Tag: 1 Million Cups Kansas City

On the map and in the mirror: 1 Million Cups contrasts international eship visitors with KC startup scene

By Tommy Felts / July 16, 2025

The fail-fast mindset and high risk tolerance many American entrepreneurs employ in their quests to build unicorn startups are arguably foreign concepts to business builders on the other side of the globe, said Lucy-Llonna Larbi. Her experiences in Germany reflect a slower, security-first focus, she said, expressing admiration for the American approach. “We think that…

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1 Million Cups relocating back to Kauffman Foundation, renewing weekly meetup’s energy, sense of purpose

By Tommy Felts / April 3, 2025

After more than six years connecting entrepreneurs in Midtown, 1 Million Cups Kansas City is returning to its roots — relocating the weekly event series April 9 to the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center where the now-coast-to-coast morning meetup series first percolated.  Changing the brew for the Wednesday entrepreneur pitch showcase came from the same voices…

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Lyndsey Gruber, PEPPR

Woman-led PEPPR sets table for simplified event planning with platform cooked in KC kitchens

By Tommy Felts / October 23, 2019

A veteran of the restaurant industry thanks to her family’s long-simmering connections to Kansas City kitchens, Lyndsey Gruber stood as a woman on her own Wednesday at 1 Million Cups. “It’s just me,” Gruber, CEO and founder of PEPPR, told Startland News before the event, which served as a mid-point of Women’s Empowerment Week and…

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Chef Shanita McAffee-Bryant, The Prospect

The Prospect: ‘Cutthroat Kitchen’ winner on the move with chef-inspired workforce training

By Tommy Felts / April 16, 2019

Everyday consumers can elevate Kansas City through the simple of act of eating a meal, said Chef Shanita McAfee-Bryant. Her in-the-works non-profit urban eatery concept — The Prospect — caters to a marketplace hungry for culinary-oriented workforce development training: students looking for a window into entrepreneurship through cooking, said Bryant, 2014 winner of Food Network’s…

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Davin Gordon, Courtney Windholz, and John Coler, Centurions

Startup community organizers named to Chamber’s new Centurions class

By Tommy Felts / February 15, 2019

A trio of faces familiar within the Kansas City startup community have joined the city’s oldest and premier leadership development program. The 35-member list of incoming Centurions — which includes John Coler, product owner at RFP360 and Startup Weekend organizer; Davin Gordon, business development officer at AltCap; and Courtney Windholz, COO at PROOF and former 1…

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