News

Wendy Guillies, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Kauffman, ECJC: Stagnant US entrepreneurship is a diversity issue that throwing money at Big Business won’t fix

By Tommy Felts / October 19, 2019

Women, people of color, and rural residents remain punished by systemic barriers to starting businesses, said Wendy Guillies in a nationwide call to action that unites powerful Kansas City entrepreneurism advocates.   “America’s economy is out of balance. We’ve got businesses that have become too entrenched and powerful, while people and communities across America are being…

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Tin Ho, Lean Start Lab; photo courtesy of the University of Missouri-Kansas City

KCultivator Q&A: Tin Ho skewers failure, beetle larvae on path to building stronger founders

By Tommy Felts / October 19, 2019

Editor’s note: KCultivators is a lighthearted profile series to highlight people who are meaningfully enriching Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The KCultivator Series is sponsored by Plexpod, a progressive coworking platform offering next generation workspace for entrepreneurs, startups, and growth-stage companies of all sizes. Startup challenges aren’t limited to products and processes, said Tin Ho.  “My…

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Photo by Dan Gold

Eliminate the wait: JoCo-based DashNow offers diners mobile pay, check-splitting tech

By Tommy Felts / October 18, 2019

Joseph Layne was tired of waiting. Seated at a busy restaurant, he stirred the mental ingredients for DashNow, a mobile-based service allowing diners to pay-and-go without waiting on a server to swipe a credit card or make change. “I realized I had been sitting there 10 minutes [waiting for the bill], while there was a…

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War-torn Myanmar to North KC: Documentary gives taste of immigrant entrepreneur’s refugee journey

By Tommy Felts / October 18, 2019

Kansas City’s culture is increasingly shifting to include and highlight immigrant entrepreneurship, said Danielle Lehman, though the true impact is still largely unappreciated. “I think there’s a disconnect between people who are enjoying the food [from immigrant-owned restaurants] and you’ll see a picture on instagram, but they never get to know the people that make…

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Pure Pitch Rally 2019; photo by Mikaela Wendel

Baiting the sharks: How much on-the-spot funding did founders catch at Pure Pitch Rally?

By Tommy Felts / October 18, 2019

A diverse group of entrepreneurs took home $43,000 in cash prizes from Tuesday’s Pure Pitch Rally at The American restaurant. Emulating the popular TV show “Shark Tank,” about 45 investors — or “land sharks” — evaluated presentations from eight Kansas City tech startups and donated $1,000 to one of the companies at the conclusion of…

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