Oregon Business Overview

Housing Designed Affordable and Green

A groundbreaking celebration took place May 16 for one of the few apartment buildings in the U.S. that is both green and affordable.

The Shaver Green Building will be built on what once was a blighted piece of commercial property at 4011 N.E. Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd.

In the place of old, rusting appliances and an unsightly used-appliance store, a modern six-story building will rise from the property to serve 85 individuals and families. Occupants of the new building must earn at or below 60 percent of the county's two-person household median income of $32,580.

The most unique aspect is that the developer of Shaver Green will strive for either gold or platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification while meeting Housing and Urban Development income level requirements.

"Very few if any residential developments in the U.S. offer buildings that are sustainable, innovative and also accessible to those meeting minimum income standards," said developer Amstrong Stafford

--------------------------------------------------------------

Metro: Urban Growth Boundary to change in 2010

The Portland area’s population is likely to grow by 1.3 million to 1.9 million over the next 50 years, according to a new Metro study.

The 50-year projections, required by a 2007 state law, kick off a two-year drive to recast the future shape and density of the urbanized area. Next year, Metro will use the data to help designate future sites for urban development and set aside other rural parcels for preservation.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Economist says state recession ‘debatable’

Oregon’s economy is still outperforming the rest of the country’s, but has worsened enough that it’s now debatable whether it will follow the nation into a recession, the state economist reported Thursday.

That warning represented a departure from State Economist Tom Potiowsky’s forecast in February, when he said Oregon was clearly not receding. Potiowsky wouldn’t say whether Oregon’s economy is in recession, but he acknowledged that the point could be argued, given newer worries about housing, fuel prices and job growth.

FRIDAY'S FISHFRY

The National Association for the Self-Employed Helps Small-Business Owners Save Thousands in Taxes

Health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses continue to be a tremendous financial burden for many small-business owners. That's why the NASE has introduced members to a little known tax savings through the Association 105® HRA member benefit.

Administered by Benefit Administration for the Self-EmployedTM (BASE®), a leader in employee benefit solutions, the Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) is available to qualified small businesses based on Internal Revenue Code Section 105. Once implemented, health insurance premiums and non-insured medical
expenses can be moved from the owner's personal return to their business return, resulting in additional federal, state and self-employment tax savings.

For more information: National Association for the Self-Employed
http://www.nase.org/

----------------------------------------------------------

Is the Economy Killing Small Business?

More owners and managers of small food and beverage businesses indicated, during the first quarter of 2008, that they are planning to increase hiring during the next 12 months and expect an increase in employees versus their 2007 statistics, according to the latest Small Business Research Board (SBRB) study released here [Buffalo Grove, Ill.] today. . . . Of the owners and managers responding to the nationwide quarterly SBRB poll cosponsored by International Profit Associates, 44 percent said they plan to increase hiring over the next 12 months. This was an increase of 28 points from the 16 percent who said, during the fourth quarter of 2007, that they were planning to increase hiring. Concerning the total number of employees, 41 percent of the respondents expect their statistics in 2008 to increase from 2007. Only 8 percent thought they would have fewer employees in the coming year.

-----------------------------------------------------------

SBA Advocacy Office Pushes for Greater Autonomy

The Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy is applauding (pdf) new legislation that would give it greater autonomy from its agency parent and codify an executive order requiring all federal agencies to consider the impact on small businesses when crafting regulations.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Is your logo helping or hurting your small business?

Does your logo inspire greatness? Is it recognized around the city and community? Do folks understand the services or products you provide, just by looking at your business name, tagline, and/or logo? (If you have to think about it, that's a no.)

__________________________________________________________

THE WEEKEND WALKABOUT

A housing crisis, hold the 'crisis'

Hillary Clinton dropped into a half-finished subdivision in this small town two hours south of Portland on Friday. She came to chat on camera with a few locals and to spotlight the housing crisis undercutting America's economy.

The cameras and the locals showed up exactly as planned, unlike the housing crisis, which has spared Oregon the full destruction it has brought to bear on states across the Sun Belt and Midwest in the form of free-falling home values.

While home prices fell by about 20 percent in those regions over the last year, values in the Portland metro area dipped slightly. Only Charlotte fared better among major cities. A builder at the Junction City event told Clinton he knew of no Oregon projects that were halted by market woes, though construction has slowed appreciably statewide.

Economists and real estate experts say Clinton and other politicians focused on housing could learn from Oregon, where they credit land-use restrictions and a late-blooming economy with keeping housing prices afloat. While other cities confront half-built or half-empty housing developments, Portland's longtime fight against sprawl ensured that the supply never got too far ahead of demand.

