TripGrid returns to talk about changes they have made over the last year.

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. 

Join us online on the 1MC PDX Startup Slack channel. 

Our Holiday Hiatus is over.

Come meet Cannabis Connect the "Etsy of Cannabis" 

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. 

Join us online on the 1MC PDX Startup Slack channel. 

It's Portland Startup Week! What better time to get the startup community together? 

That's why Built Oregon, PIE, and Silicon Florist is using Startup Week as an opportunity to kick off a new year of Community Hour[s], our ongoing gatherings for all of the people who make up the entrepreneurial fabric of our community. There is no agenda, panel, or discussion. It’s a time to relax and network with old friends and make new connections with your peers and across industries. 

As much as we all love technology, we realize that community relationships are built through personal connections and shared stories. So we hope you’ll join us for a few minutes — or a couple of hours.

As always, Community Hour[s] are graciously hosted by CENTRL Office.

See you there!

P.S. Don't forget… if you're interested in getting involved in Portland Startup Week, there's still time to host your own event. It's easy. Just pick a time, a topic, and a place and we'll get you added to the list.

It's Portland Startup Week (February 6-10)! And it's become a bit of a Startup Week tradition to revisit some of our amazing Portland startup community events from yesteryear — like Portland Lunch 2.0. 

So… Can we buy lunch? Join Portland Lunch 2.0 sponsor StackPath and the rest of our community at CENTRL Office for a bite to eat, seeing old friends, and meeting new folks in our community.

Please mark your calendars and plan to be there!

Join Built Oregon, PIE, and Silicon Florist for Community Hour[s], our ongoing gathering for all of the people who make up the entrepreneurial fabric of our community. There is no agenda, panel, or discussion. It’s a time to relax and network with old friends and make new connections with your peers and across industries. 

As much as we all love technology, we realize that community relationships are built through personal connections and shared stories. So we hope you’ll join us for a few minutes — or a couple of hours.

See you there!

Join Built Oregon, PIE, and Silicon Florist for Community Hour[s], our ongoing series of gatherings for all of the people who make up the entrepreneurial fabric of our community. There is no agenda, panel, or discussion. It’s a time to relax and network with old friends and make new connections with your peers and across industries. 

As much as we all love technology, we realize that community relationships are built through personal connections and shared stories. So we hope you’ll join us for a few minutes — or a couple of hours.

As always, Community Hour[s] are graciously hosted by CENTRL Office.

See you there!

Join Built Oregon, PIE, and Silicon Florist for Community Hour[s], our ongoing gathering for all of the people who make up the entrepreneurial fabric of our community. There is no agenda, panel, or discussion. It’s a time to relax and network with old friends and make new connections with your peers and across industries. 

As much as we all love technology, we realize that community relationships are built through personal connections and shared stories. So we hope you’ll join us for a few minutes — or a couple of hours.

See you there!

Acquiring customers for our SaaS companies is arguably one of the most difficult challenges we face. We need to figure it out what works and what doesn't work, and we need to do it before the money runs out.

In this Meetup we'll discuss:

• The marketing strategies that are working for us, and the ones that didn't.

• Lessons we learned taking our products to market.

• Paid vs organic marketing channels: which ones are best for every stage of growth.

• How we've identified our most profitable market segments and how we're providing value to them.

• Social media, search engine marketing, PR and advertising. Pros and cons of each channel, and which ones are right for us.

Coffee, tea and draft beer will be provided. Come hang out with other SaaS founders and share your story!

We're all faced with the challenge of creating an awesome software product for our customers. A big part of this is having a highly functional software development team.  

In this Meetup we'll discuss:

• When to develop software in-house versus outsourcing or partnering with another software platform. Some SaaS companies utilize a mix of in-house and outsourced developers. We'll brainstorm various possible approaches.

• How do you train new developers?  What approaches have been successful and what has been a dismal failure? - Does it make sense to hire senior developers only or a mix of junior and senior developers?

• Team / project organization - Do you do daily standups? How do your organize sprints? How are deadlines established and by whom? Is your team in the same office or are some remote? What tools do you use (Slack, Trello, etc.)? With all of the bugs, feature requests, UI overhauls, when do you ship updates to the product?

• Communication and transparency - How do you speak to the rest of the team in a language everyone understands? Do you hold weekly/bi-weekly meetings to announce progress? How do you showcase new features to clients?

