Des Moines Entrepreneurs, investors, students, and startup service providers from around the state gathered in Des Moines this week for the annual Iowa Entrepreneurs Conference and Venture Forum. In practice, two events, the Venture Forum and Entrepreneur's Conference, were held on adjacent days in the same space. The Iowa Venture Forum kicked off with a welcome from Bret Mills, director of Iowa's Department… read more

Omaha One thing that is attributed to Pixar films is they are four quadrant films. This means they appeal to parents and kids, men and women. So, it came as no surprise that the audience to hear Pixar story artist Josh Cooley speak at KANEKO’s Great Minds Series last Friday, October 1st, was a four quadrant audience. It was great to see parents bring their kids (or perhaps kids bring their parents) to hear… read more

Kansas City (Marc Nager speaks at the Startup Organizers Summit. Photo by Steven Chau via Flickr.) Scott Heiferman, Meetup.com founder, said it best in a tweet following his closing keynote presentation at the Startup Organizers Summit. "Imagine! Ppl start @startupweekend chapters in cities globally &they come together in KansasCity. #sosummit was impressive.Watch this space!" Heiferman was spot on. read more

(Photo by Adam Copek via Flickr) This past weekend I attended Vaynermedia's Tahoe Tech Talk event at Harrah's Lake Tahoe. The event kicked off with a reception on Thursday evening for the 150 attendees. On Friday, we heard from the eight speakers: Gary Vaynerchuk (host and moderator), Kevin Rose, Chris Sacca, Dave Morin, Travis Kalanick, Ben Kaufman, Dave McClure and… read more

Chicago MidVenturesLAUNCH took place in Chicago this past Monday and Tuesday, September 27-28. I was an attendee at this solid inaugural effort by Johnathan Pasky (Pasky IP Law LLC), Geoff Domoracki (midVentures Technology Partners) and Brian Mayer (midVentures Technology Partners). The conference proclaimed itself to be the “largest startup and innovation conference in the Midwest.” More than 30 companies had either… read more

Omaha Earlier this year, Midlands Venture Forum (MVF), an Omaha-based non-profit dedicated to creating regional support for entrepreneurs, had the pleasure of hosting one of Omaha's most well-known businessmen J. Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade. Ricketts directed his talk to entrepreneurs as he explored what constitutes an entrepreneur and how to successfully run a business on your own dollar. read more

As we previously mentioned, this past weekend Jeff and I traveled to Bloomington, Indiana to the first-ever Combine conference. Hosted by our friends at SproutBox, The Combine sought to "bring together movers and shakers in creativity, community, culture, capital and code from all over the country, and provide a unique opportunity to learn, network and be inspired by some of the nation's top experts in internet marketing, product development, revenue… read more

Omaha As I did the first two days of Startup Weekend Omaha, I strolled the hallways and offices of the Mastercraft building yesterday taking pictures of the attendees, amenities and food of the 54-hour event. For more information about Startup Weekend Omaha, check out omaha.startupweekend.org… read more