An upcoming event at the Tower Theater will be something akin to "The Apprentice" meets "I Want to Marry a Millionaire."

The Bend Venture Conference, on Oct. 15, will give eight selected startup companies in Central Oregon a chance to pitch business plans to investors from the Pacific Northwest and Northern California.

Karen Fast and Dan Hobin, who will direct the event, said the area has never had a venture conference of this caliber. They expect to draw up to 8 venture capitalists. The keynote speakers will be Bob Wood, president of Nike Golf, and Oregon State Treasurer Randall Edwards.

Wood will describe how he turned Nike's fledgling splinter group into a $500 million subsidiary. Edwards will address the state's new $100 million venture fund for Oregon startups and how new businesses can apply.

In addition, venture capitalists' changing moods about what companies and places make good investments — combined with recent national publicity about doing business in Bend — set the stage for a productive conference, said Hobin, a managing partner of Bend Capital Partners.

"The stock market is questionable, and real estate is overpriced," he said. "If you're looking to invest in something, it's easier for startups to be profitable in Bend compared to Silicon Valley. It's one-third the cost of doing business there."

A conference of this type is unique for a city with a population of 50,000, he added.

"There is a new business model of companies in small towns with positive cash flow," he said. "They may never be acquired by an Intel, like in all those crazy years (in the 1990s) when companies' goals were to go public and get acquired. Towns like Bend are better than Hillsboro for business because they cost less."

He noted that Bend was named a "telecommuting heaven" in the new book "Life 2.0: How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness," by Rich Karlgaard.

A special report adapted from the book is on www.Forbes.com. The book features 60 small towns, medium-sized cities and larger metro regions that offer quality lifestyles and where a dollar will go far.

A panel of local businesses will describe how they have succeeded on a national level. That will give investors from outside of Central Oregon examples of how businesses have delivered for their investors.

A screening committee will pick eight early-stage companies deemed to have the best potential to become "world class," said Fast, an independent consultant to small high-tech companies who worked for IBM for two decades.

Startup companies will be asking investors to get in on the ground floor of a good thing.

Local entrepreneurs or businesses interested in locating here may apply to address investors. Applications are available at www.bendvc.com and are due by Sept. 15.

Local investors and retired business moguls are likely to be predisposed to investing in local startups, Hobin added.

"Bend has a problem in that there are not a lot of good jobs," he said. "You have retired people and service jobs. There could be a big gap if that continues. Investors who live here want to see more companies start up. It's almost where they would take seeing a lower return on their investment than investing in something that's headquartered in New York City."

Also on the program, a representative from the Oregon State University-Cascades Campus in Bend will emphasize, during the conference program, the state's commitment to Central Oregon and the important role higher education plays in economic development, Fast added.

Central Oregon's golf courses have attracted prominent business leaders to retire here, but frequently they miss the thrill of emerging enterprises, she said.

"There are people here with amazing experience — people with time," Fast said. "They can only get so good at golf. We have great ideas and talent and we want to bring them all together."

Drew Child, Central Oregon ambassador for the Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum, one of the conference hosts, said the event is a step up from the forum that holds monthly "pub talks." Those talks give entrepreneurs a chance to practice the kinds of pitches companies will do at the conference.

"The pub talk is more casual — friendly fire," he said. "This is the real game."

Jennifer Houston is the business development manager at Economic Development for Central Oregon, which is also hosting the conference.

"The time is ripe for this type of venture conference," she said. "The success we had with the pub talks in the last year is indicative that the region is ready for a full-blown venture conference that makes these connections. It's a natural step for the community."