________________________________________________

dev

Friday's Fishfry

XsunX Thin Film Solar Module Manufacturing Facility Sublease Approved and Renovations Underway

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., May 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- XsunX, Inc. (OTC
Bulletin Board: XSNX - News), a solar technology Company engaged in the
build-out of its multi-megawatt thin film photovoltaic (TFPV) solar
manufacturing facilities, announced today that the sublease of its new
manufacturing facilities has been approved by the primary landlord, and
that demolition work to remove unnecessary and obstructive infrastructure
commenced the week of May 5th.

This demolition work is required to prepare the facility for XsunX
improvements specific to its TFPV manufacturing processes. The Company has
scheduled demolition to be completed in July with facility improvements
scheduled to begin immediately thereafter.

The existing 90,000 square foot building, located in the City of Wood
Village just east of Portland, Oregon, provides XsunX with extensive
industrial manufacturing infrastructure including multiple clean air
management systems, emergency power generation system, over 200 tons of
water chilling capabilities, water purification and vacuum systems for
substrate cleaning, and extensive air support systems to manage heat
produced from TFPV manufacturing operations. XsunX has agreed to purchase
these systems for approximately $112,000 along with a host of other
industrial apparatus including support equipment such as office,
networking, and telecommunications infrastructure.

-----------------------------------------------

Tax incentives power Oregon solar project

PORTLAND After nearly two years of planning and negotiations, Portland Habilitation Center Northwest received its first solar panels for an 870-kilowatt solar system at its new industrial facility in Northeast Portland. When completed in fall of 2008, the installation is likely to become Oregon’s largest commercial solar project.

U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), provided the majority of the financing for the system. U.S. Bancorp will own and maintain the solar system while taking advantage of Oregon Business Energy Tax Credits (BETC), which Portland Habilitation Center would not be eligible to receive as a nonprofit. The solar installation is expected to save the Habilitation Center nearly $75,000 in annual energy costs, hedging against rising energy costs, according to Steven McGrath of Solar Venture Partners, which served as the solar consultant on the project.

-----------------------------------

Oregon OSHA to offer safety workshops

Oregon OSHA will offer a series of workplace safety and health workshops during the month of June.

The free workshops cover topics such as safety committee basic training, personal protective equipment and violence in the workplace. Workshops will be offered June 3 at the Mary Tobias Education Center, in Tigard, and June 26 at the Portland Community College Small Business Development Center in the Lloyd Center Mall.

To register, fax a request on company letterhead to 503-947-7462 or visit www.orosha.org.

--------------------------------------------------

Full spread of flavorful

Aloha from Oregon.

As in Aloha, Ore., the town south of Portland?

No.

Something to do with Hawaii?

Well, yes, indirectly.

Judi Dodson, founder of Aloha from Oregon, a maker of chutneys, pepper jellies, butters and marmalades, said she intentionally chose a business name that would invite questions.

--------------------------------------------------------

Can housing be green — and cheap?

When it comes to housing, Portlanders place a high value on affordability and sustainability.

That was a major finding of the approximately 13,000 public surveys compiled and released last year as part of VisionPDX, the community visioning project championed by Mayor Tom Potter.

Such results help explain why various city agencies and the Metro regional government are trying to create green housing for families with young children.

_______________________________________________________

THE WEEKEND WALKABOUT

Online Education that is Cutting-Edge, Going Green and World-Friendly

Live classes in Gaelic, video credit repair, mortgage EBooks millionaire mentoring, and over 1,000+ courses offered in Spanish and international languages as well as English?...this online educational provider has plans to bring an extensive menu of offerings to people all over the world.

When Dezra Lehr-Guthrie formed World Class Educational Services (a limited liability company registered in Oregon) in 2007, it was her goal to dish up a smorgasboard variety of online offerings, and make them available in every major language world-wide. "The United States has a large and fast-growing, Spanish-speaking population, of which need and want online education. Our country is a melting pot comprised of many strong communities of intelligent people seeking education in their non-English speaking native tongues, while they are also trying to learn English. I wanted to create a site that could serve them all -- and not stop with just the U.S., but to provide access to online education world-wide."

-----------------------------------------------------
See the contribution of Denzil Scheller and other business owners to their community.

Chamber's 2008 Distinguished Citizen: Denzil Scheller

Members and friends of the Greater Hillsboro Area Chamber of Commerce gathered Thursday to honor those community members whose contributions help keep Hillsboro strong.

----------------------------------------

Startup: Vital signs of a young regional company

How it works: Contour breaks down products being developed into features, requirements and related tasks, and coordinates the relationships between the various parts. The result: Teams can always see the latest product versions and understand the impacts of changes.

