Startland News hits the road to SXSW
March 10, 2016 | Bobby Burch
Load up the clown car — Startland is going down south.
Kansas City’s source for entrepreneurial and tech news is venturing to arguably the nation’s top conference for innovative ideas: South-by-Southwest Interactive.
The Startland team has a jam-packed schedule while at SXSW, mingling with techies, early-adopters and thousands of Austonians. Make sure you follow along on our social accounts — Twitter and Facebook — for all the updates.
There’s a strong Kansas City contingent that will be traveling to Austin, including folks from LaunchKC, the Kansas City Chamber, KC Digital Drive, the Kauffman Foundation and more. We’ll cover their presence there, in addition to other events such as President Obama’s chat with The Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith.
Kat and I are SXSW newbies, but have heard many stories about the revelry and serendipity that the conference affords. Just this morning, we RSVPed to an exclusive event with Coolio. I’ll be listening to the CTO of Amazon discuss innovation within his company. And I’ve a catalog of breakfast taco and pub recommendations.
We’ve been told that our plans will likely be demolished by the calamity that is SXSW. Apparently, Austin transforms into an amalgam of chaos and congestion. Regardless, we couldn’t be more excited to relay back to you some of the Kansas City-related news from SXSW.
Featured Business

2016 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Frustrated by the fit, this traveler-turned-swimwear founder crafted 10 pairs himself; now his trunk show is going global
Opening a popup swimwear store in one of Atlanta’s most upscale malls represented a surge of momentum for Tristan Davis’ high-end brand that began not on a beach or a runway, but in Kansas City’s tight-knit startup community. “We’ve gone from an idea in a handmade bathing suit to a high fashion mall in less…
Harvesting opportunity: How a KC chicken chain turned a strip of parking lot into its latest ingredient
Months before snow blanketed Kansas City this week, Todd Johnson transformed a weed-filled, unusable portion of parking lot at his Lenexa restaurant into a flourishing garden that serves up fresh produce used in kitchens at all three of his Strips Chicken and Brewing locations in Johnson County. In its first season, Moonglow Gardens — as…
AI evolved faster than rules to protect people; this founder wants to code ethics back into the tech
Amber Stewart sees what many overlook in artificial intelligence, she said: the human cost of unregulated technology that can manifest as anything from sexist and racist outcomes to outright theft from willing and unwilling members of the public. “I’m not afraid of the tech,” said Stewart, founder and CEO of GuardianSync. “I’m afraid of unfettered…
A romantic hideaway (for you and a book): Entrepreneur’s heart for reading opens store on Independence Square
America Fontenot didn’t plan to launch her new Independence bookstore on national Small Business Saturday — the busiest shopping weekend of the year — but renovation delays just kept pushing back the opening, she said. So while many small shops were offering Black Friday-adjacent deals to get customers in the front door, Fontenot’s The Littlest…
