# Rick Turoczy

*More than mildly obsessed with connecting dots in the startup community*

> Community, startups, innovation… all of the buzzwords

I write about startups, build community for a living, and get paid to stand on stages and say things that are — on a good day — useful. If you need a keynote or a brain deeply steeped in experimentation, you're in the right place.

Portland, Oregon. Available for keynotes and consulting.
Contact: rick@piepdx.com

---

## Hello, I'm Rick

Portland has never been particularly good at bragging about itself.

That's part of the charm. It's also a problem. And somewhere around 2007, I started a blog called Silicon Florist to do the bragging on everyone else's behalf — mostly because no one else was going to.

More than six thousand posts later, I’m still at it. Even though numerous people have begged me to stop. But like three of you encouraged me to keep going. So here we are.

Along the way I cofounded **PIE**, an experiment in getting startups and giant companies like Nike, Google, Intel, Target, and Wieden+Kennedy into the same room without anyone getting hurt. I cofounded **TechfestNW**. And **Built Oregon**. I helped organize Open Source Bridge, 30 Hour Day, Built Festival, and more PIE Demo Days than I can count — which mostly meant showing up early and staying late.

I don't really do anything. But I do my damnedest to celebrate the folks who are actually doing things.

Sometimes people pay me to help. That still surprises me.

---

## Talks

I'm an introvert who has spent three decades in rooms full of people. So I've had to get very deliberate about how any of this works — and it turns out the deliberate part is the useful part.

I've done this at TEDxPortland, in front of 3,000 folks at Keller Auditorium. At HubSpot's INBOUND. At the Skoll World Forum. In Kobe, Japan, and Muscat, Oman, where I told very patient audiences to stop trying to be Silicon Valley.

Nobody has asked for their money back yet.

- **An Introvert's Guide to Networking** — The version of networking you've been sold is built for people who like networking. This is the one for everybody else — where showing up, listening, and following through beat working the room every single time. — Delivered at TEDxPortland, Keller Auditorium
- **Don't be the next Silicon Valley. Be the first you.** — Every city wants a Sand Hill Road. Almost none of them need one. What you actually have — the industries, the weirdos, the institutions already sitting there — is the thing worth building on, and I'll make the case with receipts from a town that spent thirty years learning it the hard way. — Versions delivered in Kobe, Japan and Muscat, Oman
- **Aggressive humility: when your best founders refuse to tell anyone they exist** — Portland founders won't promote themselves. It's charming. It's also killing them. A talk about why quiet ecosystems get overlooked, and what to do about it that doesn't require anyone to become insufferable. — Related: “The Power of Humility,” HubSpot INBOUND Bold Talks
- **Collect dots before you connect dots** — Everybody wants to be the connector. Nobody wants to do the boring part first. This is about the years of listening, remembering, and writing it down that make the connecting look like magic later — and why there's no shortcut.
- **Accelerators are crash tests** — We spent years at PIE accelerating startups, and the most valuable thing we did was accelerate the failures. Finding out you're wrong in three months instead of three years is a gift — here's how to build a program that hands out that gift on purpose. — Related: “Ecosystem Builders as Second Responders to Crisis,” Skoll World Forum

A fair number of these were recorded. [Here they are](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr9gWRSfZqd523XOFnJXtp6ccvt0w44CA), if you want to check whether I can hold a room before you book me for one.

*Want something else? Ask. I'll tell you honestly if I'm the wrong person, and usually suggest someone better.*

Keynotes, panels, fireside chats, and the occasional unconference. Yes, I travel. Yes, I'll do the early flight. Even the redeye.

---

## Receipts

- **TEDxPortland** — “An Introvert's Guide to Networking,” Keller Auditorium
- **HubSpot INBOUND** — Bold Talks, “The Power of Humility”
- **Skoll World Forum** — “Ecosystem Builders as Second Responders to Crisis”
- **Kauffman Foundation ESHIP Summit** — panels and working groups
- **SXSW** — Pitch judge for roughly a decade, and curator of the Portland Tech Meet Up
- **Kobe, Japan** and **Muscat, Oman** — invited keynotes on building a community you actually have

I've turned up on PBS NewsHour, OPB's Think Out Loud, GeekWire, The Oregonian, Portland Monthly, Oregon Business, and the cover of Willamette Week.

