The process of starting a business must never be entirely straightforward, but Meghan Sinnott and I are taking a particularly circuitous route to launching PDX by Bike, a resource for helping visitors to Portland discover the city by bicycle.
Our partially web-based business, even after months of preparation, doesn’t yet have a website. But the good news is we’re solid with everything else. Including our newly printed zine full of tips for bicycling in Portland.
You can buy one for yourself now and everything! Friends, we are in business.
Meghan personalizes tip zines in the garden.
Yesterday two huge boxes arrived from Amy of 1984 Printing in Oakland. These zines are vegan, post-consumer, and made by a rad entrepreneurial woman. Here she is in her shop a couple years ago, liberating the words of the people with her beast of a paper cutter:
Amy in her print shop.We spent much of yesterday getting our database in order and addressing envelopes to the 109 sweet souls who backed our Kickstarter project a few months back.
By the way, yes, that link above is to a famous national news source. Getting the word out is one of our strongest suits — that and having a business that people are genuinely excited about — and we’ve gained some great media coverage already. One of our goals for the business is to be able to tell the world how great it is to come ride bikes in our city, and to help people connect with the best Portland has to offer.
Like coffee… we’ll be partnering with uber-bike-and-women-friendly Trailhead Coffee Roasters (like I did recently with Taking the Lane zine).
There’s a lot more to share, including our recent adventures biking to the airport. Watch this space!