Next month’s cover story in Oregon Business Magazine is about the recent growth of Oregon’s bicycle industry. It’s great to see an industry so resilient — and prosperous — despite the floundering economy. So add Oregon’s bicycle industry to the handful of growth industries that make this area so unique, like green tech, outdoor apparel, design, and microbrewing, among others. As these industries grow, expect to see smaller companies sprout up around the main players, providing complementary products and services.
The bicycle industry is growing at a frenetic pace. The author explains:
“The market for anything connected to bicycles in Portland runs rich and deep, and entrepreneurs are sprinting to create new ways to tap into it. About 50 new bike-related businesses have sprung up over the past two years here, and while some are destined to remain forever fringe if they survive the downturn at all, others have tremendous potential.”
Despite the pace of growth, the industry is young, small and fragmented, as the author indicates. These new companies will certainly experience growing pains; the worry is that their owners won’t have the know-how to manage and grow their businesses. Ron Sutphin, president of the United Bike Institute of Ashland, comments in the article that “the industry has been run by enthusiasts who have had a hard time learning to be profitable and consistent enough to actually employ people.”
We posted recently about this — the need for entrepreneurs to surround themselves with a network of advisors. It’s a crucial step that entrepreneurs, especially those without prior business experience, fail to take. From a legal standpoint, owners must decide how to organize the business, protect the business’s property, including the intellectual property, and plan for the events at each stage of the business’s growth. These decisions are more important when more than one owner is involved. From a business perspective, we listed some resources available to Oregon companies in this previous post. Add to that list the Portland Development Commission, which was mentioned by the author as a resource for startups, including startups in Oregon’s bicycle industry.
Tags: bicycles, entrepreneurs, oregon, portland
[...] which have also been heavily featured in the local press lately, and which we wrote about recently. It’ll be interesting to see how the project turns out, considering the down economy and [...]
[...] quite well, according to this month’s cover story in the Oregonian, which we also wrote about here. But this morning’s New York Times features this piece, entitled “A Surge in [...]