Other folks have described me more generously than I'd ever describe myself. So I'll let them.

> "Rick is kind of a fairy godfather of the Portland startup scene."*Mara Zepeda, from the TEDxPortland stage — [watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Iul863X-M&t=300s)*

> "The unofficial mayor of startup Portland."*Renny Gleeson*

> "The Don Quixote of Portland tech. There is only one Rick."*Dylan Boyd*

The Kauffman Foundation calls me one of the “OGs” of ecosystem building. The Portland Business Journal gave me Small Business Advocate of the Year. Mara also once called me Yoda, which I've decided to interpret as a comment on the wisdom and not the height.

---

## Hire me

*This isn't magic. It's simply focus.*

**Return** has been my consulting outfit since 2004. Return helps your company focus on a personality, an identity. Usually that personality is polite. Sometimes it’s quirky. Sometimes it’s downright rude.

To get there, Return helps you find the voice and the attitude your market actually wants — and then helps you interact with that market in the least obtrusive, most compelling way possible.

People tend to describe this as branding. Or rebranding. Or positioning. Or marketing. Or consulting. Or some other word they think conveys the concept. What’s the right word? **Focus.**

Because when it comes right down to it, Return earns its keep by helping you distill ideas into words and images your customers and employees understand, want, and cannot forget.

**Who should call:** founders who can't explain their own company at a dinner party. Teams whose messaging drifted three pivots ago. Accelerators, economic development folks, and universities trying to build a startup program that isn't just a rerun of somebody else's.

**What it looks like:** a few honest conversations, an outsider reading everything you've published, and a short document you'll actually use. Then I get out of your way.

Usually this means someone from outside asking the annoying questions your team is too polite to ask.

---

## Writing

I've been writing [**Silicon Florist**](https://siliconflorist.com) since 2007. More than six thousand posts about Oregon startups. Most of them written before anyone else thought there were Oregon startups worth writing about.

There are shows now, too: **Portland, Oregon, Startup News**, **Startup Stories with Silicon Florist**, and **The Long Con**, which is exactly as advisable as it sounds. All of them live on [YouTube](https://youtube.com/@turoczy_) and wherever you get podcasts.

I also wrote the [**PIE Cookbook**](https://siliconflorist.com/2017/04/04/an-initial-taste-of-the-pie-cookbook/) — everything we figured out running an accelerator, including the mistakes and the happy accidents, written down and given away so any community could run its own. We Kickstarted it in 2016. It is still a beta. It will probably always be a beta.

Before all of that, I wrote a few hundred posts for [**ReadWriteWeb**](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025090628/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/author/rick-turoczy-1page2.php) and [**More than a Living**](https://morethanaliving.com/author/turoczy/), back when tech blogging was a thing you could just decide to do.

I also wrote a blog called “hypocritical” starting in 1998. We don’t need to talk about that. (But if you’re curious, it’s still out there in the [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/20061208154323/http://www.hypocritical.com/blog).)

---

## Work

Thirty years of it. The first half was marketing jobs at software companies. The second half is harder to describe, which is why the blog exists.

### Still going

- Silicon Florist — Founder & editor — 2007 – present
- PIE (Portland Incubator Experiment) — Cofounder & general manager — 2009 – present
- Built Oregon — Cofounder; interim director 2024–25; advisor — 2014 – present
- Return — Cofounder — 2004 – present
- Business for a Better Portland — Advisor — 2016 – present

