Eagle + Advisor for Lunar Startups

Damola Ogundipe is the co-founder and CEO of Civic Eagle, a company building technology to make government policy tracking easier for people and organizations. Damola is a graduate of The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance. He’s a 2018 Camelback Fellow and 2017 Google for Startups Entrepreneur in Residence. Damola is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. In his free time, he enjoys sports and documentaries.

Dan Vaughn - Senior Director/Associate General Counsel, M&A and Equity for PayPal