November 30, 2012 by Danny Schreiber
Des Moines During an interview Thursday with Ben Milne, I posed a question that drew a smile from the Dwolla CEO: Is it fair to say Dwolla's upcoming meetup will be like the classic Dwolla meetups of the early days?" "That's totally fair," said Milne, the founder of the four-year-old, Des Moines-based payments startup. "This is us recognizing that we kind of want to go hang out with our friends … it's as much … read more
November 27, 2012 by Geoff Wood
Des Moines Des Moines Startup Drinks is an informal monthly gathering of people interested in the Des Moines startup community that I've had the opportunity to help organize over the last few years. We guarantee there will be no agenda or speakers and that the first drink is on us. It's part of a larger framework that takes shape in different ways in cities all over the world. ... read more
November 27, 2012 by Michael Stacy
Des Moines With a nod to graphs that illustrated sharply declining music industry revenues and plummeting newspaper circulation figures, Idan Cohen established what's at stake in the television industry. "We've seen what happens actually when internet takes over an industry," Cohen said Oct. 11 during his talk at Thinc Iowa 2012. "It tends to blow up … read more
November 23, 2012 by Michael Stacy
Des Moines Dane Maxwell set out Oct. 10 at Thinc Iowa to impress upon the audience how to, as he put it, "create a business out of thin air ... even if you have no idea, no money and no credibility." How, one might wonder, did Maxwell acquire that know-how? "I learned how to do this," he said, "because I had no money, no idea and no credibility." Down on his luck and … read more
November 22, 2012 by Danny Schreiber
Des Moines Neal Sales-Griffin decided in 2010 to leave one of the best jobs he said he's ever had – a founder-in-residence at a venture capital firm – to fulfill a desire to pursue three things: solve problems, make things and have fun while doing it. One year later, his pursuit led to the founding of The Starter League, a Chicago web development and design school. On Oct. 11 at Thinc Iowa 2012, Sales-Griffin shared the story … read more
November 21, 2012 by Michael Stacy
Des Moines At the conclusion of the opening day of Thinc Iowa 2012, attendees took a trip "inside the startup studio." Or so the discussion was dubbed by Antonio Neves, the THINQACTION founder and Thinc Iowa emcee, who moderated the 40-minute question-and answer session on Oct. 10. Neves was joined on stage by a quartet of entrepreneurs: Tara Hunt … read more
November 20, 2012 by Michael Stacy
Des Moines For Steve Greenwood, the idea that "relationships are complicated" is more than just a truism. Want evidence? Look no further than the spreadsheet of personal contacts that Greenwood meticulously curated for the better part of a decade. At its peak, the document had 7,000 contacts and more than 30 columns of tags. The complicated work of tending to that massive … read more
November 20, 2012 by Danny Schreiber
Des Moines Thanks to financial assistance awards announced Friday by the Iowa Econonmic Development Authority, two Iowa startups are preparing to add at least three full-time employees apiece. Dibzees, a penny auction site based in Iowa City, received $500,000 from the Iowa Innovation Acceleration Fund through a royalty agreement. The funding supports the addition of five full-time employees and three contract … read more
November 19, 2012 by Michael Stacy
Des Moines Danielle Morrill has years of experience working for startups, but when she spoke at Thinc Iowa 2012 on Oct. 10, she was just six months into her first stint as a startup CEO. Earlier this year, Morrill helped found Referly, a social shopping platform that rewards users whose referrals help generate sales. And since then, she said, there have been … read more
November 19, 2012 by Megan Bannister
Des Moines GlamSnap, a mobile app that aims to help women with clothing purchases, won Startup Weekend Des Moines Sunday at StartupCity Des Moines, the venue for the city's fifth iteration of the event. "(The idea) comes from a long history of terrible purchases that I have made throughout my life and my friends have called me out on it," GlamSnap creator … read more
Through August 22, help us decide the winners of our inaugural Silicon Prairie Awards, which will recognize 12
companies and individuals. You can vote once per day per category.
Winners will be announced live on stage at
our August 30 event.