Suggested retail price: A tiered pricing system depends on the number of people involved. Companies can either buy the software or subscribe to the service. For a team of 10, for example, the cost is $12,000 to buy the software or $10,000 a year to subscribe.

What stage: The product has been on the market for a year. The company has 30 paying customers. Smart Technologies of Calgary, Alberta, is using Contour to develop the software in its interactive "white boards," while the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii is using it to develop scientific software.

Visit the Jama Software company website: http://www.jamasoftware.com/

________________________________________________________

The NAU Experiment

Nau undone by its own ambitions

While I am going to link this story to the Oregonian, I will also print the complete article of Brent Hunsberger's reporting about the collapse of NAU. Hunsberger did an excellent job of illuminating the internal perceptions and the external factors leading to it's closure. The Oregonian places stories behind a "you pay" firewall after 14 days and I want to keep this story available to those who are interested.

The apparel maker pushed the boundaries of a sustainable business, but it got too big, too fast

As Portland's sustainable community comes to grips with the end of Nau, local business leaders and investors wonder what the collapse of its most visible green business means for the entire movement.

The answer: Not much, save one big lesson.

Green venture capitalists and local retail veterans view the apparel trendsetter's failure not as an indictment of sustainable business. Rather, most believe its May 3 demise shows how a new company trying to topple too many pillars is inherently at risk of collapse when the financial sands shift.

"The important story in Nau isn't that a sustainable company didn't work," said Michael Edwards, the former chief executive of Lucy Activewear Inc. who now heads the Bequia Group, a new Portland-based equity firm. "It's just really a function of the economics of the business model. The key lesson is to stay lean and mean until you get enough proven revenue."

It's a view Nau board chair and investor Stephen Gomez refuses to accept.

"I'm not going to get into second guessing," said Gomez , a former Nike vice president of global apparel. "I think the team did an excellent job . . . I just think we ran into a timing issue in the financial markets."

Nau succeeded in many ways, Gomez and others agree. The 3-year-old company lured top talent and $35 million in capital, a lot for any startup. It created eco-friendly fabrics from scratch, designed them into attractive and functional garments, cultivated a lot of buzz and set up model rules of conduct for other corporations to follow.

But it failed to persuade outside investors that its ambitious charge and high-cost structure could turn a profit in a few years. And just 14 months after it rolled out to consumers, it ran into an economic buzz saw that had private-equity investors ducking for cover.

What can other sustainable businesses learn from Nau? We attempt to tell:

Was Nau a financial failure?

Gomez declined to reveal exact revenues but indicated they were less than $6 million in 2007. Still, Gomez said, Nau generally operated according to its business plan.

One problem was that its Web site -- expected to generate close to 50 percent of revenue in Nau's first years -- failed to operate fluidly, Gomez said. Nau stopped driving consumers to it while working on an overhaul, which dampened revenues but did not cripple the company, Gomez said. Its newly designed Web site was scheduled to debut this week.

Mainly, though, Nau needed to open more stores before it could generate enough revenue to turn a profit or look appealing to a buyer. To do that, it needed more money.

We just ran into a black hole," Gomez said. "It was never easy for us to raise money, but we were always ready to do it. We always had a line of sight.

"Then, it was as if the telephone cords were cut."

Did Nau bite off too much?

Nau executives don't think so, but some venture capitalists and retail veterans say yes.

Nau aimed to shatter several business paradigms. It tried to carry itself and make products in a more conscientious and environmentally friendly way than its competitors. It gave 5 percent of sales to charity when most corporations donate less than 1 percent of profits. It encouraged customers to have their purchase shipped to them rather than carrying it home from the store. It muted its logo on its clothing. It eschewed selling product through existing retailers.

Most of that required a lot of money upfront. Ultimately, the high startup cost and rapid cash use scared investors even as Nau needed an infusion of money to continue.

"It was sort of a swing-for-the-fences play," said David Chen, founder of Equilibrium Capital Group, a new Portland investment firm focusing on sustainable companies. "Go big or go home, on multiple fronts."

Was Nau ahead of its time?

Maybe. Nau talked the sustainability talk and walked the walk before other apparel and footwear firms. "There aren't that many companies out there that would partner with you to break new ground," said Steven Lucier, president of Deer Creek Fabrics Inc. in Stamford, Conn., which supplied corn-based filament for Nau. At a minimum, though, Nau ran out of money because investors got frugal and viewed Nau's ambitions as too risky.

"There's just very little tolerance for risk," Gomez said of the private-equity market now. "They just felt like the stores that we had, we hadn't really proven our model, and that's really just another way of saying it's too risky. We were able to bring in the $35 million prior to that time with essentially no stores open. Things reverse themselves really quickly."

