Join us this Thursday for the last Central Oregon PubTalk of the year. Celebrate Central Oregon’s startup scene and enjoy an engaging program featuring keynote speakers Justin Johnson and Michael Ulin, plus company pitches from Uriel Fox of NEO’PROS and Rose and Isaac Etherington of Possum Fox.
Don’t miss this chance to network with local innovators and hear fresh ideas shaping our entrepreneurial ecosystem. Reserve your spot today!
Keynote: Building a Lean, AI-Powered Business: How to Go Further and Faster with Less
Justin J. Johnson
Founder & CEO, Motivate
Michael Ulin
CEO & Co-Founder, Tenki AI
Justin Johnson is a serial entrepreneur and technology leader who has spent more than 25 years building, scaling and exiting several companies. As the Founder and CEO of Motivate, an AI-powered sales automation platform, Justin helps businesses grow faster with fewer resources by turning manual sales and order processes into intelligent, automated workflows.
Prior to Motivate, Justin founded LeadMethod, a channel sales management platform that became one of the fastest-growing software companies in Oregon. In 2017, LeadMethod won the Bend Venture Conference, before being acquired by Revalize, a TA Associates–backed software company. He later founded MightyRep, which was acquired by Blue Agave Solutions in 2024.
Michael Ulin is a three-time AI founder who’s raised more than $78 million across ventures and scaled two companies from zero to multi-million-dollar ARR. His background blends McKinsey strategy training with hands-on full-stack engineering and deep ML/LLM experience, letting him move between business strategy and technical architecture without breaking stride.
Prior to TenkiAI, he built the AI team and computer vision pipeline at ZestyAI, a company that scored over 200 million properties for climate risk. The enterprise-first company raised $50M+ and landed customers like Berkshire Hathaway, AAA, and Farmers Insurance. He also scaled a GenAI legal research platform, Paxton, to multi-million ARR in under a year, raised $28M through Series A, and won awards including “New Law Company of the Year.”
Thursday
November 20
Worthy Brewing
4:30pm Networking
5:30-7pm Program
