June 26, 2011 by Brittany Mascio
The first full week of summer is shaping up to be a fairly quiet one on the Silicon Prairie, with only one event on the radar. On Tuesday, Startup Drinks Des Moines … read more
June 26, 2011 by Brittany Mascio
June 24, 2011 by Michael Stacy
The Business Journals have recently published results from a handful of noteworthy On Numbers surveys, providing a quantitative measure of how the cities of the Silicon Prairie stack up against other cities across the country in a few categories of interest. But, before we get down to the numbers, I'll make a disclaimer: I haven't delved into the statistics enough quite yet that I can speak on them with any sort of authority. So I'm not claiming causality or correlation, nor am I espousing any theories… read more
June 24, 2011 by Danny Schreiber
Kansas City In classic startup fashion, LiveOn co-founder and CEO Jonathan Whistman described his idea in a phone interview earlier this week: "It's almost like Facebook meets Ancestory.com meets time travel." As a former business development and sales consultant, Whistman executed on his idea with a classic business strategy: the cold call. "I started trying … read more
June 24, 2011 by Danny Schreiber
Omaha As an almost daily reader of Y Combinator's Hacker News (HN) for more than three years and one of the social news site's top 50 karma point holders, Jerod Santo fully appreciated the latest enhancement of the site, HNSearch, which was released June 4. (Photo courtesy of Santo) "Hacker News has long needed site search," Santo said in an email interview earlier this week. "When they finally added it, it was accompanied by an API provided by the Octopart guys (who are a YC startup)." … read more
June 22, 2011 by Geoff Wood
Des Moines Mike Colwell, director of the Business Innovation Zone in Des Moines, holds a monthly educational luncheon for entrepreneurs across Central Iowa. Called the "Business Insights and Networking Luncheon Series," each event features a speaker from the community with either expertise or thought leadership in an area that's applicable to people working on building high growth and scalable businesses. read more
June 21, 2011 by Danny Schreiber
Des Moines In a guest post on this site addressing the recent attention given to Dwolla because of Bitcoin, Dwolla founder and CEO Ben Milne wrote: "I can’t go a day without talking about it or being asked about it. Whether it's the CEO of a billion-dollar company, a friend in passing, a reporter or someone in the financial institution space … apparently, I’m the guy to ask." Up until today, Milne hasn't publicly commented on Bitcoin. In fact, he's done the complete opposite. "I’ve been working very hard to keep … read more
June 21, 2011 by Michael Stacy
Kansas City Videos from the Kauffman Labs Education Ventures Program at The Ewing Muriel Kauffman Foundation are now available on the foundation's website. The Education Ventures Program on June 7 marked the culmination of a fourth-month program in which 23 aspiring entrepreneurs immersed themselves in the Labs’ intensive, hands-on curriculum … read more
June 21, 2011 by Brittany Mascio
Omaha The folks at Bozell have added a new piece, and potentially many pieces, to the mobile puzzle through their recent work with QR codes. In May, the marketing company paired designers and programmers to create QRinkle, a free QR code generator. … read more