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...
April may be the cruelest month for grouchy poets, but it shone an awful lot of sunlight on Portland upstarts last month. These scrappy entrepreneurs opened spots in five of the city's "quadrants," including, but not limited to, several retail outlets specializing in gifts, home design, new and used fashions, and one-of-a-kind rediscovered treasures, as well as a nursery, a pizzeria, three cafes, two bars, a barber shop 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...
Whether it's intended or not, Portland's newest indie business owners seem to be collectively trying to tell us something: Get fit, eat right and choose the right threads to show it all off. March brought with it the opening of a new yoga studio, a roller sport store, a bicycle repair and parts shop, and an athletic shoe store. Also opened were a new juice and smoothie bar, an urban farm and garden store, as well as a few shops more...
Event date: Apr 5, 2012
Event location: Nossa Familia Coffee Roastery
Let's celebrate the new Nossa Familia Roastery! Featuring: Food, drink, live music and coffee. Please join us as we celebrate the opening of our new roastery in the Pearl District. Plus, we are launching our Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama microlot, Gabriel's Grand Cru. Purchase this beautiful coffee for an introductory price of $7.00/8oz. bag. You will melt over this exceptional coffee with its cherry and chocolate flavors. RSVP 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...
