Posts Tagged ‘startups’

Business Portland, a new web site for Portland businesses

Monday, February 8th, 2010

The City of Portland has just launched (mere hours ago) a new web site, Business Portland, aimed at “bring[ing] together resources to help Portland businesses grow and prosper.”  According to the Portland Business Journal

The site will offer information related to business assistance, such as financing, incentives for business development, mentoring and business counseling services. It will also provide suggestions on meeting sustainability goals, as well as links to business associations and nonprofit organizations.

Being only hours old, there isn’t much information on there yet, apart from links to some local resources.  It looks like the site’s development is intended to follow users’ preferences and feedback, like most social ventures.  Since the site has a long way to go, and can grow in any number of directions, it might be worth checking back in on over the coming months.

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Posted in Corporate | No Comments »

83(b) Elections: A Primer

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

The 83(b) election is one of those small tasks that startups (especially closely held companies) need to think about, but which is often also easily forgotten or ignored.  The failure to take advantage of the election can be costly: a large tax bill for a shareholder years down the line could be the result.

So what is the election, and when does it usually apply?  I’ll try my best to tackle both issues in plain English.  Although this topic has been blogged about quite a bit, the issue can be complicated, and explanations can quickly get confusing, so I thought I’d provide a concise (sort of) summary.  (more…)

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Posted in Corporate, Tax | No Comments »

Alternative Energy Companies

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

The Wall Street Journal ran this story today about the boom in investment and sales growth in alternative energy (or “greentech”) companies.  The story makes us think, of course, of Oregon, which is proving to be a cleantech hotbed.  We’ve written about this in the past in our Renewable Business in Green Portland post and in our Starting a Green Business post.  This latest WSJ article (more…)

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Posted in Corporate, Green Business | 4 Comments »

Oregon Business Incubators

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Many entrepreneurs may already be aware of the wealth of startup resources in the Portland area.  Others may still be learning the landscape.  Whatever the case, it’s a good idea to step back once in a while and survey what’s out there.  The Portland area is fortunate to have a number of recognizable business incubators, which serve startups by helping them become established (more…)

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Posted in Corporate | No Comments »

Portland’s Leftbank Project

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

For those of you who also follow Portland’s start-up scene, the Leftbank project on the east side has been receiving press throughout the year, and recently received more coverage from the Portland Tribune here.  The project is intriguing for it’s objective — to house under one roof a group of creative, design and sustainable businesses, which are the types of businesses that already make up a large segment of Portland start-ups.  Included among those businesses are bicycle companies, which have also been heavily featured (more…)

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Posted in Corporate, Green Business | No Comments »

Lawyers and Entrepreneurs

Friday, December 26th, 2008

Occasionally we drop by the Kauffman Foundation’s site to see what’s the news at one of the centers of American entrepreneurialism (maybe an overstatement, but it’s very important).  Their site is packed full of useful information for the entrepreneurial-minded.  We were pleasantly surprised to see on their front page this article about the Foundation’s recent $10 million investment to cultivate innovation-friendly law, policy and legal scholarship.  Investment in this area is crucial; the law is notoriously slow to catch up, especially so when applied to innovative industries and 2.0 (more…)

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Posted in Corporate, Intellectual Property | 1 Comment »

Emerging 200 Initiative in Portland

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Of the many challenges that face start-ups, one is assembling a network of advisors to assist in achieving the company’s goals.  Fortunately for Portland area companies, there is a strong entrepreneurial community that plays that role.  Think of groups such as OEN, OTBC, Oregonstartups.com or even OECDD, not to mention the wealth of Internet resources.  On a national level, the federal Small Business Administration (SBA) plays a significant role in providing financing to start-ups, as we wrote (more…)

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Posted in Corporate | 1 Comment »

Financing Startups

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

While browsing through earth2tech’s daily roundup of headlines for green startups we came across a couple of stories about startups receiving “Series A funding,” which made us think about the many ways to finance new businesses. Getting an idea from A to Z requires money, often from an outside source (if you can get any these days).  Outside money typically comes in the form of bank loans, a sale of securities (often called a “private placement of securities”), venture capital or government (more…)

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Posted in Corporate, Green Business, Securities | 2 Comments »