New Site!

We have relaunched our site, at http://www.portlandten.com. Please join us there to follow project updates and learn more about the program.

10 Questions From Portland Ten

Currently, we’re 2/3 done with our first cycle of Portland Ten, and looking forward to what’s coming up next. We’re planning to hold another 12-week round of the bootcamp starting June 8th, and will announce the dates for the application period soon.

Also, we have had some requests from local entrepreneurs to offer some of the activities and methodology that our founders experience while in the program, on an “a la carte” basis.

We’d like to make sure that the programs we deliver resonate with what you actually need to help you on a day-to-day level, in starting and building a tech company here in Portland.

If you have a few minutes, we’d genuinely love to hear your answers to 10 questions. The feedback you give is extremely helpful, and we appreciate it.

Lunch with Vidoop

We had the opportunity to take the Portland Ten team to lunch today with Luke Sontag and Scott Blomquist, from Vidoop.

Each of the P10 founders discussed their projects and Scott and Luke gave a brief critique on the concept and ideas for improvement/opportunities. Then they overviewed the history of Vidoop and how they went about identifying and solving problems in the consumer identity/authentication/security space.

After lunch, we dropped by the Vidoop offices to see where the magic happens. Scott talked over some of the company culture things they’ve done to bring the biz dev & engineering teams together, and maximize group productivity.

It was great for the team to meet with a couple of entrepreneurs who are a few years ahead in building their concept into a viable company. Gives the guys something tangible to have in mind, as they work toward their $1MM goals.

If you’re a local PDX startup/entrepreneur who’s been around the block a few times and would like to meet with P10 to share your  story, we’d love to set something up to meet with you– please drop us a note. 🙂

Tonight’s Task Session: Nancy King, “What It Takes To Grow An Idea: People”

Every week at Portland Ten, we hold 2 “task sessions”, which are 90-minute work sessions based on completing a hands-on task that our founders need in order to build their company.

The typical format is that whoever is teaching the work session gets only 5 minutes to “speak”– and only on the absolutely most relevant information that our founders need to know about that topic. After that, they spend the next 85 minutes doing some kind of outcome-oriented activity or task.

We stick to this format because our entrepreneurs don’t need lecture or theory as much as they need to apply clearly-taught business concepts in the day-to-day tasks necessary to build and grown their concepts. 🙂

Now that we’re in week 4, we are beginning to invite local professionals in relevant areas (finance, investment, scalability, recruiting, legal, etc.) to come in and run a task session with the group based on their expertise.

Tonight’s task session is being run by Nancy King (add her on LinkedIn!), an executive level tech recruiter here in Portland, who I met last fall and whose philosophy on talent search is just fantastic.

Nancy’s task session this evening is titled, “What It Takes To Grow An Idea: People.” In prep, she wrote a blogpost by the same name, which you can read here.

The outcome for the work session is for our founders to assess their skills and patterns from within their career to determine why they should or shouldn’t be the CEO. They’ll identify the role they should play and who should be hired to complement their skills. Finally, Nancy will assist them in defining the type of culture they want to develop in their companies, and how to find the right team members.

Our task sessions are currently closed to Portland Ten entrepreneurs only, but I think we will begin opening up some of the task sessions to the local startup community in PDX, and we’ll announce that through our blog and our Twitter account.

Thanks again Nancy, for your efforts to help our P10 founders in defining some of these core decisions regarding talent, roles, and company culture!

Introducing The Team

As part of our mission to facilitate the creation of ten new $1MM startups in Portland over the next 18 months, Portland Ten is excited to announce the first round of participating entrepreneurs:

• Ben Parzybok, Walker Tracker
• Dave Miller, GiftoFile
• John Metta, Hydrasi
• Kenneth Beare, Lingofeeds

After a series of comprehensive interviews in the local startup community, we selected these entrepreneurs to participate in Portland Ten because we are confident in their ability to take their project to the million dollar level.

This group has a tremendous enthusiasm and willingness to learn what it takes to run a high-growth tech venture here in Oregon, and each has committed to generate $1MM in revenue by October 2010.

“Portland Ten is driving me to understand Lingofeeds from all angles. It’s exhilarating, challenging in the extreme, and brutally honest at all times. Most importantly, it is helping me put the pieces together to form a successful online venture,” said Kenneth Beare, founder of Lingofeeds.