### Finished

- Startup Champions Network — Board member — 2021 – 2024
- Calm Company Fund — Scout and investor — 2021 – 2022
- Backstage Capital — Mentor and investor — 2017 – 2022
- TechfestNW — Cofounder & advisor — 2011 – 2021
- Oregon Games Organization — Board member — 2014 – 2021
- Indie.vc — Scout — 2019 – 2021
- Portland IQ — Startup resource work group lead — 2018 – 2019
- Oregon Story Board — Cofounder & advisor — 2012 – 2018
- Technology Association of Oregon — Board member — 2011 – 2017
- Oregon Entrepreneurs Network — Advisory board member — 2011 – 2014

### Before all this

- Open Source Bridge — Marketing lead — 2008 – 2009
- ReadWriteWeb — Writer — 2008 – 2009
- hypocritical — Blogger — 1998 – 2007
- Digimarc — Manager, corporate marketing communications — 2005 – 2006
- ProSight — Senior manager, marketing — 2001 – 2005
- Medscape — Manager, corporate communications — 2000 – 2001
- MedicaLogic / Medscape — Manager, interactive marketing — 1999 – 2000
- MedicaLogic — Marketing specialist — 1999
- Diversity Corporation — Production manager — 1996 – 1999
- David Hiatt Literary Agency — Editor and literary agent — 1994 – 1996
- Whitman College — Head coach, lacrosse — 1993 – 1995

### School, and one award I still can’t explain

- Whitman College — BA, English — 1989 – 1993
- Portland Business Journal — Small Business Advocate of the Year; Forty Under 40 — 2014

---

## Index

Everything I can find a record of — 99 entries and counting. Some of it I remember fondly. Some of it I remember differently than the people who were there.

### Keynotes, conference talks, and panels

- 2026 — [PubTalks Fireside Chat, Eugene — two decades of Oregon startups](https://www.tickettailor.com/events/collaborativeedo/2023310)
- 2025 — [FOSSY — “Cooking Up Community: Build the Fire, Embrace Every Ingredient, Always Stir the Pot”](https://2025.fossy.us/speaker/profile/486/index.html)
- 2024 — [Silicon Forest Tech Summit — introducing the inaugural summit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3uXRPMEcGs)
- 2020 — [Skoll World Forum — “Ecosystem Builders as Second Responders to Crisis”](https://socialventurers.com/ecosystem-builders-as-second-responders-to-crisis/)
- 2018 — [TEDxPortland — “An Introvert’s Guide to Networking,” Keller Auditorium, 3,000+ people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj98mr_wUA0)
- 2018 — [Kauffman Foundation ESHIP Summit, Kansas City — “Why do you do what you do?”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnNX2vPJM8)
- 2015 — [Whitman College — Andjelkovic Endowed Lecture Series, back at the alma mater](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eyIqdpG4ZU)
- 2015 — [New Relic FutureTalk — moderating “Mobile Strategy for Today and Tomorrow”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S7t-vYhWYk)
- 2013 — [HubSpot INBOUND, Boston — “The Power of Humility,” Bold Talks track](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs7Hr_CN5v4)
- 2013 — [PSU Elevating Impact Summit — moderator, “Resilience: Uncensored”](https://www.pdx.edu/business/elevating-impact-2013)
- 2012 — [SOBCon, Chicago — on building things people actually show up for](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5e0sH3POlw)
- 2009 — [InnoTech Conference — “To Blog Or Not to Blog”](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/20090422innotechblogornot/1361308)
- 2008–09 — [PDX Web Innovators — Portland tech community retrospective and outlook](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/2008-portland-tech-recap-presentation/816775)
- recurring — SXSW Interactive, Austin — SXSW Pitch judge and advisory board, and curator of the Portland Tech Meet Up
- archival — OEN PubTalk, Portland — “The Tech Startup Scene in Portland”
- multiple — Kobe, Japan — invited keynote on regional ecosystem development
- multiple — Muscat, Oman — invited keynote on building on local assets instead of cloning Silicon Valley

