Silicon Prairie News

Since launching last March, there's no question that Jimmy Winter's latest project, RockDex, has made traction. The writeup he received from Jolie O'Dell on ReadWriteWeb in August was a big milestone, as well as the subject it covered: Jimmy's merger with Locker Partner in Kansas City.

These past two weeks will likely also go down as another achievement as Jimmy and the Locker Partner guys, Shannon Schlappi and David Snodgrass, hit the road to speak on a panel at a conference in New York, attend a music festival in Gainesville, and present at a conference in Des Moines.

I caught a few moments of Jimmy's time today for an email interview about his takeaways from his travels. His responses are below followed by a "highlight reel" from the panel Shannon spoke on in New York. Unfortunately, Shannon is the one with just the back of his head showing and no sound bites in the reel -- NARM must have saved the best for the full length video.

1. "Rockdex on the Road" -- Where have you been and where to next?

Shannon and I were in NYC for the CMJ Music Festival and the NARM Connects Digital Salon. Shannon spoke on the What Gets Measured Get Managed panel about the importance of measuring online buzz of artists in the changing music industry. We also presented RockDex for a panel of NARM Members in a closed meeting before the panel. Along with that we met with several clients and potential RockDex partners.

I was in Gainesville, FL this past weekend for the Fest. Its not business oriented like CMJ but I met with some of our users down there for some face to face discussion of what they like, don't like and want to see. David spoke at Highlight Midwest and tonight Shannon and David are speaking at Ignite KC in Kansas City.

2. Any success stories or anecdotes from the travels so far?

Some great success stories, particularly with partnerships that will greatly expand the exposure of RockDex. Nothing I can throw out there yet, but very soon. It was also great to meet a lot of our users face to face.

3. A few months ago, Rockdex was a company with one employee (yourself). With respect to these speaking opportunities, how has joining up with Locker Partner benefited your startup?

Having partners has allowed us to cover a lot more ground at once. David was in Des Moines while Shannon and I were in NYC at CMJ/NARM. Shannon and I were able to speak with more people one on one in NYC by taking some meetings separately. Instead of going to KC tonight right after I've gotten home from Florida, Shannon and David are able to cover it. That's a small part of their addition. The biggest is all of the coding and business development we've been able to do together.