We need more connections to be Built

Our steps to create a more connected and supportive consumer product community in Oregon

Oregon’s consumer product ecosystem is unique, anchored by an incredible variety of endeavors that exhibit equal parts of creativity and craft. We all recognize this. Not as obvious is how that uniqueness — that creativity, that craft — extends much further than the products themselves. If we look beyond what appears on the shelves or online, it reveals an underlying ethos in how Oregon based companies approach business, itself.

Community, collaboration, purpose beyond profit, and support are all woven together, creating a distinctive foundation that truly defines our statewide ecosystem.

From the outset, community support and engagement has been, and continues to be Built Oregon’s tactical focus. But recently various conversations got us thinking: Is there is more we can do? Can we create a more connected community?

In our experience, a tight knit and collaborative community increases the likelihood of success, reduces the friction of connecting to necessary resources, allows companies to evolve and adapt, and supports the growth of sustainable businesses.

With that single focus as our inspiration, can we, with the community’s help, begin to align around other core resources, tactics and pillars that together lay the groundwork for what it means to be a part of Built?

Can we open source the incredible knowledge found in Oregon so that more companies have the opportunity to thrive…and create more efficient pathways to do so.

Ultimately, we know nothing will be perfect at the outset. But if we adhere to some core ideals and value pillars, the community will be better prepared to weather those changes and inevitable evolutions.

Here are our first steps. It will evolve, and we don’t claim it’s perfect. But it’s a start, and done beats perfect. Let us know what you think.

Resource Hub

There are so many great resources, organizations and people who take the time to help, but it sometimes feels like an innumerable universe of single points of failure. It’s difficult to scale, with both people and knowledge changing in real time.

So we’ve set up an initial start of an open source resource hub.

Consumer Product Resource Hub

In that drive folder you will see the following:

1. Three Google Sheets — These sheets — one for Food and Beverage, one for Apparel, Outdoor and Footwear, and one for Health, Beauty & Wellness — have some pre-populated tabs for topics and areas. The idea is simple, to continuously add in information as conversations happen. The community can then search these sheets for information around everything from co-packers to manufacturers. If there is another industry vertical that needs a sheet, let us know and we are happy to set that up down the road as well.
2. Folders — From pitch deck examples to sales sheets it’s always nice to share what you can with the rest of the community. I have a feeling it will take some time to get these folders populated, but we felt the first step was needed.

Since this will be a community accessible/editable hub, there are some baseline rules around using and adding to it.

• Be Respectful — I hope this goes without saying, but we will monitor the hub for people who are being disrespectful in any way.
• No Selling — We have tabs for service providers and resources such as co-packers, but we don’t want this to be a hub where people come on and try and tout how great they are and why you should use them. Founders and leaders should be adding to the list so if you are a service provider, your clients/customers should be the ones adding your information. New to the community, feel free to reach out to us at hello@builtoregon.com and we can help get you looped in.

The community will have edit access because this information should not live behind a paywall or membership commitment. Our hope is that this will be an ever changing set of documents that founders can access.

Peer to Peer Groups

Being a founder is lonely, stressful, exhilarating, and a never ending roller coaster of ups and downs.

One of the things we’ve realized during our time doing Built (and prior learnings from PIE) is that peer to peer groups — especially founder to founder groups — are invaluable. They create opportunities to share knowledge and experiences while also, more importantly, helping to develop the connective tissue of the community through relationships that are transparent. That growing trust allows founders to step into vulnerability. That strengthens those bonds. Making these relationships critically important to a founder’s mental health. If only because they know they are not alone in their struggles.

We are acutely aware that these relationships and bonds need to be led by the founders. So our goal is to be an initiator and supporter in any way we can around getting them going and providing additional help on a needed basis. We will hold the space for founder-led collaboration, not lead the sessions. However when a concrete need bubbles up through these sessions, Built can do the research, seek solutions, and bring them back to the group. Be it a topic-area expert or catalyzing collaborative project.

We believe that these sessions should, and truly need to be run by the founders. We are seeing how it works to have one for Food & Beverage (Shelf Life), one for Apparel, Outdoor & Footwear (Work in Progress) and one for Health, Beauty & Wellness (Personal Care). As with everything we do at Built, having three separate groups may ultimately fall under one. We’ll just listen to all of you and make adjustments as needed.