### Shows I host

- 2024– — [*Startup Stories with Silicon Florist* — long-form founder interviews across Oregon and SW Washington](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/startup-stories-with-silicon-florist/id1849468494)
- 2024– — [*The Long Con* — in person only, no video calls, no format](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-long-con-with-rick-turoczy/id1810923457)
- 2023– — [*Portland, Oregon, Startup News* — weekly companion to Silicon Florist. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Libsyn, YouTube](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/portland-oregon-startup-news-silicon-florist/id1711294699)
- 2023– — [*Mildly Interesting People* — co-creator and co-host, with Cami Kaos](https://mildlyinterestingpeople.com/)
- 2020–21 — [*PIE Crowdcast* — live AMA series for founders during the pandemic](https://www.crowdcast.io/piepdx)
- 2009–11 — [*memePDX* — co-host with Cami Kaos. Episodes live in the Silicon Florist archive.](https://siliconflorist.com/2010/02/25/memepdx-026-jive-software-ceo-dawn-foster-joins-meego-open-source-bridge-yahoo-twitter-ngmoco-raises-25-million/)

### Podcasts and broadcasts, as a guest

- 2026 — [*My Open Source Experience* — the secrets to successful and sustainable events](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h9yurfW0es)
- 2026 — [*Next Round VC* — the truth about startup accelerators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkeX3OZjfG4)
- 2026 — [*The Intersection*, Intersectional Group — on founders socializing their concepts, blogging, curiosity, and abundance](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-intersection-presented-102288352/episode/its-really-important-for-founders-to-socialize-those-business-concepts-with-rick-turoczy-on-portlands-startup-community-blogging-long-live-silicon-florist-curiosity-and-abundance-318624657)
- 2025 — [Paden Squires — “Grow Slow, Win Big: The Truth About the Compounding Effect”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNQekLBGoZc)
- 2025 — [*FutureProof Business* — 30 years in startups: startup myths, VC truths, and building the Portland ecosystem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WosfYTTAV8o)
- 2025 — [*The 5 Min Startup* — Episode 3, on why new businesses fail fast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbbAT6TcH-8)
- 2025 — [*Startup Success*, Burkland — strategies for startups outside Silicon Valley](https://burklandassociates.com/podcasts/strategies-for-startups-outside-silicon-valley/)
- 2025 — [*Overcommitted* — “Navigating the Startup Landscape,” on founder burnout and where startups actually fail](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/navigating-the-startup-landscape-with-rick-turoczy/id1804549260?i=1000735230674)
- 2022 — [*Social Venturers* — S04E08, “Succession Planning: Transferring Social Capital to the Next Generation”](https://socialventurers.com/s04e08/)
- 2021 — [*The Communities Show*, Gamedev Camp — PIE, Built Oregon, TechfestNW, and the Portland startup community](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyNkXUrfY8)
- 2020 — [*Float Small Business* — Episode 6](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKnK2BmHMwo)
- 2020 — [Millwork Commons — on the Portland startup community](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVCeDXnT0nI)
- 2020 — [*Willamette Week* — Distant Voices, an early-pandemic conversation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG-ObTekUo0)
- 2020 — [*The Digital Native* — Episode 11, on PIE and structural incubator design](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw2XY1gr3uM)
- 2018 — [*And Uhhh* — Episode 4](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-4-rick-turoczy/id1347311606?i=1000412586971)
- 2017 — [*PR Talk*, Veracity Agency — “Our Own Slice of PIE”, on the PIE Cookbook and accelerating failure](https://www.veracityagency.com/podcast/rick-turoczy/)
- 2017 — [The Tech Academy — Tech Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jsOaMwchew)
- 2015 — [*Launch Yourself*, Melissa Anzman — Session 28, on interacting more creatively](https://launchyourself.co/session28/)
- 2012 — [*GeekWire* — “Four minutes on the train with… Portland startup guru Rick Turoczy of PIE”](https://www.geekwire.com/2012/minutes-train-rick-turoczy/)
- 2011 — [*GeekWire Radio*, John Cook & Todd Bishop — sizing up the Seattle and Portland tech scenes](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/rewind-comparing-portland-seattle-tech-startup-scenes/)
- archival — [*PushPull* — Episode 17, “Startin’ Stuff”](https://pushpull.me/episode/episode-17-startin-stuff)