Portland Ten is a 12-week bootcamp that combines venture capital investment standards, Getting Things Done methodology, and extreme bootstrapping philosophy to launch and grow early stage startups in Portland, Oregon.

We are currently in the 4th week of our pilot session, which runs through May 22. The next session of Portland Ten will tentatively begin June 8. Read more about the team here, or follow updates on Portland Ten via Twitter or on our blog.

Media Contact

Carolynn Duncan
Program Director, Portland Ten
(503) 734.9036
duncan.carolynn@gmail.com

Get Involved In Portland Ten

The goal to help ten companies to the $1MM/more in revenue mark, by 2010, isn’t going to be a solo endeavor; nor is it a goal which is limited to the 10 entrepreneurs who are going through the first session.

We’re encouraging entrepreneurs whether on the Portland Ten team, or not, to take their side projects up a notch by thinking through and taking action on tasks related to market validation, revenue generation & commercialization.

As we go throughout this first session of Portland Ten, we’ll be documenting the experience on our blog, Twitter, etc., and opening up various events & activities to the community as a whole.

Support from the startup community has been tremendous. We are continuing to interview entrepreneurs and will be forming & announcing the team of Ten, and looking forward to kicking things off the week of February 23.

In the meantime, here are some ways you can get involved in the Portland Ten:

1. Add us on Twitter: @portlandten

2. Follow updates on our blog

3. Share your ideas/thoughts on the Portland Ten– what we’re doing right, and what you’d like to see changed.

4. If you’re an entrepreneur, consider applying. Or recommend someone who you think would benefit from the experience.

5. Become a local partner.

We have an active list of local founders, angel/VC investors, mentors, subject/industry experts, lawyers/CFO/accountants who we will be drawing from to work 1-on-1 with our entrepreneurs throughout the program.

We’d love to continue adding to this support team, so that when our founders have a need, we can connect them to the right person/resource. Email duncan.carolynn@gmail.com to sign up.

6. Tell us how you’d like to be involved– if you have an idea about how you can get involved, let us know.

What Do You Think?

This week, we’ve seen a lot of discussion about Portland Ten, via SiliconFlorist, Hacker News, Twitter, etc.

We really appreciate the effort you take to give us your feedback, and let us know when we’re doing something right, and more importantly, when we’re getting off track.

With that said– what do you think? Let us know your thoughts on Portland Ten; we’re listening.

Post a comment.

Send an email: duncan.carolynn@gmail.com

DM us on Twitter– @portlandten

Now Interviewing Candidates

We are currently interviewing entrepreneurs for our pilot of Portland Ten, which begins February 23rd.

We look for an entrepreneur right on the cusp of starting a high-growth business. A teachable entrepreneur who will commit to the required activities, and the optional activities when possible. 

An entrepreneur who will consider themselves the first investor in the project and raise the funds to pay the $500/month program tuition.

Specific Metrics We Evaluate Entrepreneurs On

• Attitude, passion, and teachability
• Available and willing to engage in the program activities
• Ability to respond responsibly to critical 3rd party feedback
• Prior business/startup experience
• Prior technical/industry experience
• Presentation of self & the concept during the interview
• Tangible evidence of product development (wireframes, demo, beta product, launched product)
• Ability to form/manage a strong team & network (co-founders, employees, advisors, partners)
• Personal investment into the project (time, effort, cash)
• Demonstrable market potential
• Focus/project management skills
• Bootstrappiness– ability to work with little, limited, or no obvious resources, in a way that perpetually generates forward progress
• Ability to motivate self & others to deploy resources to get tasks accomplished

Interview Process

Interested entrepreneurs are invited to contact Portland Ten staff to set up a one on one interview to determine if there is a good fit for both parties. During the interview, we go through a series of questions via conversation to assess the entrepreneur’s passion, skill set, management style, current status of the project, and overall market viability of the concept.

Ten candidates are selected based on an informal assessment of the entrepreneur’s ability to manage a $1M project, and the concept’s overall market viability.

If you or someone you know is interested in interviewing for the Portland Ten, email duncan.carolynn@gmail.com for more info.