If you are interested you can sign up here.

Built Peer to Peer Groups

Final Note: There is no cost to participate. Helping to create relationships that may help — even a little bit — with the stress and mental health toll being a founder has to be barrier free.

Built Community Pillars

The Meaning & Use of the Built Together Logo

Some recent conversations with the amazing founders that were part of Built’s first accelerator cohort sparked the idea around what it means to be Built Oregon. If the Built logo could be placed on company websites and marketing materials, what would that represent?

Ultimately it came down to laying out some initial values and commitments that ‘start’ to help tell the story of this ecosystem’s uniqueness. Because while there is zero doubt this state is a world class leader when it comes to consumer product innovation and entrepreneurship, there is an undeniable difference in the way we ‘do’ business and support each other. And like other things we do, this too has to be barrier free.

So here’s the start.

Community Mindset

Oregon based consumer brands have always been connected through an amazing network. But many times as founders and leaders it feels that you are all alone on that journey.

• Open source resources and share your knowledge via mentoring or the online resource hubs.
• Look for, and be open to collaborative ideas.
• Build trust through engaging in peer to peer and offline interactions. Be present.
• Be a willing partner that lends your voice and perspectives to discussions.
• Create a volunteer program that allows you to give back in the ways that make the most sense for you and your company, and look to engage others to do the same. Partner on projects with your peers.

Mental Health & Wellness

Founders are: 2X more likely to suffer from depression, 6X more likely to suffer from ADHD, 3X more likely to suffer from substance abuse, 10X more likely to suffer from bi-polar disorder, 2X more likely to have psychiatric hospitalization, & 2X more likely to have suicidal thoughts. The health and wellness of founders are real and important issues to discuss and address. And to focus on one without the other is futile.

• You commit to supporting your own mental health and the mental health of other founders and employees.
• Be open to building trusting and vulnerable relationships with peers so that you do not feel alone on this journey.
• Commit to ‘picking your head up’ on a regular basis and connecting to the community in real life — outside of email, slack conversations, and twitter threads.

Built with Purpose

Too often we see that the startup experience people tend to talk about any more is directly associated with raising funds, that are many times tied to unrealistic returns and expectations especially for consumer product companies. Go fast. Win big. Or fail silently. And while the accelerated growth path can be inherently true for a select number of companies — ones we support with all of our Built resources — we are also keenly aware that this grow fast culture many times exacerbates the mental stress and toll that is put onto founders and drives short term, myopic thinking.

So what if we commit to doing our best — all of us — to supporting, building and recognizing companies and founders that have an eye toward building a better, more sustainable future for all stakeholders and our planet? Companies that are committed to creating long term positive benefits to the communities within which they reside even if their pathway to growth is one that aligns with a grow fast mentality.

• Create pathways that help support and guide company leaders to learn about options like benefit companies, B Corp, perpetual purpose trusts, and other ways to structure your business.
• Work within and outside the ecosystem to create financial models and capital options that favor building for the long term.
• Connect founders to leaders who have built or are in the process of building long term sustainable businesses.
• Amplify and recognize a company’s social and environmental impact as much as we do a funding round.
• Scale up and grow around a set of values and a purpose that you share with the community and your employees.

This post is ultimately our commitment as an organization to support the consumer product companies and their leaders throughout Oregon as best we can by working to create the resources that allow the founders to be the ultimate leaders.

A slightly altered Built logo, one that has the word Together under it, can be found in the Resource Hub as well. It symbolizes and evolution in our thinking about what it means to not only be running a business, but supporting and promoting those whose thought process and vision aligns with these pillars.

Feel free to use it if you want to on your website, marketing materials, etc. because if the simple act of adding the logo starts the process in creating a more connected community, we will all consider that a great first step.

Built Oregon would love to keep you in the loop on all of these efforts. In addition to Medium, please consider following us on Instagram and Twitter. And if you want to show off your pride in Oregon’s consumer products community, consider picking up some fashionable Built gear for you and your friends, this holiday season.