The problem with Portland is talent seems to be hidden. I haven't explored too much in the time I have been here, but the bits of exposure I have had didn't seem too promising. Contrast that to a larger area like Seattle, or a very talent-dense area like Silicon Valley, and you have the opposite problem of sorting through talent.
Additionally, there are very few resources for people just starting out. There is the Oregon Entrepreneurship Network, but with their fee structure it seems to be more of a business than a resource for a small business. You have to pay annual membership dues, and from there you have to pay entry into their events. Want to go to their monthly pub talk? Yeah, that'll be $30 for non members, and $15 for people already registered with the OEN.
Of course talk is cheap, why not put together something myself? From the few events I have been to, the SNR was poor enough to be intimidating. 2/3 social media consultants, 1/4 looking for a free lunch and the rest as lost as me.
To be honest the OEN ( Oregon Entrepreneur Network ) is one of the worst things for startups in Portland. The people who actually run it are great, they work really hard and have the best intentions, but the problem is the "volunteers" who serve on the boards and run the various committees. Most of these people are service providers, a lot of them are "money finders" who claim to broker deals between startups and investors. I know of a number of companies who have been ripped off by these people simply because they thought it is what everyone else is doing and the only way to get funding, the problem is they rarely deliver. The people who serve on the OEN committees for Angel Oregon etc are the same people that sit on the panels for PAN, Oregon Angel Fund and WIN ( Women's Investment Network ).There is a lot of crap that goes on behind closed doors in these committees that makes me sick.
The OEN has the best of intentions, but the committees comprised of service providers makes it impossible for startups to get a fair shake really, the people on these committees who are supposed to help startups are actually preying on them. Startups are asked to pay a lot of money for competitions, where they are told they will be pitching to investors, I don't know a single company in the past few years who has received money from any of these people.
There are actually a lot of investors in Portland, but the "super angels" are not part of any of these groups for a number of reasons.
Again I love the people who run the OEN, the folks that actually work there day-to-day, the problem is their board and the committees using their volunteer position for self enrichment.
If you look at the companies getting funding in Portland, most have stayed away from the traditional angel funding routes like the OEN events and instead focused on getting investment outside of that network and outside of the state.
There are local tech events happening pretty much every night of the week. http://calagator.org/ has a good listing. It's to the point where you can't pick a night to do a user group/meetup without it conflicting.
You might want to start there when trying to find talent... though for what it's worth we haven't had a hard time finding talent lately. Lot of competing people away, but that's hardly new or different.
I know of the list and have been to a few meetings. When I mentioned I didn't see much going on, I meant there didn't seem to be a cohesive group of entrepreneurs. There are plenty of user groups and other nerdy meetings, but I haven't had luck connecting with other people attempting to get a business off the ground. Yes, PDX has nerds and programmers and people interested in tech, but, it doesn't have many software entrepreneurs to connect with.
That's also the impression I got when I spent a couple of months in Portland last year.
Somewhat unrelated, there's a lot of interesting programming language companies around (Galois, Gemstone, and some others I can't remember now). I don't have hard data, but have the impression that that's a lot more than average for other US cities with high-tech sectors.
Additionally, there are very few resources for people just starting out. There is the Oregon Entrepreneurship Network, but with their fee structure it seems to be more of a business than a resource for a small business. You have to pay annual membership dues, and from there you have to pay entry into their events. Want to go to their monthly pub talk? Yeah, that'll be $30 for non members, and $15 for people already registered with the OEN.
Of course talk is cheap, why not put together something myself? From the few events I have been to, the SNR was poor enough to be intimidating. 2/3 social media consultants, 1/4 looking for a free lunch and the rest as lost as me.