### Press and mentions

- 2021 — [*GeekWire* — mpathic and “empathy-as-a-service” at PIE Demo Day](https://www.geekwire.com/2021/startup-aims-improve-workplace-conversations-empathy-service-software/)
- 2021 — [*Willamette Week* — “What If You Could Pour Your Own Shampoo From a Tap?”](https://www.wweek.com/technology/2021/07/02/what-if-you-could-pump-your-own-shampoo/)
- 2020 — [Prosper Portland — Economic Recovery Task Force, listed across two work groups](https://prosperportland.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Economic-Recovery-Task-Force-Meeting-2.pdf)
- 2019 — [*Willamette Week* — “Is Oregon Home to the Next Billion-Dollar Company?”](https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/07/03/is-oregon-home-to-the-next-billion-dollar-company/)
- 2019 — [*Willamette Week* — “Rick Turoczy Says the Myth of the Unflappable Entrepreneur Is All Bullshit” (cover profile)](https://www.wweek.com/technology/2019/10/09/rick-turoczy-says-the-myth-of-the-unflappable-entrepreneur-is-all-bullshit/)
- 2017 — [OPB *Think Out Loud* — “Turkey Trouble | Lead Dust | Makers And Techs,” with Marcelino Alvarez, on the split between Oregon’s techs and its makers](https://www.opb.org/radio/programs/think-out-loud/article/turkey-lead-tech/)
- 2016 — [Work With Flux — on the clearinghouse of 100+ Oregon companies hiring after the Intel layoffs](https://www.workwithflux.com/blog/2016/5/12/intel-layoffs-will-strain-oregon-hiring-capacity-but-help-emerges-for-job-seekers)
- 2016 — [TEDxPortland — Mara Zepeda and Samuel Hulick, “Does technology make you feel more alive?”. She calls me a fairy godfather of the Portland startup scene, from the stage, at 5:00.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Iul863X-M&t=300s)
- 2015 — [*Portland Monthly* — “Hot Tips from Portland’s Financial Pros”](https://www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2015/01/hot-tips-from-portlands-financial-pros-january-2015)
- 2015 — [*Oregon Business* — PIE plans to leave the Wieden+Kennedy building](https://oregonbusiness.com/12056-portland-incubator-experiment-plans-to-leave-wiedenkennedy-building/)
- 2015 — [*GeekWire* — PIE closes the accelerator, keeps helping startups](https://www.geekwire.com/2015/portland-incubator-experiment-closes-accelerator-but-still-focused-on-helping-startups/)
- 2014 — [*Portland Business Journal* — “Small Business Awards: Rick Turoczy gets startups off to great starts”](https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/print-edition/2014/11/14/small-business-awards-rick-turoczy-gets-startups.html)
- 2014 — *Willamette Week* — PIE Demo Day live stream and report
- 2013 — [Business Wire — “The Silicon Florist Shares Some Secrets of Growing Good Relationships with Bloggers”](https://businesswired.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/the-silicon-florist-shares-some-secrets-of-growing-good-relationships-with-bloggers/)
- 2013 — [*Willamette Week* — “TechfestNW 2013: Rick Turoczy”](https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-21061-techfestnw-2013-rick-turoczy.html)
- 2013 — OPB *Think Out Loud* — “Northwest Technology Update.” The segment page is gone and nobody archived it.
- 2012 — [*GeekWire* — “Four minutes on the train with… Rick Turoczy of PIE”](https://www.geekwire.com/2012/minutes-train-rick-turoczy/)
- 2012 — [*Willamette Week* — “Exclusive: New PIE Class Announced”](https://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-28909-exclusive-new-pie-class-announced.html)
- 2011 — *The Oregonian* — Mike Rogoway on the launch of PIE
- 2011 — [*GeekWire* — “Google tosses support behind the Portland Incubator Experiment”](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/google-tosses-support-portland-incubator-experiment/)
- 2011 — [*GeekWire* — “Startup incubator reheats in Portland with help from Coke, Nike and Target”](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/startup-tech-incubator-reheats-portland-ad-giant-wiedenkennedy/)
- 2011 — [*GeekWire* — “Fast-growing startup BankSimple flees NYC for Portland: Here’s why”](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/fastgrowing-startup-banksimple-flees-nyc-portland/)
- 2011 — [*GeekWire* — “Seattle and Portland should do more to become BFFs” (guest column, mine)](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/seattle-portland-bffs/)
- 2011 — [*GeekWire* — Quotes of the Week, for publicly begging the internet to resurrect Kozmo](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/and-other-quotes-of-the-week/)
- 2010 — [OregonLive / *The Oregonian* — “30 Hour Day brings the telethon into the digital age”](https://web.archive.org/web/20160310122439/http://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2010/06/30_hour_day_brings_the_teletho.html)
- 2009 — [PBS *The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer* — “Tech Industry Faces Struggles Amid Economic Slump.” Lee Hochberg reporting from Portland; I turn up on the chyron as a high-tech industry analyst, which was news to me.](https://web.archive.org/web/20090203074541/http://www.pbs.org:80/newshour/bb/business/jan-june09/techindustry_01-22.html)
- 2008–09 — [*ReadWriteWeb* — bylined writer on the open web, APIs, and developer hubs outside California](http://web.archive.org/web/20120116011447/http://www.readwriteweb.com:80/archives/readwriteweb_expands_silicon_forest_empire.php)
- 2008 — [*The Oregonian* — Steve Woodward on Portland’s early Twitter adoption](https://web.archive.org/web/20160315014332/http://www.oregonlive.com/special/index.ssf/2008/05/twitter_is_tweeter.html)

