Des Moines (Zach, left, and Ben Anderson of 8/7 Central. Photo courtesy of Eric Rowley/Juice.) Custom-designed T-shirts are a hot commodity among tech startups, and custom screenprinting and design studio 8/7 Central (87c) has positioned itself as the provider of choice for the local entrepreneurial community. "I'm not smart enough to be an engineer or developer, but I always thought it would be awesome if I was," said Ben Anderson, 25, co-owner… read more

Omaha The Omaha-based insurance software administrator Benaissance didn’t start overnight. It started about 15 years ago when John Jenkins (left) founded COBRA Outsourcing Company, the company that would lead Jenkins and Mark Waterstraat (right) to found Benaissance. In 1995, Jenkins built COBRA Outsourcing Company (COCO) as a third-party… read more

Omaha Before moving his recently-acquired Glenwood, Iowa, company to the 10th floor of the Omaha World-Herald Building in downtown Omaha, Doug McGregor went "dark" for nine months to repackage it. McGregor, a recently transplanted Minnesotan and former managing director of the private equity firm Rational Equity, had partnered with ECI, a provider of enterprise-level lending solutions to financial… read more

West Des Moines Most don’t have it easy when they launch their startups. Companies will universally go through the initial process of finding office space, or converting a basement into workspace, building a client list, or finding vendors and consultants for day-to-day needs. SHift, a web and mobile application development firm founded this past February by Ben Sinclair, Nate Becker and Chris Burns, had a leg up… read more

Des Moines This week I had an opportunity to sit down and get to know one of Des Moines' most active entrepreneurs, James Eliason. A 1997 graduate of Valley High School in West Des Moines, Eliason had a decision to make: play baseball for Central College or Wartburg College, or take a shot at the University of Iowa or Iowa State. Ultimately landing at U of I, James graduated in 2001 with an economics… read more

Omaha Before the days of can and bottle distribution, only local breweries were to thank for the pure enjoyment of what is considered today’s oldest and most widely consumed beverage. Fifteenth-century beer drinkers only had one option for savoring hop bitterness: walk down to the local brewery, fill up a bucket with beer and carry it home. What was known as the initial “lucky bucket” back then has… read more

Des Moines Brad Dwyer, 22, launched his entrepreneurial career around a Facebook game he put together while procrastinating instead of studying for a test at Iowa State University in 2008. "It was just something that I programmed over a weekend and put out there to see what kind of reception it would get," Dwyer said. The game, called Hatchlings, is similar in concept to the "Where's Waldo?" book series from his childhood, but allow users to seek out… read more

Omaha (Left: Financial Transmission Network Inc. CEO Kurt Matis. Photo by Marlon Wright.) Merchants offer customers many ways to pay, including checks, credit cards and online transactions. This creates customer convenience, according to Kurt Matis, but it also leads to back-office complexity for merchants and higher costs for everyone. “If a business wants to scan checks, they usually need one piece of equipment,” Matis says. “If they want ACH… read more