Click on the compass above to explore the 95 neighborhoods and 38 business districts in Portland, Oregon.
This is the final installment in a series about the steps small business owners need to take before hiring their first employee. If you’ve already taken a hard look at your business and determined the right time to hire your first employee as well as figured thevalue your time, you’ve done the heavy lifting. "For a sole proprietor or someone who has a boutique, there's really not a lot invested in bringing in that more...
Twitter or Facebook? LinkedIn, Instagram, Foursquare, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, or even MySpace? The options can be overwhelming (don't click here unless you want your head to spin), especially if you don't even recognize a few of the above names, let alone understand what function they serve. So, which one should you choose? "Fish where the fish are," Ben Lloyd, the president of Amplify Interactive, says. And more...
Job growth in Portland comes from local, small businesses. As demonstrated in the last installment of Thinking Local, a discussion of “Job Creation Not Relocation,” resident companies are growing considerably while nonresidents are losing jobs—that’s negative job creation. In a 10 year period from 1999 to 2009, existing Portland companies grew by 63.6 percent while nonresidents (headquartered outside of more...
If you think conducting a survey means canvassing your neighborhood with a clipboard and tallying results, you’ve got it wrong. Surveys are an effective, affordable and underutilized business tool that small business owners and community organizations can use to obtain information and evaluate what’s most important to their customers and neighbors. All well-planned projects require the input of outsiders to make sure more...
Portland loves its food carts—there’s no doubt about that. While there might be differences of opinion regarding the “best” food cart in town—it’s hard to compare the fishy chips of EuroTrash to the breakfast offerings at The Big Egg—there’s certainly no question that the city’s food cart scene is embraced by the city’s foodie culture as a distinct element that helps more...
A small business owner recently asked Neighborhood Notes, “What do I need to do to hire my first employee?” We began to answer that question by talking to several small business owners who have already hired their first, and in some cases second, third and more, employee. Simply enough, we asked: “How do you know when it’s time to hire your first employee?” The responses were insightful, full of more...
It's frequently estimated that the cost of recruiting, hiring and training a new employee can cost a business $4,000 (or more), which is often anywhere from 25 percent to 200 percent of annual compensation for that new worker. As industrious and multi-talented as you may be, if your goal is to grow your business, and have a life outside of it, the reality is that you can't do it all. At some point you need to assess when the more...
Having a future exit plan will also help you operate your business now. more...
While new restaurants and bars ruled the business landscape of early and midwinter, late winter in Portland belonged to consignors, refurbishers and providers of vintage threads. While February brought new businesses specializing in baked sweets, cotton candy, authentic Iraqi cuisine, and chicken and waffles (plus fitness classes to work it all off), it also brought retailers of jewelry made from found fossils, resellers of gently used more...
A walk around your own neighborhood can tell you a lot more about where you live than you might think. Its architecture, of course, defines its look. Its residents define its feel (and, depending on their median age, its sound), while its bakeries, breweries and food carts (or the absence there of) define its predominant smell. In sum, they all capture not just what space you occupy, but how you occupy it. But what does your more...
