Omaha Philip Kaplan’s presentation was a nice mix of “this is how I became awesome” and “this is how you can be awesome, too.” His story started with a little backdrop on his move from W-2 employee land, where he was building sites for another firm, to running his own show. It was one of those common epiphanies in which the employee discovers what the employer is making off of his back and realizes the disparity between that what he’s taking home. … read more

Omaha The past three months have been a whirlwind for Neil Blumenthal. On February 15, he and his co-founders launched Warby Parker with features in GQ and Vogue. Three weeks after launch, his designer frames and eyeglass company shattered their one year target sales goals, sold out of their top 15 styles, and had a waiting list of 20,000 customers. The audience at Big Omaha was lucky to have Blumenthal come and talk about his company, and I … read more

Omaha Whether you're wrapped up in the conference hustle or participating remotely with our live coverage, the galactic journey of Big Omaha is flying through with rocket speed and we're glad you're along for the ride. And, with speaker sessions finishing in the late afternoon, you may think that the conference is over. But, Ke$ha knows, just as much as our co-founder and Ke$ha enthusiast, Jeff $lobotski, that the party "don't stop." And, I think they're right. read more

Omaha We've reached the homestretch of Big Omaha 2011, and we have a terrific trio to take us home. This afternoon, we'll be treated to talks from Marc Ecko of Artists & Instigators, Travis Kalanick of Uber and Bo Fishback of Zaarly. For more on those three, see our post on what they've been up to recently: "Big Omaha 2011: Friday speakers in the spotlight." … read more

Omaha More than half of Big Omaha 2011 is now in the rearview mirror — or, given the conference’s theme, the space shuttle equivalent thereof — but there’s plenty packed into the portion of the conference that remains. This morning, we'll hear from another spectacular slate of speakers: Gary Vaynerchuk of VaynerMedia, Philip Kaplan, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur, Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker and Micah Baldwin of Graphic.ly. … read more

Omaha Haven't had time to study up on all of this year's Big Omaha speakers? Not to worry; we can help you cram. We've combed the world wide interwebs to come up with a couple of stories, interviews, videos or otherwise noteworthy nuggets on each of our Big Omaha presenters so that you can brush up before you sit down at KANEKO on Friday morning. … read more