

Portland, Oregon, is (one of the) most entrepreneurial towns in the world - markbao
http://siliconflorist.com/2009/07/30/portland-oregon-entrepreneurial-town-world/

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thesethings
I suspect I have a super different background and interests than the author of
this article, but totally agree.

I'll start from an arts angle.

I really like music, and one of the main reasons I live in Portland is the
incredible music scene. Coming from San Francisco, one can see a million
reasons why so many bands (and artists) move from SF/Oakland to here. A
million more houses with basements, let alone dwellings that don't share two
sides with others. (in SF, even practice spaces are hard to get, even when
you're able to afford one).

And of course the cost of living is better than SF, so theoretically artists
can spend more time on their art.

But then you notice a lot more "community" resources in Portland, too, like
the IPRC for zinesters. (free/very low cost access to old-school letterpress,
Macs w/layout apps).

And MANY small venues for bands to play/artists to have shows, including many
all ages venues, sometimes co-ops, sometimes regular business, sometimes house
shows (but houses that have "real" names, and a decent setup, and show
schedule) (high turnover, but these places are always starting up).

The venues are a really important building block for artists. Sometimes
they're coffee shops with 20 feet of wall space for photos, sometimes they're
spacious warehouses for orchestra bands.

But they are not just a satellite for OTHER artists, these spaces are
somebody's dream in their own right. I now see restaurants and cafes in
Portland as their own kind of awesome art/startup business that I've never
seen anywhere else.

A dungeon-like donut shop? Vegan convenience store (they don't even try to be
healthy :D), An all food-cart food court?

For whatever reason, people try crazy business/art ideas all the time in
Portland, probably because failure isn't that terrifying financially.

But it's not just the "low cost" that I give credit to in Portland, but the
symbiotic nature of businesses and projects. It's probably fragile, but all
these disparate pieces are critical parts of other peoples projects. It's not
mere generosity or community spirit, but just the nature of the ecosystem that
gets created when you have enough people with a sincere passion in different
parts of a common theme.

Some of the traditional building blocks of tech startups are missing in
Portland (VC, multiple universities with business friendly tech research), but
I think one reason that Portland geeks are unphased by this is that we're so
grounded in some of the DIY principles of punk (there, i said it), that
resourcefulness/open source/small scale scrappiness are just "business words"
for values we've already internalized.

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Keyframe
I'd like to see that dungeon donut shop - google does nothing, can you help?

~~~
moted
I can only assume he's talking about the lovely Voodoo Donuts.

<http://voodoodoughnut.com/>

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thesethings
Yup, that's what i (she :D ) was talking about. Lots of crazy donuts, vegan,
bacon, cold cereal (!). Two locations now, for all you visitors. (Coming up in
Portland: Djangocon, fyi)

~~~
moted
My apologies for assuming that everyone that reads hacker news was male. ;)

~~~
thesethings
heh. no worries :D

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kailoa
His definition of entrepreneur is different from what we normally think of
tech startups, but even for tech startups, Portland surely ranks high. I've
lived there and at one point was a late state startup employee. It's got the
moxie and atmosphere for it, but it still doesn't have the surrounding
ecosystem like Silicon Valley or even Boston.

That being said, in my list of best cities for startups, Portland makes a good
case for 3rd place.

Quality of living is super high. Combined with a reasonable cost of living,
it's a fantastic place to live.

~~~
mediaman
I think Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle, and NYC are in the top four. Except
for the Valley, people argue about which city is in which spot for 2-4 (they
all have their niches), but it seems unlikely that Portland -- although it's a
wonderful place to live and a solid runner-up -- could make a solid case for
the top four.

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mtrichardson
I'm a developer at a small tech startup in Portland. The quality of life here
is great and there's definitely a fantastic amount of community support here
for pretty much anything you would want to do. It's a very open community
which is really appreciated. I would say that there might be a bit too much
focus on side project and not enough on startup.

I think that everybody thrives in their own way in different places - I love
promoting Portland because it'll work very well for some people. For others,
not so much, but that's how it goes with almost everything.

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jsackmann
My reaction is mostly personal: This is f'ing awesome. I've lived in NYC for
most of the last decade after growing up in the northwest, and I've had the
urge to move...somewhere.

Just in the last few days, I came to terms with the fact that while I didn't
really want to move "back home," Portland is the ideal place. Decent-size
place, nice climate year-round, plenty of culture, great variety of stuff to
do within a day's drive or less ... it is kind of a mini-bay area without the
tech tilt in many ways. I grew up in a mid-sized town several hours away, but
many of the more interesting people I knew in high school have ended up there.

Added bonus: If you live in Vancouver, WA (north suburbs of PDX) and work from
home (or just in WA), there's no state income tax.

~~~
davidw
> I grew up in a mid-sized town several hours away,

Eugene? That's where I'm from.

> nice climate year-round,

Let's be honest, if it were, then it would be inundated with people because it
is a nice place in so many other ways. It's not, though, IMO; it's gray and
drizzly from October to early summer (and usually stops raining the 5th of
July). If people don't mind that, it's a great place, though, although it does
tend towards _laid back_ rather than _busy/active_. IMO you could do a lot
worse.

~~~
jsackmann
Nope, Spokane. High end of "several."

"Nice" is probably overstating the climate, but the flip-side is that it's
rarely too hot or too cold; you don't usually suffer through the heat+humidity
of the eastern seaboard, which probably has something to do with me holding
that opinion right this second!

~~~
mtrichardson
Amusingly enough said during a horrible heatwave here - 106 degrees and the
like. Of course, it'll be only this week, and there's no humidity...

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gcheong
There is a lot to like about Portland. Free public transport within the
downtown "fareless square", a relatively lower cost of living, and you are not
very far away from almost any kind of outdoor activity you can imagine and you
can find a group for just about any interest (robotics, rocketry, etc.). It
also has, hands down, the best new/used retail bookstore (Powell's books) and
technical bookstore I've ever seen. The weather is manageable though it does
rain quite a bit but I'd take a Portland summer over the lukewarm San
Francisco summers/falls anytime.

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didip
Portland have diverse neighborhood; classic suburb (beaverton), edgy &
expensive (pearl dist. & uptown), hip (NE & SE). But whereever you live there
are a lot of coffee shop and bar that have free wireless, perfect for late
night hacking with friends.

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didip
A little trivia, memcached was invented here in Portland (LiveJournal).

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wglb
Portland is a wonderful city in a wonderful state. I spent several intern
quarters there, and have friends from there.

Two interesting tech startups that have connections to Reed College, which is
not known as a tech school are Tektronix which was started by a physics PhD
candidate who needed the tools (so the story goes) and Apple where Steve went
to school. Tektronix is credited with starting the Silicon Forest.

One suspects that this is less well known as part of a conspiracy to guard
against Californification of the state.

Speaking of food, does anyone remember the "Heavy Number Taco Company" chain
which used old gas stations?

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mikeryan
This whole article seems to be based around 2 strange strawmen about the
original article.

First the original article never said the "Best" or "Top Ten" entrepreneurial
cities. It was just a "here are some good towns to start a business in"

It's also very much not tech focused.

~~~
colins_pride
Right, it is not tech focused, because his point is not so much Portland as
the actual cultural distinction between good places for entrepreneurial people
and good places for starting up.

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zandorg
The film Wargames was set in Portland, and I've always wanted to see if the
arcade is still around.

~~~
mtrichardson
There's always <http://www.groundkontrol.com/> .

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luckyland
Portland is clearly the greatest city in the world right now. What's possible
there on a daily basis never ceases to amaze me.

