David Abramowski

As my development team at MioWorks rounds the corner on a significant update, I thought it was important to have a user guide that explained the features and told the story of the MioWorks application.  I started looking into online help systems around the open source ecosystem. ... (more)

The Open Source Bridge Conference made its debut last week at the Oregon Convention Center.  Over 450 attendees gathered to share ideas, learn from each other and strengthen open source communities.  The conference itself was an all volunteer effort that included dozens of organi... (more)

Every heard of GreenLight Greater Portland?  Don’t worry, I hadn’t really known of it until Rick Turoczy at Silicon Florist graciously invited me to hang out with a few other start-up types and invade the suit and tie world of economic development.  The annual meeting was held on... (more)

As reported by CNET News “Lightning took down Amazon Cloud” and confirmed by Amazon there was a small outage in the Amazon EC2 infrastructure.  The media decided that this is a great reason to run another hype story and provide you with a headline that is really misleading.  The ... (more)

A strange dynamic has taken hold on the internet.  Just as people expect sunshine and air to be free, they also expect internet based software applications to be free.  Ok, maybe not completely free… they agree someone should pay, just not them.  Damn you Google, damn you Yahoo! ... (more)

Hey did you know that the term “Start up” isn’t exclusive to technology companies?  I was shocked earlier this week when a few accountants wanted to have coffee and discuss their start up.  Immediately my brain started to think about the types of software they must be creating.  ... (more)

You may not be heavily involved in the internet, but odds are that your customers and competitors are. If your business is all about referrals, then you need to know what is being said so you can counter any false claims or pro-actively participate where it matters the most. The... (more)

The Internet has gone map crazy and location based search is all the rage. If you have a physical location and you want customers to find you when they search Google, Yahoo or a myriad of other sites, then follow this advice. Every month there are more than 10 billion unique searc... (more)

Over the past quarter I have been investigating different types of financing that may be available for today’s technology entrepreneur.  I looked at this challenge from the perspective of a brand new software company ready with their first product and preparing to enter the marke... (more)

As a companion to the posting “Funding & revenue: chicken and egg” here is a brief summary of some of the research performed and the results: SBA Small Business Loan – I visited US Bank and talked to them about a potential SBA loan to kick start a brand new business.  End result w... (more)

In today’s Oregonian, Mike Rogoway’s article “Tech entrepreneurs defy recession“  quotes me as being able to build the first version of MioWorks.com for $5,000.  Well this is very true but may be a little misleading so let me explain how this can be. The team behind MioWorks is ... (more)

Last night I attended the Big Idea Bash hosted by the Oregon State Treasurer Ben Westlund.  According to the web site for the event The Big Idea Bash is a social gathering created to connect entrepreneurs to the organizations that can help them flourish. This year the event will ... (more)

Don’t underestimate the power of beta testing to a wide range of people. Consider it collaborative development. Open your software to a broad range of people inside and outside of your target market and you’ll be amazed at what you get back from them. A perfect example is my cur... (more)

Today I attended the preamble to the InnoTech conference in Portland, OR called the eMarketing Summit.  The day was filled with energetic and passionate speakers that made the $149 fee well worth the price.  The topics varied by speaker but there was a common theme - there is muc... (more)

Everyone loves a free event.  We take up space and kibitz with our friends, colleagues & associates.  We eat the free food.  We drink the free coffee or adult beverages.  When it comes to the time of the day where the sponsors get their 10 minutes, we turn off. We quickly pull ou... (more)

No it wasn’t an April fool joke.  The Portland Web Innovators really held their quarterly Demolicious meetup on April 1st.   It seemed that nearly 100 people gathered at gracious host Jive Software to see demonstrations of some of the latest projects here in Portland. Kicking th... (more)

A quick alert about my current project called www.mioworks.com.  We just entered the public beta phase for the solution.  There is a brand new web site with videos and information to help you better understand what the application is all about. Posted in Sofware Startup ... (more)

You have two minutes to describe your business and your start-up dream.  You are handed a microphone. What are you going to do?  Pontificate about how much you need the money or how fast you can spend it…or tell a story that inspires people to get behind your next $100million dol... (more)

Last night over a hundred entrepreneurs crowded into Ned Space to help kick off an effort to develop funding for start-ups in Oregon. The message was clear.  The state should take a small portion of investment dollars and funnel them not into one time projects, but into entrepren... (more)

Last night I attended my first Startup Exchange meetup organized by the Software Association of Oregon.  The meeting was held at the offices of Chime Software hidden away in Portland’s East side warehouse district.  The Startup Exchange is for entrepreneurs only, no service provi... (more)