A two-hour conversation in a parking lot forever changed the lives of seven first-time entrepreneurs.
That was back in the late ‘90s, and the small group of go-getters—including future WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey—stuck around after a startup event to talk about how what they really needed was support from their peers.
“Starting a new business is incredibly difficult for so many reasons,” McKelvey says, looking back on the event. “There isn’t a formula that works—each business and each founder is different. No prescription is ever going to work for every entrepreneur, and when one of the steps on a prescribed path turns out to be a misstep for you, it can make you feel like a failure.”
It wasn’t long before they looked around the circle and realized they were destined to be kindred spirits.
“It was the two most valuable hours we spent,” says John Friess. In addition to those other six people standing beside him in the parking lot, Friess is a full-time founding member of Starve Ups, Oregon’s first nonprofit accelerator program. “We were all a bunch of starving startups,” he recalls.
The aim of Starve Ups—still going strong today—was to help one another grow and succeed. Whatever form it took was up to them.
“Not only could we learn from each other’s mistakes, it was invaluable to have peers who could share the emotion of starting our first companies,” says John Hayden, co-founder of Versation, a WeWork Custom House member. “Every day was a roller coaster, and to see others on the same ride made us believe that we weren’t going to fall off.”
Sharing resources
One of the chief rules of Starve Ups was to share resources. No one was going to be taking equity from another’s company. If anything, they were going to give everything they had. This counterintuitive approach brought the founders closer together.
Mark Friess, former co-founder of wired.MD and CEO of WelVU, describes some of the emotional and personal experiences that unified the founders.
“I remember when Rumblefish, one of the founder’s companies, had a fire,” says Friess, a WeWork Custom House member. “Wired.MD had some space, so we gave Rumblefish free office space for six months until they were back on their feet. We all learned to share resources to help each other be successful.”
John Friess, Mark’s brother, recalls what it was like when completely different work cultures came together in a 4,500-square-foot space.
“They’re a super funky music company, so they were listening to 2Pac and Biggie,” he remembers. “We were making medical health software for obesity and diabetes a few feet away.”
Friess says that Paul Anthony Troiano, founder of Rumblefish, didn’t forget the group when he sold the music-licensing firm.
“Now he’s giving cash and support back to Starve Ups,” says Friess. “He’s become a mentor and paid it forward.”
Sharing the wealth
The demand for Starve Ups grew over the years, and eventually the nonprofit helped more than 100 companies that went through its program. This was about the time that McKelvey helped design the interior of a 90,000-square-foot building that Starve Ups bought. It was a no-brainer for the seven founders to pool together their natural talents in order to get a logo, website, and launch party going.
Founders discovered Starve Ups in various ways. For Lynn Le, founder of Society Nine, a women’s boxing gear company, she remembers instantly gravitating towards Starve Ups after hearing John Friess speak on an Oregon Entrepreneurs Network panel discussion six years ago.
“I was a completely ignorant, green, aspiring entrepreneur,” recalls Le, a new WeWork Custom House member. “And said, ‘Hi John, my name is Lynn. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I could see myself starting a business one day. Can I have coffee with you and learn more about your story?’”
Society Nine is just one of the companies currently in the Starve Ups accelerator program housed at WeWork Custom House. The others include Arcimoto, Attensa, Financial Genome, GearFC, Gridit X, PDO Technologies, Recess Wellness, Supportland, and, of course, Versation.
Establishing a new norm
For Portland entrepreneur Katrina Scotto di Carlo, co-founder of Supportland, Starve Ups was the place she found acceptance when her loved ones thought she was totally “weird.”
“Starting the company was a huge risk that suddenly made us weird to many of our friends and family,” says Scotto di Carlo, whose business launched in British Columbia last year and will expand this year to other parts of Canada and the U.S. “Starve Ups offered this rare space where we felt normal. Many of the entrepreneurs there have become something like a startup family to us.”
Still, others discovered Starve Ups accidentally by showing up a day early at the PDX Startup Week last year. Boz Menzalji, founder of Gridit X, a mobile engagement platform for live music events, got the chance to talk one-on-one with Friess.
“From then on, I was hooked,” Menzalji says. “I made it a goal to move mountains to become a Starve Ups member. I wanted to be in a position to continue contributing to their mission, learn enough from other founders, and be in a position to pass it forward through mentoring others.”
Since January, Menzalji, a WeWork Custom House member, says he has received invaluable feedback and advice from the Starve Ups founders.
McKelvey says that the mentorship opportunities are a big part of why the nonprofit has prospered.
“Starve Ups provided a support system that was always there for us, that stayed up all night with us, that loved us unconditionally,” McKelvey says. “Sharing the lessons we were learning in real life every day created a bond between us that still exists today.”
He points out that the goal isn’t that different from WeWork, which he and Adam Neumann founded in 2010.
“We’re pushing the idea that collaboration and cooperation is fundamental to success, both in business and in life,” McKelvey says. “The positive energy generated by people who are open to connecting with each other, supporting each other, and loving each other is as palpable as it is undeniable—and it’s changing the world.”
Photos: Tom Bender