Our Mission.

Portland Made supports the local entrepreneurial community by providing actionable resources and educational events that help grow local businesses.

We celebrate the diversity of makers in the Portland Metro Area and understand that we enrich our community, our organization and ourselves when we celebrate and leverage the varied experiences and ideas that each individual maker brings. To foster a truly inclusive and welcoming community that openly values all contributors, we embrace a zero-tolerance commitment against hate and actively strive towards demonstrating what an anti-racist collective can be.

Our Story.

In 2012, Portland’s entrepreneurial maker scene was in its heyday, thriving and bustling thanks to our citizen’s penchant for buying local, preference for unique wares, and ambition to support artisans. The community support was bountiful, but a network that unified and provided educational resources for small businesses was lacking. Kelley Roy, founder of the community makerspace ADX, recognized the opportunity to organize the rapidly-growing movement, and Portland Made was born.

With the goal of uniting entrepreneurs and the creative community, Portland Made hosts educational workshops designed to elevate emerging entrepreneurs, and advocates for the progressive values that generally inflect Portland-hewn products. There’s something in the Pacific Northwest water that compels an affinity for certain artisanal qualities: handcrafted, small-batch, sustainable, and mission-driven, made possible by local suppliers and retail networks. The brands of Portland Made embrace the values of taking care of their workforce, and contributing to a more equitable and sustainable local society.

Over the years, entrepreneurs born from the Maker Movement have become increasingly sophisticated, approaching their businesses from more technical and sophisticated vantage points. And so too, Portland Made has stepped up to offer services that meet the needs of today’s entrepreneurial class. Our workshops include helpful exercises and breakdowns of the issues central to growing and scaling your business including: sales & marketing, social media strategy, PR, digital advertising, product development, manufacturing and logistics, finances and legal advice. We work to ensure that membership is both valuable and affordable, engaging the broader community to best serve the evolving needs of today’s makers. And the connections that are often made at our meetups? These are priceless.

In 2019, Portland Made commanded the attention of entrepreneurs Jaime Schmidt and Chris Cantino, who grew Portland company Schmidt’s Naturals from humble origins in Jaime’s kitchen into a global brand. In an effort to build community ties and support the emerging business leaders of Portland, Cantino and Schmidt acquired Portland Made in June 2019, and appointed prolific community organizer Meghan Sinnott to the post of Director. The new leadership team took over for Jim Hassert and his partner Sarah Toor, who significantly grew and expanded the mission of Portland Made under their ownership from 2016-2019.

Portland Made is actively expanding upon the collective’s core services and principles, taking an exploratory and relationship-based approach to collaboration with complementary organizations across the city, and conducting outreach to Portland’s diverse breadth of entrepreneurial types in support of underrepresented founders. To get involved, drop us a line.

Become a Portland Made Member.

Becoming a member is easy, and grants you access to all our services. You’ll meet amazing entrepreneurs, learn from inspiring peers, and access helpful resources to grow your business and professional skills.