Coffee, tea and draft beer will be provided. Come hang out with other SaaS founders and share your story!

If there's more on this topic you would like to discuss, send us a message and we'll try and get it added to the agenda.

It's Portland Startup Week 2018 (https://portland.startupweek.co/)!

Come have lunch on WeWork with other creators and maybe fill out your submission for the Creator Awards (https://creatorawards.wework.com/) to be held in San Francisco May 10th! More than $350,000 will be up for grabs. We are looking for community orgs, startups, artists & others with innovative projects in Portland to get on the stage.

-- This is a live and interactive online event. To get access and RSVP, visit https://events.genndi.com/register/169105139238452470/a38dd0642f --

Blockchain technology, and the larger "decentralization" movement, has the potential to change the world in ways we haven't seen since the beginning of the internet. We are only in the first wave of blockchain-powered technologies and financing models, and already many sectors are being disrupted —from marketing to manufacturing, from healthcare to energy, from law to accounting, and from venture capital to even music.

Savvy entrepreneurs are leveraging the blockchain in preparation for a decentralized world, and on this special, interactive online event, you can hear from one of the world's foremost experts in the space (and ask questions).

This live event will be hosted by Adeo Ressi (Founder & CEO of the Founder Institute), and feature special guest Anthony Di Iorio.

Anthony Di Iorio is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, community organizer, and thought leader in the field of digital currencies, blockchain and decentralized technologies. In 2014, he co-founded the smart contract project Ethereum, which is now the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency valued at $30 billion. Anthony’s entire blockchain and cryptocurrencies investments have earned him a place on the Forbes list of the Richest In Cryptocurrency.

Anthony is also the founder and CEO of Decentral (http://decentral.ca), a Toronto-based innovation hub and software development company focused on decentralized technologies, and Jaxx (https://jaxx.io), a digital asset wallet that empowers millions of people to control their digital lives. These two organizations recently partnered with the Founder Institute to launch the "Blockchain Founder Syndicate" (https://fi.co/join/blockchain), an initiative to help budding entrepreneurs launch 20 promising companies that leverage blockchain by 2019.

On this webinar we will discuss:
- What's true about blockchain, and what is hype
- The different types of businesses and societal problems blockchain can help address
- How entrepreneurs can leverage blockchain in all types of businesses, and how to get started
- The future of blockchain, and where the evolution of the technology is headed

We hope you will join us!

-- RESERVE A SPOT [limited space]: https://events.genndi.com/register/169105139238452470/a38dd0642f --

** Even if you can't make the live webinar, everyone who registers for the event will receive an audio & video recording approximately 72 hours after the event

Recruiting Open House and PDX Tech + Pong

We have a very special twist on our usual Tech + Pong event for October. Come join us on October 11th for Happy Hour to celebrate the opening of the new AltSource headquarters in SE Portland!

If you currently work for a local tech company, are looking for a new job opportunity in tech, or if you are looking for ways to get more involved with the tech community here in Portland, this recruiting and networking event is for you! It’s a great opportunity to speak with hiring managers in a casual environment and learn more about the job openings at both Altsource and The Dyrt. Plus, there will be food, drinks, a DJ, giveaways and the usual ping-pong tournament!

This event is completely free, but please RSVP so we can get a head count for food and drinks.

Time:
5:00 Doors Open & Happy Hour
5:30 Tournament Kick Off

Tournament:
Bring $5 cash for the winner-takes-all ping-pong tournament if you want to play! Check out the tournament rules https://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech-Pong/events/249548412/

Location:
1120 SE Madison St. Portland OR 97214 (entrance on 12th and Hawthorne)

Sponsors:
AltSource is a custom software development company.
AltSource is hiring! Check out the AltSource careers page. (https://www.altsrc.net/Careers/?ref=JoinAltSource)

The Dyrt (think like Yelp for camping) - gives away outdoor gear for user submitted campground reviews. The Dyrt is looking Ember developers, React Native Mobile Developers and a UI/UX Designer (https://blog.thedyrt.com/jobs/working-at-the-dyrt/)

We'll have two 20-minute talks, each followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. We'll have plenty of time at the start and end of the meetup for tasty beverages and networking.

