Silicon Prairie News

Des Moines This week on PrairieCast, Andy Brudtkuhl and I chat with Silicon Prairie News' very own Sioux Falls, South Dakota contributor, John T. Meyer. In addition to his South Dakota entrepreneurial coverage, John works with 9 Clouds, Inc, a social marketing consulting and product firm he started with his brother, Scott. We spoke with John about his decision to move home – changing from a large corporate consulting… read more

Des Moines This week on PrairieCast our guest is Aayush Phumbhra, co-founder and senior vice president of Chegg, a Santa Clara, California-based company often described as the "Netflix of textbook rentals." Aayush earned his MBA at Iowa State University in Ames and joined forces with the founders of Cheggpost.com, a local website focused on saving students money. Several iterations and years later, Chegg now boasts more than 120 employees, a headquarters in Santa Clara and a shipping operation across the street from Zappos in Louisville, Kentucky. According to a TechCrunch post last month, Chegg has raised more than 140 million dollars… read more

Des Moines This week on PrairieCast we're joined by Annie Sorensen of AnnieSorensen.com. Annie had a desire to build a business around her passions and a brand around herself. To do so, she made the jump from her "corporate job" to the entrepreneurial world this past January. Annie is a native Iowan now based in Kansas City. We spoke with Annie to hear how she lives that passion and monetizes it through consulting engagements, blogging… read more

Des Moines Our guest this week on PrairieCast is Iowa City's Andy Stoll, co-founder of social entrepreneurship incubator The James Gang and world traveler. Andy, who is an Omaha native, talks about his experiences with The James Gang, his recently completed 3.5 year adventure around the world and his upcoming project The World Tri. The World Tri is a unique endurance event being undertaken over the next… read more

Des Moines This week on PrairieCast our guest is Iowa City-based serial entrepreneur Brian Kaldenberg (above). Brian has founded several companies including Gamerosters.com (which provides NCAA football video game rosters to more than 20,000 customer annually), ProofreadingPal (a proofreading service for the academic and business sectors), and… read more

Des Moines After several weeks away, Andy and I returned to PrairieCast with guest Dusty Davidson in studio to reflect on Big Omaha and TEDxDesMoines as well as discuss other events coming up this summer. Each week on PrairieCast, we start with a Week in Review segment where we catch up on highlighted posts from the past week as well as discuss Silicon Prairie News events and features within the site. PrairieCast can be streamed or downloaded from PrairieCast.com or by subscription… read more

Des Moines It's likely no surprise to the readers of Silicon Prairie News that our latest topic for PrairieCast is Big Omaha. We were able to grab some time late last week with Jeff Slobotski and Dusty Davidson to discuss what we should expect from year two of the event, the speakers they're looking forward to the most, and what the event means to the region. We tried a new recording technique this week so the podcast may sound a bit different than past episodes. In addition, we cut out our typical Week in Review… read more

Des Moines Our guest on PrairieCast this week was Brad Dwyer, the founder of Hatchlings, an online social game built utilizing the Facebook platform. Brad, a senior at Iowa State University majoring in computer science, is making a lot of waves in Central Iowa's entrepreneur community. Most recently, he took home the award for the Student Innovation of the Year at Technology Association of Iowa's Prometheus Awards. Andy and I talk with Brad about technical aspects of his company and its product… read more

Des Moines In the most recent PrairieCast, Andy and I talk with Alexander Grgurich, who is facilitating the first ever TEDxDesMoines. This event is a licensed, local iteration of the famed TED Talks series from California featuring local speakers intermingled with video presentations from past TED events. We discuss the recent speaker announcement, the process of securing the license to host the event and the plan for future versions of TEDxDesMoines. Each week on PrairieCast, we start… read more

Des Moines This week in PrairieCast, Andy and I are joined by Mike Ferrari, the co-founder of West Des Moines-based SmartyPig (Twitter: @SmartyPig). SmartyPig is a web-based money saving startup, founded by Mike and Jon Gaskell in 2006. Mike shared his experience launching a startup, from making the decision to quit his day job to working full-time on his idea. He also spoke about working with the FDIC to modernize banking regulations and finding an international partner to extend his service… read more