Scott Kveton

Startupalooza or Bust!

Through snow, sleet, hail, rain and of course a fair mix of sun yesterday’s Startupalooza was a fantastic success. Organized by Todd Kenefsky with a whole host of volunteers and the rest of the Legion of Tech pitching in as well it was a great event and I got a chance to put a lot of faces with (mostly Twitter) names.

Highlights for me included:

Hearing the Jive Software story (complete with embarrassing photos)
Meeting Matt King and Jason Glaspey (the Unthirsty guys)
Seeing @ahockley totally decked out with a lot of photo gear I wish I had
Buying drinks/food for folks at the Side Door afterwords thinking the bill was huge only to have it be $360
Realizing that Garage Games is actually a ginormous endeavor
Getting to meet the Toonlet guys
Realizing that gamers and people with connections to NYC seem to do well in Portland

And, as is the case at any event in Portland, there were the seedlings hatched for new events. One was an impromptu idea that Paul Biggs (aka @techpaulogy) had called #drunkgeeking. Say you’re married, with an SO, etc and they have gotten tired of your inebriated ramblings about technology. Wouldn’t it make sense to find a couple of other nerds you could get your drink on with and then talk about geeky topics? Instead of trying to organize it on a regular basis, why not just use Twitter + the hashtag #drunkgeeking to coordinate on-the-fly events. For example, you could couple this with Unthirsty and find a good happy hour, Tweet “#drunkgeeking in 15 minutes at the Side Door” and see what happens. I love it and am looking forward to it after Paul gets done with his three day pantless bender. :-)

While at Startupalooza, Matt King demoed a new application he’s working on for a few folks that were there. Its in the Alpha stage but he wanted to get the take of some folks that could take a hard look while drilling down into the actual details of the application. This could be really handy for folks if we formalized it. Pick someone’s office, an afternoon and choose 2 or 3 applications to critique. To participate you have to have something you’d want looked at in the coming weeks/months. You’d want high quality participation and it would be great to have a mix of devs, designers and (*gasp*) even a marketer or two … :-)

All in all I was amazed at the vibrance of the Portland startup scene … clearly there is something here, clearly we’re just starting to pick up the pace here … I can’t imagine anywhere else on earth I’d rather be working and living.

Tags: CubeSpace, PDX, Portland, Startupalooza

About The Author

kveton

30th

March 2008

bykveton
posted in CubeSpace, Portland, Startupalooza
9 Comments »

8 Comments Add Yours ↓

The upper is the most recent comment

Aaron B. Hockley #

03.30.2008 16:36
1
It was great to hear more about Vidoop and meet your cohort Kevin as well.

I agree with you about the Portland tech/creative scene, it’ll be interesting to watch things take off.

Only $360? Wow. I’m going to agree with @mtrichardson.
Rick Turoczy #

03.30.2008 18:57
2
Great recap. And great photos, as always. Hoping to see some more people writing recaps today. Otherwise my Startupalooza “round up” is going be very Kveton-focused. ;)
http://www.jasonglaspey.com/ #

03.30.2008 21:06
3
Kevin,

It was great to meet you too, had a great time at the whole event, but hearing about vidoop, meeting you and the team, all highlights. As for the small bill at side door, all I can say is, give us another chance, we can do better, I promise…
Michael Sigler #

03.31.2008 04:47
4
Good recap. I also believe a formalized demo group could be very handy. Give us all some feedback that is sorely needed and keep us out of our echo chambers. I also really enjoyed
Michael Sigler #

03.31.2008 04:48
5
Stupid enter key…

…I also really enjoyed hearing Matt and Bill speak about Jive. I think they present just as well to a group as they do in person.
Rick Turoczy #

03.31.2008 05:13
6
Kveton,

I was talking to some other folks about the demo idea and people are liking the idea. Let’s get this figured out. For startups and side projects alike.

I’m thinking something akin to Finish your %#&*@ drafts, which was designed to help folks finally complete all of those drafts sitting in their blogging software.

Maybe we’d call at least one of the demo events, “Launch your %#&*@ side project”? I know I could definitely use that.

Looking forward to helping however I can.
Bram pitoyo #

03.31.2008 06:44
7
Scott,

You’re absolutely right. Portland’s tech scene is vibrant and full of ideas (don’t we all seem to always have “side projects?” :), and every conversation I had that day was inspiring.

I loved your app critique event idea as well, and am willing to help to make it happen. Not enough of a dev or app designer to help out, but can bring some marketing/planning perspective into it.
Paul Biggs #

03.31.2008 07:08
8
Mr. Kaveeeetun, you must have me mistaken for the other Paul Biggs. My S.O. would never grow weary of my prolific ideas about social media (hi Erin!)… Ok, yes, I love the idea of ad hoc techie gatherings. So much of my life is booked to 2nd Wednesdays and 4th Tuesdays around here. What if I just want to get a beer and geek out? No harm there. Send up the bat-signal. Hashtags may just do the trick. Let’s give it a whirl: http://hashtags.org/tag/drunkgeeking/ (though, sadly, I won’t be able to partake for a week or two).

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Techpaulogy 31 03 08

Startupalooza or Bust!

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kveton

30th

March 2008

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