Speakers

Impacting Product Development with Net Promoter Score & Customer Data
Camila Morrison, Product Manager

As a product manager, you may have different types of feedback and data from product users/customers. Some of that could be Net Promoter Score (NPS) results, e-commerce data, community media verbatims, or other survey information. Learn what’s going on with NPS and other customer data to look at it from a product use perspective. Then see how to translate that into making changes to your product to better connect with customers, improve your value proposition, and make more revenue.

Camila Morrison is a product manager in tech who has worked across a variety of areas in product management from concept/market/UX roles to managing a team in the development arena. Also in her experience, is running a Net Promoter System to drive improvements across the customer product lifecycle. She was in marketing management for companies that included utility control center software. Her background includes leading marketing research projects for tech, utility, transportation, ad/media, healthcare, retail, tourism, and non-profit industries.

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The Product Manager Career Lifecycle
Mike Kruse, Product Manager

After spending many years as a product manager in both large and small organizations, Mike would like to share the application of a tool we use in our day job to our career.

Mike began in software development and fell into the product manager role – initially informally and then formally. He has worked in a number of B2B and B2C markets including graphics processors, networking systems, digital media, educational software and currently fintech. One item on his bucket list is to master all 37 activities on the Pragmatic framework or to visit all 50 states in the US.

Mike is also one of the ProductCamp Portland co-founders, an annual product management un-conference that began in 2012. It provides him with the opportunity to create a new product every year and in doing so, apply a wide range of product management skills that he rarely gets to exercise.

TBD -Happy 2019! We are still sorting logistics on speakers. We have a time and a place, let's make this happen. More details soon. :)

For February we are excited to be having our next meetup at Uncorked Studios. This beautiful space will serve as the backdrop as we learn from fellow founders about their businesses.

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!

****LIMITED SPACE****

We're in the NW side of town this month as part of Portland Startup Week. Breken is a great place to relax, grab a cup of coffee, or get some of their yummy food.

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!

Join our friends at OTBC for a Portland Lunch 2.0… in Beaverton. It's all part of Portland Startup Week. (If you're in downtown Portland, it's just a quick trip on the MAX Blue Line to get out to the location.)

Space is limited

Access: 1 minute walk from MAX. Alternatively - there is, of course, plenty of free parking.

For parking: http://www.otbc.org/directions

For MAX: When you exit MAX you're facing Bogza coffee. We're in the brick building just beyond Bogza.

Either way - use the building entrance on Rose Biggi Ave.

Join us for the first time ever in Bumped’s new office—it's so new in fact, that it’s still under construction—for drinks, snacks, and conversation about the startups that are building exciting momentum in PDX! No hard hat required.

Our panel of companies who are either new to the scene or fresh off a big round of funding include:

Sce Pike, CEO & Founder, IOTAS — $6.5M raised
Lance Charlish, CEO & Co-Founder, Circle Media Labs — $20M Series B
James McDermott, CEO & Co-Founder, Lytics — $35M Series C
David Nelsen, CEO & Co-Founder, Bumped — Launched in 2018, $19M Series A

Moderator TBD

Don’t miss the chance to hear directly from the folks that are poised to impact the local tech scene in a big way!

When: Tuesday April 2nd, 5:30-7:30pm
Where: Bumped HQ: 111 SW 5th Ave Suite 300
What:
5:30: Event opens
6:00-6:30pm: Panel
6:30-6:45pm: Q&A
6:45-7:30pm: Mix, mingle, and toast to PDX tech!

As part of Portland Startup Week, CENTRL Office will be inviting the Portland startup community into their eastside location, right at the bridgehead of the Burnside Bridge. Close enough for westsiders to pop over for a bit.

More details to follow.

As part of Portland Startup Week, CENTRL Office will be inviting the Portland startup community into their eastside location, right at the bridgehead of the Burnside Bridge. Close enough for westsiders to pop over for a bit.

More details to follow.

We'll have two 20-minute talks, each followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. We'll have plenty of time at the start and end of the meetup for tasty beverages and networking.

