Recently, I was interviewed by the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) for a member spotlight and it got me thinking about how important shared resources are to new ventures. Elemental’s co-founders and I know firsthand how challenging it is to turn an idea for a business into a legitimate company -- not to mention delivering on the commitment of a high ROI for our stakeholders.

Luckily, Portland has some great resources for new firms. Along with the OEN, the Software Association of Oregon has networking events and valuable services for member companies. Then there are other local startups that have built impressive businesses, including Jive Software, Tripwire, and Kryptiq. Many of the executives at these success stories are active in the community and always willing to share their stories and experiences with new companies. 

In the hopes that Elemental has something to contribute to the dialog, I thought it would be worthwhile to jot down the places I've gone for advice, wisdom, and inspiration. Perhaps these resources will be useful for others. 

Blogs 

Today should be an interesting day in San Francisco. I've been looking forward to NewTeeVee Live conference for a couple months now. I'll admit this is somewhat due to the fact that Elemental is featured as one of ten of GigaOM's "favorite startups," but also because the conference has a terrific lineup. The startups invited were asked to talk about what they think is the "Next Big Thing"; there should be some interesting responses! Elemental is the first company to present, and I'm very curious to hear what the following companies (including some of the most exciting companies in the space like Boxee, Ooyala and Inlet) predict.

Beyond the "Next Big Thing" portion, the schedule features a buffet of intriguing conversations with new media thought leaders and companies. I've been especially looking forward to hearing more about:

While we have become desensitized to frequent change and rapid innovation in technology, one 40-year-old trend we’ve also grown accustomed to -- some might say taken for granted -- is hitting a wall: ever-increasing CPU clock rates. To get around this, hardware companies like Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA are putting more cores on every chip -- but to take advantage of all these cores, the industry must solve significant parallel programming problems. Elemental’s solution to this challenge has been to hire engineers who fundamentally understand the underlying parallel hardware architectures of the chips they are programming.

This is a trend we expect to permeate the software industry over the next few decades; read more in Elemental's guest post today on Fortune's Brainstorm Blog.

As you may expect, video is near and dear to our hearts at Elemental. Those who have been following us for years will certainly recall the original Badaboom commercials, which tended to incite strong reactions: some people loved 'em, others thought they were too corny. We believe our newest foray into production is consistent with the professional grade product it represents.

With the Elemental Accelerator product tour video, we wanted to increase the use of motion graphics to create a visceral, impactful illustration of the power of our GPU-accelerated software. Lisa, product manager, and Julie, communications manager, drove the process working closely with local production company Funnelbox Studios to create a unique, professional overview of Elemental Accelerator in 2 short minutes. Check it out and let us know what you think!

There’s been a lot written about Portland’s ability to lure talented folks from all over the country. Richard Florida is probably the best known author on this subject, and he’s given our fair city high marks in terms of its ability to attract these innovative people – he dubs them the Creative Class – to the shores of the Willamette River. Portland also happens to have relatively affordable housing, great public transit and delicious local food. These socio-geographical advantages make Portland a great place to start a company.

Along these lines, one of the great aspects of working at a startup (well, a funded startup anyway) is that you get to hire people you like to work with. But, this benefit is a double-edged sword: not only do these colleagues have to be a pleasure to work with in a high-pressure, results-oriented environment, they also need to be far more productive than the average worker. A startup is in the unique position of spending significant investor capital to build a product that competes with well-established firms (with a much lower cost of capital!). The only way that the formula works is if the employee population far out-produces larger companies: making the right decisions faster, anticipating market directions sooner, and executing on product development plans on time. There is not much margin for error and finding these kinds of people takes an extraordinary amount of searching.