I agreed to participate on an Oregon Entrepreneurs Network panel discussing the demise of my old company, SplashCast (SplashCast – What Happened?). This morning I received a reminder email and thought that I should do a bit of prep work. As my homework I created an advice list (of sorts) for entrepreneurs in Portland.
Here’s my list. It’s a bit loose and in no particular order.
1. In Portland, bootstrapping should be considered financing option #1. When it comes to financing your company, consider bootstrapping options first. Very simply, it remains quite difficult to raise money in Portland (relative to Seattle, Bay Area and LA). There has been a lot of discussion about the reasons (which gets a bit tiresome). The reality is that it’s relatively more difficult here.
Bootstrapping usually means moving more slowly, but raising money takes tons of time and focus too. Furthermore, the cost of launching a new product continues to decrease. in 2010, a very small team can do a lot. Read the rest of this entry »
