Startup Stories with Silicon Florist

Conello founder Kyra Boveda was a remote software engineer who'd sometimes log off at the end of the day and realize she hadn't had a single real conversation with anyone. It can be a lonely way to work. So she started throwing virtual game nights and happy hours to fix it — and that little instinct to bring people back together turned into Conello. LINKS:Conello — https://getconello.comPortland S...

Ever catch yourself wondering where your people are, which corners of town actually feel like yours, where the third spaces and the good local food and the ways to pitch in even live…? Finding all of that organically can take years. It can take a fair amount of luck. That's the gap Our Place is built to close. Our Place is a single place to discover local events, food, volunteering, and the ex...

Tellagence has been working on AI for 15 years. Matt Hixson co-founded Tellagence in Portland in 2011 — back when Twitter was still called Twitter and "we do AI" got you weird looks instead of a meeting. Fifteen years later, the company is having its moment, and Matt is sitting across from me telling me he's too stubborn to have let it die. Living proof, he calls it.https://www.tellagence.ai/FIND...

Allegory is an AI-native platform that helps match grantees to the right opportunities, drafts proposals with an agent system built on Cloudflare's Launchpad, and reduces the post-award reporting overhead for both grantees and capital providers. The audacious goal: application to funding in 30 days or less.https://allegory.world

Sam Titus, CEO and co-founder of DocCron, discusses how their trucking fintech company leverages "artificial intelligence" to identify additional revenue from existing trips. This highlights a significant advancement in "financial technology" within the trucking industry, showcasing the potential for "finance" and "startup banking" to evolve. It's a grea...

David Bynum spent a decade in footwear product design watching how a few component swaps could spin a shoe into a whole new product. Then COVID hit, he started tinkering, and Switchkraft was born — a Portland company making maximal modular multi-tools for adults who want their inner child back. The pitch: therapeutic play. The reality: 2 million possible configurations on the customizer, all 3D-pr...

It's not all AI for startups. UrbanForm founder Quang Truong on leaving architecture to automate zoning for cities, why technical advantages are disappearing in the age of AI, and why the founders who win next will be the ones with people skills, distribution networks, and grit — not just a clever idea. Plus: why no website or AI tool can replace a human you trust, and what Portland's phys...

Susan Bladholm has spent eight and a half years trying to put an electric passenger ferry on the Willamette River. Everyone says it's a no-brainer. Nobody's funding it. In this conversation, the founder of Friends of Frog Ferry talks about what happens when a city loves your idea but won't champion it, the $2 billion transportation shortfall that keeps new transit ideas on the shelf, a...

A conversation with Kabir Bhatia, CEO and co-founder of Hello Everyday — a startup creating a graceful solution for aging in place safely. Hello Everyday makes a small device that plugs into a wall outlet. No buttons, no cameras, no wearables. It uses smart radar to detect human activity and sends daily reassurance messages to up to five people. If something goes wrong, they'll know. In this e...

Matti Neustadt, Chief Executive Officer of V4 Final, shares valuable entrepreneurship insights. She emphasizes the critical need for startups to deeply understand customer problems. This starter story is a must-watch for anyone seeking entrepreneur motivation. TIMESTAMPS00:00 Startup stories cold open 0:15 What does your startup do? 1:48 What inspired you to work on this problem?8:05 What's on...

Chris Piercey is the CEO and founder of Decisio Media, a new app that brings dating-app-style swiping to movies and TV shows. With a patent-pending four-way swipe — left/right for seen it, up/down for want to see it — Decisio lets you curate your entertainment preferences without the algorithmic bias baked into most streaming platforms. Born from a frustrating night on the couch realizing Netflix...

Mary Williams spent 25+ years in storytelling — from the Disney Animation archives to the online creator economy. Now she's built Sasquatch Media Grounds, a boutique media production studio in Vancouver, WA, helping creators and brands make podcasts, YouTube content, and find their voice. In this conversation, we talk about her path from trained librarian to media producer, why she believes in...

In a world where AI is being shoved into every nook and cranny, one question is getting weirdly hard to answer: is this actually human? In this conversation, Kira Cleveland, cofounder of Human Intelligence, explains why authenticating real people and human creative work is quickly becoming essential—from creators trying to stand out (and protect their work) to kids getting confused about what’s re...

