Woman-led

Diana Kander and Jessie Jacob, JD Insights

The problem with asking customers what they want? They lie (but not to this KC data duo)

By Tommy Felts / January 4, 2022

For years, Diana Kander has researched how to interview customers — specifically how to get the truth from them, she said. It’s been key to helping her work with companies to innovate and grow. But in early 2021 the consultant and author of “All In Startup” and “The Curiosity Muscle” was perplexed by a problem…

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Co-founders Kyle Manera and Maddie Shonka, Co-Immunity

Their diagnoses were just the beginning: How tech app, community tap into co-founders’ own chronic illnesses

By Tommy Felts / January 4, 2022

Startland News’ Startup Road Trip series explores innovative and uncommon ideas finding success in rural America and Midwestern startup hubs outside the Kansas City metro. This series is possible thanks to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which leads a collaborative, nationwide effort to identify and remove large and small barriers to new business creation. WICHITA…

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Digital Sandbox KC recipients: Jaqwan Sirls, PageMaster; Aishah Augusta-Parham, SEPOW; Brandon Fuhr and Joel Stephens, XReps; David Roberson, AZELLA; Eliot Arnold, MoodSpark; and Nikil Ragav, InventXYZ

Just funded: Digital Sandbox KC starts new year with six new startups on its roster

By Tommy Felts / January 4, 2022

Digital Sandbox KC’s latest round of startup funding reflects the emergence of more Kansas City-built, scalable tech in the new year, said Jill Meyer, announcing the fourth-quarter roster of companies bringing innovative ideas to life in the region. “These six companies demonstrate the creativity and diversity of our region’s technology founders and problem solvers,” said…

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Olive Cooke, Sylvia Metta, and Kim Conyers Cauldron Collective

Vegan spell falls over West Bottoms restaurant as this trio’s plant-based potions ring in a new year

By Tommy Felts / December 29, 2021

Every witch needs a coven, said Olive Cooke, Sylvia Metta and Kim Conyers; so they conjured a community in the West Bottoms to serve their vegan bites.  Cauldron Collective — a plant-based, comfort food venture co-founded by self-proclaimed “cooking witches” Cooke, Metta and Conyers in January 2021 — made its mark in Kansas City through…

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Long Lost Cold Brew; Startland News photo

Why the ‘best cold brew you’ve ever tasted’ (and it’s brewer) are found only in KC

By Tommy Felts / December 29, 2021

Tucked in your neighborhood grocer’s cooler waits an otherworldly cold brew — the smoothest this side of the twilight zone. And it can only be found in Kansas City. For now. “I take my craft really seriously and I taste every batch. If it’s not right, it doesn’t go out. It’s really important to me…

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