KCultivator Q&A: Jessica Powell gets candid about ‘KC Nice’ (and how she’d spend $1M)

Editor’s note: KCultivators is a lighthearted profile series to highlight people who are meaningfully enriching Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Let’s get real, Jessica Powell said with a wry smirk, explaining her vision for a Kansas City that works together — and stops cannibalizing its own.  

“I’m a startup junkie,” the community champion and founder of Social Balances said, noting the infamous “Kansas City nice” mindset has become an epidemic that holds back founders — and the Greater Kansas City region itself. 

“We consider ourselves competition. What if we just worked together? … We have so many silos. And I feel charged to bring them all together.”

Powell swings the sledgehammer on such barriers by leading local initiatives that include Back2KC and New2KC — in addition to numerous other community building efforts through Social Balances, her consultancy — and working on such national efforts as Right to Start. 

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“People like doing business with people they like, know, and trust,” she explained, sharing highlights from her personal mission statement. 

“I win when you win. I genuinely want other people to see and believe that.”

Born and raised in Kansas City, Powell didn’t grow up thinking entrepreneurship was an option for her. It wasn’t taught in school at Shawnee Mission East, she said, and it certainly wasn’t talked about as a career option around the dinner table. 

“When I graduated in 2000, my vision was to be a good wife and mother and live the American dream,” she said, recalling her focus as she headed off to the University of Kansas and her early career — or lack thereof.

“I wasn’t good at keeping a job. I was kind of a disruptor. I asked ‘why’ too much.”

At odds with the job market, Powell noticed her friend was founding a startup in Chicago, so she reached out and asked if she could join his team as an executive assistant. He laughed at her request and made her COO, she recalled. 

“I didn’t even know what a founder was,” Powell said with a laugh. 

She lent her sales, marketing, and operational talents to the company and its expansion offices in Austin and Denver for several years before being challenged to invest in her hometown ecosystem and its worth by Darcy Howe, founder and managing director of KCRiseFund. 

All in for Kansas City, she did just that, she said. 

Click here to read more about Powell and the most recent showing of Back2KC. 

“Now that I know I can have anything I want if I go create it for myself, I want to help everyone else to have that too.”

Powell shared more about her belief in Kansas City, its talent pipeline, and all-around good humans, with Startland as part of the return of its long-running KCultivator Q&A series. 

Jessica Powell, Back2KC, New2KC; photo by Austin Barnes, Startland News

If Boulevard brewed a beer based on your personality, what would the flavor profile be?

Spicy — but like Kansas City-nice spicy. Probably bold, outspoken, vibrant, passionate. All the words. 

Which local mascot would make the best startup co-founder?

I’m going to go with KC Wolf. He seems very sophisticated to me and I think, Kansas City, we’re not childish. We’re sophisticated — but we still have fun. 

Who is an influential person you’d like to have coffee with?

Warren Buffett, because he has so many wonderful investment philosophies and I appreciate his stance on what it means to be an investor and how it’s not just to get ultra rich — and the priorities that you should have as a human being to uplevel and support your community. 

You’re playing for the Chiefs in another Super Bowl — who’s headlining the half-time show?

Taylor Swift is. 

Who is a founder you find most interesting?

Donnie Hampton is my favorite — but don’t tell all my other favorites. Many reasons why, but I appreciate Donnie’s Back2KC story. I appreciate how his first client is a Fortune 50 company — and this is wonderful for our ecosystem to learn from. Donnie is not the quintessential founder. He is thoughtful, and he is not crass or rude. He does what’s right … and you can tell that he has impeccable ethics. And sometimes that’s hard when you’re growing a business because we’ve all been taught, ‘by whatever means necessary.’ But, you know, Donnie is different.

 

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Where can Kansas City improve?

Working together. We are all so smart. We are all good, nice people. Imagine what would happen if we worked together?

What is your guilty pleasure TV show?

I still watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Atlanta and sometimes OC. 

Do you have a hidden talent?

Well, I am pretty outspoken. … I genuinely feel like I can see a person’s core and who they are. What motivates them. And I feel like that is what helps me with [connecting people]

If you couldn’t save it, what would you do with $1 million?

I would give it to all my friends. What would happen if instead of Kauffman [Foundation] giving 100, $1 Million checks out, they just gave one, $100 million check and forced everyone to work together? I would love to do that. Find someone that everyone loves and trusts and knows [to hold the pot] and everyone gets a little cut — but they have to work together and we could see that it works and we could see that we’re all on the same team.