“A foolish man waits to make his own mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistake of others.” In this clip, David Gory (cofounder & CEO of Airbuild) shares the personal experiences that inspired his mission—using self-powered microalgae systems to capture carbon and help treat polluted bodies of water, then turning organic waste into biological charcoal (biochar) for long-term carbon storage a...

What if AI could act as a real consultant for your business—without hiring engineers, locking into one model, or paying per-seat fees? In this conversation, I talk with startup built by former Nike technology leaders. SWA Technology is a multi-agent AI orchestration platform that brings every major AI model—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, open-source models, and more—directly into the tools y...

Most people don’t read contracts. They skim, panic a little, and sign — hoping nothing explodes later. In this conversation, Eric Paxton, founder of Resplain, explains why that’s a terrible strategy — and how he built an AI tool that turns legal documents into plain English you can actually act on. Resplain doesn’t replace lawyers. It helps you understand what you might miss if you just skim and s...

In this conversation, Austin Buell, cofounder of Topsail, breaks down how his team built legitimate, enterprise-grade SaaS — without a traditional engineering team. Instead of raising venture capital or hiring developers, Austin used OpenAI tools like ChatGPT to prototype, build, and iterate fast — collapsing the entire top of the sales funnel into a single button click. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Startup s...

Nature's impact finally has a number thanks to NatureQuant. Led by CEO and co‑founder Jared Hanley, NatureQuant is focused on “quantifying nature” so its impacts on human health, real estate, and society can be measured and acted on. They’ve built two main products: Nature Score, a “Google Earth for nature” that analyzes the mix of built and natural elements around any location to quantify hea...

Know the problem your startup is solving. That way, your startup won't waste time chasing the wrong thing. That's advice from Marty Kagan, cofounder and CEO of  ⁨@HydrolixInc⁩  a Portland startup that offers the world's first "streaming data lake" for applications requiring massive amounts of data — like AI. STARTUP STORIES: HYDROLIX 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:21 What...

It's a startup mistake that Colin Nederkoorn, cofounder and CEO of Customer.io cautions startup founders against. Instead of focusing on gaining momentum as a startup, founders often pivot away to a new startup idea too soon. STARTUP STORIES: CUSTOMER.IO 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:17 What does your startup do? 00:58 What inspired you to work on this problem? 02:51 [BONUS] How has the A...

Startups are hard. If you don't have a passion for the startup idea you're pursuing, it's even harder to survive the hardships of being a startup founder. That's according to Dean Khormaei of Chef AI. STARTUP STORIES: CHEF AI 00:00 Startup stories cold open00:10 What does your startup do? 00:42 What inspired you to work on this problem? 01:44 What’s one piece of advice you’d give t...

Startups are a rollercoaster, full of ups and downs, highs and lows. Today, we're chatting with Eric Preisz founder of Engramic. STARTUP STORIES: ENGRAMIC 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:11 What does your startup do? 00:50 What inspired you to work on this problem? 03:54 What’s one piece of advice you’d give to startup founders? 06:20 What’s one resource you can’t live without? 07:31 How ca...

Today, we're chatting with AJ Weinzettel, founder of Block 55, about chipping away at a startup idea, taking feedback from users, and continually refining your startup idea. STARTUP STORIES: BLOCK 55 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:15 What does your startup do? 00:50 What inspired you to work on this problem? 04:39 What’s one piece of advice you’d give to startup founders? 05:48 What’s one...

Today, we catch up with Zhou Fang, founder of Intersectional Group. While Intersectional Group isn't the typical product based startup, the organization has been doing important work around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the startup world — especially in terms of salary transparency. STARTUP STORIES: INTERSECTIONAL GROUP 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:13 What does your star...

Ever wish you could build your own algorithms on social media? With Graze and Bluesky / AT Proto, you can. Generate feeds that enable you to see the content you want to see — and share that with anyone in the world. 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:27 What does your startup do? 02:08 What inspired you to work on this problem? 04:37 [BONUS] What is a protocol…? 08:50 What’s one piece of advice yo...