### Books, decks, and masterclasses

- 2026 — [*It Takes a Valley*, Anika Horn — a practitioner’s book about the people who build the ecosystems that make entrepreneurship possible. I turn up in it.](https://bookshop.org/p/books/it-takes-a-valley-how-to-build-thriving-entrepreneurial-ecosystems-that-transform-our-communities-anika-horn/24830809?aid=128693&ean=9798995796312&listref=startup-books)
- 2025 — [*AI Is Revolutionizing Startup Growth Opportunities Now*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhiYkJBzA5M)
- 2025 — [*Securing Funding for Startups Beyond Silicon Valley*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgQlhhBr1eo)
- 2022 — [Founder University — *How to Write Investor Updates*, plus the metrics that matter (CAC, LTV, churn)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgz-Ud4fq6w)
- 2020 — [*The Startup Community Way*, Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway — on building complex, founder-led regional ecosystems. I turn up in this one too.](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-startup-community-way-evolving-an-entrepreneurial-ecosystem-brad-feld/16653612?aid=128693&ean=9781119613602&listref=startup-books)
- 2020 — [PIE AMA — *How to find investors in the Portland startup community*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuB_Sc09dmw)
- 2020 — [PIE AMA — *How to join the Portland startup community*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3VeNA8oD60)
- 2017 — [*Portland Makers: How to Build a Creative Community* — ポートランド・メイカーズ. Mitsuya Mazaki interviewed me in 2016; my words came out in Japanese, and later Korean.](https://book.gakugei-pub.co.jp/gakugei-book/9784761526429/)
- 2016–17 — [*The PIE Cookbook* — everything we learned running PIE, written down and given away open source so any community could run its own accelerator. Kickstarted in 2016; the 0.9 beta landed in 2017.](https://siliconflorist.com/2017/04/04/an-initial-taste-of-the-pie-cookbook/)
- [*Brand Signals* — 150 slides on positioning and the things a brand says without saying them](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/brand-signals/21148)
- [*Inspiring Illogical Decisions* — 50 slides on conviction over incrementalism](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/inspiring-illogical-decisions/7124543)
- [*A Series of Happy Accidents* — 48 slides on how Portland’s scene actually happened](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/a-series-of-happy-accidents/55054257)
- [*Ideas About Ideas* — 30 slides training executives to mentor founders](https://speakerdeck.com/turoczy/ideas-about-ideas)
- [*How to Bake PIE* — 37 slides on accelerator mechanics and cohort design](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/how-to-bake-pie-10474833/10474833)
- [*PIE: How to Meet* — 18 slides on how a founder meeting should actually go](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/pie-how-to-meet/16007393)
- [*OEN Social Media 101* — 83 slides of workshop for the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/oen-social-media-101-presentation/725914)
- [*Tiny Startup Camp: Social Media* — 21 slides, the short version](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/tiny-startup-camp-social-media/15146387)
- [*2008 Portland Tech Recap* — 64 slides, for PDX Web Innovators](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/2008-portland-tech-recap-presentation/816775)
- [Masterclasses on YouTube — starting a startup before building or funding, what founders are actually like, how to mentor, how to Portland startup community](https://youtube.com/@turoczy_)

