I’ve been a business journalist in Maine for a decade now. For the first half of my career that meant I mostly wrote about the traditional, chamber-dues-paying businesses — banks, marketing agencies, insurance companies, paper mills and other manufacturing businesses. Sure, I’d occasionally write about innovative companies like Idexx or Kepware Technologies, but those were always the exception.
But that’s changed. A few years ago I began to discern a subset of the state’s business community that was underserved by the usual news outlets, and which I believed deserved a more consistent and thoughtful eye. That was the burgeoning startup community.
Technology is changing everything, including how people start companies and solve problems. Tech startups haven’t been wholly absent from Maine in the past 15 years (did you know an early competitor to PayPal was based in Portland?), but it has only recently gained the kind of momentum that is attracting attention. But there has not been a consistent source for reporting and insight into Maine’s tech and startup scene — until now.
Maine’s startup community deserves its own news and information hub. Having such a hub accomplishes three things: it offers an accessible entry point for people who want to get more involved in the entrepreneurial community, it brings the existing community closer together by sharing stories and profiling individual members, and it offers a platform to share with an out-of-state audience the diversity and successes of Maine’s startup community.
I launched Maine Startups Insider to accomplish these things. I hope you find it valuable.
