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

Omaha If you underwent triple bypass heart surgery, you wouldn’t want your doctor’s hands to cramp, or lose his grip of an instrument. During an average surgery lasting two to four hours, surgeons not only suffer the consequences of standing in one place for an extended time, but also the occasional slippery scalpel handle. Guru Instruments was created to solve this problem through ergonomic medical devices. Company founder Dr. Sam Bhatia said the idea for ergonomic instruments was a no-brainer. Born in Omaha, Bhatia studied medicine at the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital in India.  read more

Omaha (Left: Proxibid CEO Bruce Hoberman and co-founder and CFO Joe Petsick.) Last November, while hundreds of bidders gathered at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan for the auction of Bernard Madoff, the man behind a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, thousands of bidders flocked to Proxibid.com, a website allowing bidders unable… read more

Des Moines One of the latest interactive media startups to launch on the Silicon Prairie was founded by a pair of unlikely Iowans: Stefan and Thomas Hansen. The pair are sons of Danish citizens, were born and raised in Germany and now choose to live in Des Moines. While school initially attracted each of them to Iowa they founded their business here… read more

Des Moines Earlier this summer, Shayne Huston and Nabeel Meghji sat down with me to discuss their Des Moines-based startup Geosync Global. Huston, the company's CEO, describes Geosync as an "innovation group-for-hire." They fill the void of identifying, researching, and vetting emerging technologies that can be beneficial to companies who may not have… read more