### Kickstarter campaigns

- 2016 — [*PIE Cookbook: An Open Source Guide for Startup Accelerators* — crowdfunding the work of writing down everything we learned running PIE, and giving it away](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/turoczy/pie-cookbook-an-open-source-guide-for-startup-acce)
- 2014 — [*Built Oregon* — funding a statewide storytelling project for Oregon’s consumer product founders, because nobody was telling those stories either](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/130336980/built-oregon/)

### Things I helped organize

- 2023– — [*Pitch Black* — production crew. Stephen Green’s pitch competition for Black founders, and the best pitch event in Portland. Every dollar goes to the founders as non-dilutive grants.](https://www.pitchblack.org/)
- 2017– — [*Built Festival* — Built Oregon’s annual gathering of the state’s consumer product founders, makers, and retailers. Started as Built Up Festival in 2017; 700 people across 17 events that first week.](https://www.builtoregon.com/)
- 2011–21 — [*TechfestNW* — cofounder and programming curator, with *Willamette Week*. Multi-track stages, international speakers.](https://web.archive.org/web/20250926091357/https://www.techfestnw.com/)
- 2009–10 — [*30 Hour Day* — a 30-hour livestreamed telethon run out of PIE for Oregon Food Bank, Free Geek, and Toys for Tots. 77,000 viewers, nearly $10,000 raised, and we did it twice.](https://siliconflorist.com/2014/12/19/years-portlands-startup-scene-approaching-long-incredibly-rewarding-day/)
- 2008–09 — [*Open Source Bridge* — marketing lead for the first one, after OSCON left town](https://web.archive.org/web/20090305100212/http://opensourcebridge.org/)
- multiple — [*PIE Demo Days* — the day each cohort graduates into the ecosystem. Bittersweet every time.](https://www.piepdx.com/)

Missing something? I probably forgot it. [Tell me](mailto:rick@piepdx.com?subject=You%20forgot%20one) and I’ll add it.

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## Chat

Coming soon: a bot that has read everything I've ever written — every post, every talk, every long-winded answer — so you can ask it the thing you'd ask me.

Which means you can get a Rick opinion at 2am without having to buy me a coffee. Or wait for me to reply to your email, which — and I say this with love — can take a while.

Ask it something hard.

The Soqratic bot drops in here.

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## Say hello

If you've got a stage that needs filling, a company that can't explain itself, or a community you're trying to build from scratch — say hello. I'd genuinely love to hear what you're working on.

- [Book a talk](mailto:rick@piepdx.com?subject=Speaking%20inquiry)
- [Hire Return](mailto:rick@piepdx.com?subject=Consulting%20inquiry)
- [Subscribe to Silicon Florist](https://siliconflorist.substack.com)
- [Support the work on Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/turoczy)

- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/turoczy)
- [X](https://x.com/turoczy)
- [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/turoczy.bsky.social)
- [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/turoczy/)
- [YouTube](https://youtube.com/@turoczy_)
- [Substack](https://siliconflorist.substack.com)
- [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/turoczy)

**Let’s get started.**

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