Was Nau top heavy?

Possibly. Among the 60 employees at its Pearl District headquarters, about 10 held the title of vice president or higher, Gomez said. Most hailed from large companies such as Nike.

By comparison, Portland sustainable apparel brand Sameunderneath Inc., with two stores and 100 wholesale accounts, employs seven at its headquarters. West Linn-based sustainable startup ENDoutdoor, whose trail-running and hiking shoes hit store shelves in August, employs five.

Some potential investors questioned whether Nau spent too much on higher-paid generals and not enough on foot soldiers. Gomez said executives operated frugally. "They ran really tight," he said. "Nobody was bringing their Nike goggles to work."

Is a sustainable business unsustainable?

Nau wasn't around long enough to tell. And certainly, organic food companies have profited as demand increases. And renewable energy ventures -- biofuel, solar power -- still attract investors' bets. "There are a lot of sustainable plays that are more capital efficient and less risky," said David Kirkpatrick , founder of SJF Ventures, a Durham, N.C.-based firm that invests in green companies.

What will Nau's legacy be?

More revered than reviled. Nau pushed existing suppliers to make clothing differently, designed new fabrics appealingly and found the clothing a market. Its already seasoned work force gained even more knowledge to take to other companies looking to practice sustainability. They also have startup experience.

"I wouldn't be in the least surprised if we see some Nau 2.0 concepts," said Sue Levin, Lucy's founder, now a venture consultant in Portland. "That DNA is going to do something really interesting here in the coming years."

_______________________________________________

FRIDAY'S FISHFRY

Finding a Fantastic Virtual Assistant

Like most entrepreneurs I've met, on a typical day I spend way too much time doing a range of tasks that I shouldn't. While it's important stuff -- following up on networking leads, contacting people I've met at my workshops or cold calling speaking resources -- these critical to-do's were getting out of control, and my office piles were starting to spill out onto my dining room table. So the timing could not have been better when I got this assignment.

With a budget of $100, I set out to find and hire at least two different virtual assistants, to help me gain control of the burgeoning piles. I approached this like any other time-challenged business owner; I wanted to retain someone with an established track record, at a fair rate. I have a decent amount of experience hiring independent contractors, so I started off with high expectations, despite a tight turnaround time.

Here are links to the "virtual assistants" mentioned in the article. --JM
http://virtualassistants.com
Virtual Assistants

http://www.domystuff.com/
Do My Stuff

http://www.taskseveryday.com/
Tasks Every Day

----------------------------------------------------------

Rural Development: Loans help local businesses add jobs

More than $1.2 million in government-backed loans targeting rural communities helped entrepreneurs buy, expand or remodel nine businesses, adding more than 120 jobs in the Baker County area over the past 18 months.

______________________________________________

FRIDAY'S FISHFRY

Internet Marketing For Small Business

Brandt Stohr of Social Marketing Explosion has released a series of ten videos recently to help business owners take advantage of the fastest growing trend in the country... Video Marketing. In these ten videos business owners will learn the exact methods to take advantage of social media! He explains to them how to automate their sales process to drive new clients to their business and establish a great connection with their prospective clients. For free access to the videos go to http://www.socialmarketingexplosion.com

--------------------------------------------------------

Taking the Fear Out of Web Analytics for Your Small Business

Do you have analytics installed on your small business Web site? If not, you should. How will you know how your Web site is performing if you aren't measuring the plethora of data available?

Cost is no longer an excuse for not having Web site analytics. The free options are quite robust; Google Analytics, for one, is quite comprehensive. In addition, Microsoft's adCenter Analytics is available in beta, and Yahoo has acquired IndexTools, and will make at least some version of that available for free.

----------------------------------------

Online booking comes to small-business owners

Doctors, attorneys and dentists have largely missed the e-commerce boom. So have other service-based businesses like salons and interior design shops.

Sure, your website can provide information about your business. But it can't make a sale. That's because your clients can't book appointments online.

Your clients still must call or e-mail to schedule an appointment. And you probably can't handle client requests 24/7. This means wasted time calling back clients for scheduling.

New sites are offering solutions to the problem. They make it possible for clients to schedule appointments online.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Tax Gap Plan Vexes Small Business Community

Small business advocates are mobilizing to quash a proposal being considered by a powerful Senate panel that would require credit- and debit-card issuers like MasterCard and Visa to report business owners' electronic payment transactions to the IRS.

The Senate Committee on Finance is considering the plan as part of a greater effort to increase tax compliance and narrow the "tax gap," which the IRS defines as the difference between the amount of tax that taxpayers should pay for a given year and the amount that is paid voluntarily and on time.

______________________________________________________