---
Using Wireframes to Communicate Product Vision
Amy King, Software Product Manager at Digimarc

Over the past year, I learned how designing, creating, and sharing wireframes greatly facilitate communication both for the overall product vision that impacts multiple teams, and prepping smaller product features for engineers. For product managers that did not have a graphics background like me, "design" is an intimidating skill to tackle, but one that is valuable when working with engineers, designers, and marketing teams. In this presentation, I will share:
1) How I got started
2) A couple examples of how I used wireframes to align multiple teams to work towards the same product vision
3) Recommendations and pros/cons of different wireframing software to help people get started

Amy King is a software product manager. she likes learning about different industries and how people use technology in their jobs, then figure out how her team can build software to help people be more efficient with their work

---
Supercharging User Engagement by Supporting Autonomy: Practical Motivation Science for Product Managers
Jahed Momand, Head of Product Management at Conversa Health

The talk of the town in theories of behavior change in technology center on centuries old behaviorism, such as BJ Fogg's Behavior Model or Nir Eyal's Hook Model.

But, what if you're trying to precipitate a user behavior that's complex? That happens over long time domains? That isn't immediately rewardable?

How do you support users in finding the motivation to interact with your product, when push notifications just won't do the trick?

I'll talk about how we applied the science of motivation, Edward Deci's self-determination theory, to product design at Conversa Health, for outsized gains in patient engagement, retention, and NPS.

Jahed heads up the product team at Conversa Health, an automated care management chatbot for health systems, leading them to successful A and B rounds of funding during his tenure.

Before, he led the product growth team at Zoomcare, where he increased revenue and visits 240% over 18 rapid fire months, leading up to their acquisition by Peace Health.

Before that he worked with Dan Ariely of Predictably Irrational fame on applying behavioral economics to projects within Google, and worked in the adtech industry applying behavioral science to ad units (he's not proud of this work).

Way before then, he played poker professionally for a few years after grad school, where he completed an MS in Physics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Maybe you got to see the PIE startups pitch at PIE Demo Day 2019. Maybe you've watched the videos from the event (https://www.youtube.com/c/PortlandIncubatorExperiment). Now that the companies have recovered from demo day and Portland Startup Week and PitchfestNW, let's take the opportunity to get the community together to celebrate this newest crop of amazing Portland startups.

We'll have two 20-minute talks, each followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. We'll have plenty of time at the start and end of the meetup for tasty beverages and networking.

---

Leveraging product principles to drive better decision making
Ami Murthy, Head of Product - Mobile at eBay Classifieds Group at eBay

Product principles can serve as a strong complement to the product vision and strategy. I will share examples of our product principles and how we have successfully used them as tools to drive better and faster decisions.

Ami Murthy is a product leader who is excellent at building teams that create experiences which millions of customers LOVE and USE on a daily basis. She has experience leading diverse, global teams from product conceptualization to launch, with a proven track record of building scalable customer-centric products including 5-star apps, a multi-million dollar mobile product, and market-leading e-book solutions. She is adept at driving business results and has helped companies like eBay, Intel and Amazon grow their bottom line performance.

---

What can theater teach us about software delivery
David Van der Merwe, Senior Product Manager at Radar

I've been thinking about the similarities between software development and the process of producing theater for a while. My wife runs a theater company and I'm constantly picking her brain about the creative process and theater production as a project that actually has a deadline (opening night). My hope is to share some learnings about this process and how it may apply to product managers when we need to deliver a full solution to a customer problem by a committed date.

I'm currently a Sr. Product Manager working at RADAR building privacy incident response management solutions. Like many pm's, I grew into a product management role somewhat through circumstance, some curiosity, and a desire to improve customer experiences. I was born and raised in South Africa and then immigrated to the US where I've worked in web marketing, and e-commerce solutions that served both b2b and b2c enterprises for the last 20 years.

---

Also, thank you to our host, Jama Software. And thank you to Opal for sponsoring the food. Check out their job postings here:

Jama Software: https://www.jamasoftware.com/company/careers/

Opal: http://jobs.workwithopal.com/apply/Vbraj5qtQV/Senior-Product-Marketing-Manager

Not only will you get to have a great lunch with the amazing Portland startup community, you'll get one of the best views of the city.

More details to follow.

Join PIE as we welcome Founders' Co-op (http://www.founderscoop.com/) — a fund built by founders, funded by founders, and designed to put founders first — and Create33 (http://create33.co/) — Seattle's entrepreneur center — to spend some time in the Rose City hanging out with the Portland startup community.

This will be an informal happy hour. No set agenda. Just a great chance to connect with our neighbors to the north.

(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...