Those of us who call Portland home are well-aware of its countless benefits: laid back culture, amazing local dining hot spots, Saturday market, cool galleries in the Pearl District, shopping in NW and downtown, and of course the many close by outdoor options from Mt. Hood to the Columbia Gorge to our gorgeous Oregon coast.
In addition to all of these, Portland is also known as “Silicon Forest” – a great place to start and grow a company. Fastcompany.com today highlighted Portland as a city that has seen startups such as MyOpenId, Shop Igniter and Jive Software succeed in recent history.
David Hersh, chairman of the board of Jive, spoke with Fastcompany.com, sharing what makes Portland a great place for startups. In particular, he highlighted that “Portland certainly has an aggressively independent vibe. In terms of startup phase…there’s so much energy around that – around the ideas and going off on your own and there’s so much support for doing that that I think it’s one of the great things about the city. It’s just the overall psyche of the city around its kind of aggressive independence that makes for a very vibrant startup culture”.
Hersh also mentions Portland’s loyalty to local companies. “They’re all very supportive of other Portland companies and they all want to see Portland do well. I think the other thing is that there is a lot of great talent out there for the startup phase, so your ability to pull people in to help you out along the way is great”.
Nicely said, David. I knew there was one more reason to love Portland.
For more information, please check out http://www.fastcompany.com/article/why-you-should-start-a-company-in-portland-oregon.
