Oregonstartups.com Blog

You can find an extensive calendar of events of interest to entrepreneurs in the Portland area (and elsewhere in Oregon) at Calagator.org. Here are some options we thing would be of interest to entrepreneurs.

Events in the coming week

Mon – Mobile Portland — SMS, MMS & Short Codes: Existing Technology & New Opportunities
Tue – Founders Coffee
Tue – Starveups: Convergence Marketing
Thu – Premier of Gresham Area Pub Talks
Fri – WhereCampPDX 2009: Opening Party
Mon – OTBC FastTrac TechVentures

For your Calendar – Events that are coming up

10/06 – OEN Executive Series (TM) Practical Education for Challenging times
10/06 – Founder’s Coffee
10/07 – OctoberBEST
10/07 – Demolicious! – Portland Web Innovators
10/08 – Portland Angel Network – Nov. meeting application deadline
10/09 – DrupalCamp PDX 2009
10/13 – OEN Workshop – Selling Stock in Your Company
10/14 – OEN PubTalk: – Seed Oregon – Round 1
10/16 – Bend Venture Conference
10/20 – SAOpdx: StartUp Exchange Meeting
10/21 – Lunch 2.0 at Elemental Technologies
10/21 – POSSE: Open Source Software in the Cloud
10/22 – OEN SwapMeet – October
10/23 – Corvallis Startup Weekend
10/28 – TechAmerica: Patents – an In Depth Primer
10/29 – OEN’s Venture Northwest 2009
11/05 – Willamette Innovators Night 2009
11/05 – OEN Workshop: Social Media with Ryan Lewis
11/12 – OEN PubTalk: – Seed Oregon – Round 2
11/18 – CEO Roundtable – Go to Market Strategies: Reaching your customers with limited resources
12/10 – OEN SwapMeet – December

You can find an extensive calendar of events of interest to entrepreneurs in the Portland area (and elsewhere in Oregon) at Calagator.org. Here are some options we thing would be of interest to entrepreneurs.

Events in the coming week

Sep 21 – Micro Nano Breakthrough Conference
Sep 22 – OTBC: Sales for the Non Seller
Sep 22 – Business Plan Development Seminar – September
Sep 23 – OR BOD Education Series: Board Evaluations
Sep 23 – Linux Plumbers Conf 2009
Sep 23 – How to Access Federal Funding for Renewable Energy and Cleantech Projects
Sep 24 – Climate Change – Positioning Your Business
Sep 24 – SAOpdx: ConnectPDX
Sep 24 – OEN Tom Holce Award Celebration
Sep 25 – OTBC: An HR Checklist for Startups
Sep 26 – OTBC: Startup SpeedDating
Sep 26 – TechStart Uncork-Ed

For your Calendar – Events that are coming up

Sep 29 – OIF and OEN Big BBQ Bash
Oct 02 – WhereCampPDX 2009: Opening Night
Oct 06 – OEN Executive Series (TM) Practical Education for Challenging times
Oct 07 – OctoberBEST
Oct 08 – Portland Angel Network – Nov. meeting application deadline
Oct 13 – OEN Workshop – Selling Stock in Your Company
Oct 14 – OEN PubTalk: – Seed Oregon – Round 1
Oct 16 – Bend Venture Conference
Oct 21 – Lunch 2.0 at Elemental Technologies
Oct 22 – OEN SwapMeet – October
Oct 29 – OEN’s Venture Northwest 2009
Nov 05 – OEN Workshop: Social Media with Ryan Lewis
Nov 12 – OEN PubTalk: – Seed Oregon – Round 2

I watched the video of Roger McNamee’s presentation for the Aug. 21, 2009 Tech Alliance Tech Talk today.  Roger has many years of experience investing in tech businesses.  Here are some of his comments on web start-ups that target consumers:

(if you have) a web business, and you’ve got cash flow in a web business, …  do not take money from anybody unless you really need it.  The real problem in a web business particularly consumer ones is that you have to build the audience before it makes any sense to try to build the revenues

When somebody comes to me with an early stage thing and there’s a business model in it, I say to them “time out”.  If you’re consumer focused I don’t think you can do it that way.  The ad market is not good enough. It just won’t support you. So you’re better off doing what we’re doing in music, which is give it away for a while, build the audience.  Why did I tell you that (music) story?  Because that’s how you build consumer web businesses today.

Putting the comment into context, I don’t think Roger is saying that he doesn’t believe in business models for web companies – but he does believe that it takes consumer focused web companies 3 years or more to get enough of an audience to be in a position of implementing a revenue strategy.  And expecting much revenue from advertising is not very realistic.  That’s certainly good food for thought for any entrepreneur who plans to start a consumer web business.  If that sounds like you, it’s worth watching the entire video.  It’s pretty long (over an hour and a half) but there is some good content.

Roger also had some good advice for entrepreneurs who are raising money:

The guy with the money doesn’t care how good your opportunity is.  The guy with the money wants to see that you understand all the risks  and that you have them contained or eliminated.  So in the battle of fear and greed, if you’re an entrepreneur raising money, eliminate the fear.  Whatever is left over will push you over the line.

To say the investor doesn’t care about how good the opportunity is goes a bit far — but the point on understanding and addressing risk is spot on.