Social reaction: Kansas City discusses whether it’s ‘too nice’

Is Kansas City too nice?

That question recently provoked a lively discussion amongst the Kansas City entrepreneurial community, eliciting thoughtful responses on the merits and disadvantages of the area’s candor. Startland News compiled some of those comments below that we found on our website in what will mark a new focus that aims to stimulate conversation on important topics facing Kansas City entrepreneurship.

Thank you to those offering responses and engaging in this discussion. If you have an idea for a forum question, drop us a line at news@startlandnews.com and you can join next week’s discussion on diversity now.

Here’s what readers had to say in response to the article ‘Kansas City nice’ is stifling innovation:

Chris Seferyn: This is spot on (in reference to the column). The other thing is the conservative nature of investors in the area. There just isn’t much money out there unless it’s considered 100% safe (i.e. building apartments and retail in established areas). The VC money is almost non-existent. I laugh when I hear “Silicon Prairie.” There’s mega billions sloshing around the real startup areas and a few paltry million in KC.

[pullquote]“Nice is our “unique value proposition.” It’s what makes KC different & special.” – Bill Hartnett[/pullquote]

Nick Franano (in response to Seferyn): I agree with Chris. There has been more risk capital investment over the last 10 years in the US that there has ever been anywhere ever in human history. This has driven massive job and wealth creation in San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Denver, Austin, New York, and Minneapolis among other regions. Even Omaha and Des Moines have gotten their share. Precious few drops for Kansas CIty though. I think this one of the important causes of the chronic low growth rates in Kansas City.

Bill Hartnett: (Nice) is our “unique value proposition.” It’s what makes KC different & special. We need to be a bit more bold and proud of being nice, honest and forthright.

Brandon Kenig: We’re not aggressive enough in marketing our strengths.

Robyne Stevenson: Kansas City nice actually means KC is run only by certain people.

Corey Mohn: What I love is that this article has got people talking. Whatever opinion you have, the discussion seems worthy of some time.

Chris Cheatham: The people who would be having these honest conversations don’t care. They are out building their things. And they are fine with that. I can think of three or four that I know off the top of my head.

Adam Arredondo (in response to Cheatham): I can think of several as well and that is definitely a big part of the problem. Because the culture of KC isn’t transparent or candid, those that are that way tend to avoid civic engagement which only perpetuates the problem. If we’re going to progress as a community, those people have to start caring because it’s going to take a unified voice to drive the necessary change.

[pullquote]“I think it’s more polite than nice. If someone asks me what I think I’ll be brutally honest, but don’t generally go out of my way to be an unsolicited asshole to people.” – Troy J. Norris[/pullquote]

Tim McDougall (@TimMcDougall13): Liked the @StartlandNews piece, but wouldn’t say ‘nice’ is the problem. Not being honest under the guise of ‘nice’ is. Nuance, yes.

Ryan Wing (@ryancwing): But, ‘KC Nice’ contributes to @KCMO’s unique, collaborative #startup atmosphere, e.g. @Plexpod & @KCSV

Troy J. Norris: I think it’s more polite than nice. If someone asks me what I think I’ll be brutally honest, but don’t generally go out of my way to be an unsolicited asshole to people. Part of it is because it’s just my opinion and I could be just as wrong as I might think they are, and the other end is that startups get so much feedback from people that don’t know their situation that most don’t need anymore noise in their signal.

On a lack of college students in the startup community …

John-Michael Angotti: Why aren’t college students a more integral part of our entrepreneurial community? … In my opinion, we have 6 pretty large universities within a few hours of Kansas City (KU, KSU, MU, UCM, UMKC, Rockhurst). Really would like to see them doing more here with the community and startups. Though, if they are already doing stuff, they should be celebrating this / publicizing it. I feel like that’s an easy win for them.

Troy J. Norris (in response to Angotti): UMKC was very tied in at one point mostly thanks to close proximity to the Kauffman foundation and still houses things like KCSourceLink and E-scholars. But they’re not as proactive as they were with all the personnel change that happened for a variety of reasons. But there are tons of resources open to everyone still and they’ll meet with anyone interested in my experience. … Rockhurst has done things like host a startup weekend and GEW events. … KU’s entrepreneurship club or whatever it’s called organized trips for start up crawl and the startup village festival and several from that group are living in KC now and big parts of the community. Likewise a number of people in this group have been there to present or talk to classes or meet with faculty, so there’s a fair bit of back and forth. They also have their own incubation and acceleration type programs from what I understand.  … (The University of Missouri at) Columbia has a lot going on as well but basically in its own universe, though a lot of KC people seem to make it out to their events when they have them. … So in my mind there are lots of ties, but they’re not obvious or at an institutional partnership level except for UMKC kind of once. People graduate and you forget where they came from.

Eric Dorsey (in response to Norris): I’m pretty sure UMKC, KU, K-State, and even Wichita State all have entrepreneurship programs. I graduated with a degree from the program at K-State, and I can tell you for sure that they focus more on starting small businesses than startups. I imagine this is true for UMKC as well, since the professor who ran the program at K-State has since moved to UMKC to run their entrepreneurship program. … Nothing against small business, but it’s not what I think about when I see “entrepreneurship” program. The people you want involved aren’t necessarily the students in the entrepreneurship programs, but more likely the students in the (computer science) and engineering programs. … When I was at K-State, I tried to draw out the hackers from the CS program and elsewhere by launching cool and useful websites and apps with high visibility, but it didn’t work very well. I’m pretty sure most of them just want to graduate and then get a 9 – 5 at Garmin or Cerner, live in the burbs, and start saving for retirement.

Scott Howell III (in response to Dorsey): I have to agree with Eric, the E-programs at universities are not about helping students develop the skills and knowledge to create high-growth opportunities. … I have had the same personal experience with dealing with CS and engineering students. Most say they are too busy with school to be bothered with trying to build anything outside of their normal class projects, they have no interest with working in a startup because their professors and schools push them to the less risky 9 – 5 jobs, or they don’t want to do anything with startups in KC and are trying to move to the west coast.