Tag: UMKC

Green Bee Tea Towels

From maker to CEO: Green Bee founder turned KC resources into a brand buzzing online, in stores

By Tommy Felts / September 7, 2019

When the inventory of vintage goods Rena Krouse sold online started to dwindle, her entrepreneurial roots helped her recreate history.  “I grew a huge Instagram following and they would get irritated when I would run out of certain things,” Krouse, CEO of Green Bee Tea Towels, said in explanation of how her maker’s journey began. …

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Jene’ Hong, E-Scholars mentor

Ego gets you in trouble — open ears get you business, UMKC E-Scholars mentor says

By Tommy Felts / August 29, 2019

Editor’s note: This article is sponsored by the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Regnier Institute, but was independently produced by Startland News. If ego runs the show, a founder won’t succeed, Jene’ Hong said as she cracked jokes laced with straightforward advice.  “If we have a big ego, we can’t listen to other people and that’s…

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Vanessa Mahan and Catherine Pollman, Bionic Bowel, UMKC Regnier Venture Creation Challenge

Two Missouri biology students just wanted an ‘A’ — ultimately they devised a treatment for Crohn’s Disease

By Tommy Felts / July 31, 2019

Launching a biotech company based on a class project took the quest for an ‘A’ to a whole new level for two Missouri University of Science and Technology students — founders of Bionic Bowell.  Prompted by professors to find a use for a special ion-interacting glass compound, Vanessa Mahan and Catherine Pollman devised an ingestible…

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Carolyne Gakuria, ScheduleMe

Tired of waiting at the barber shop? An AI-infused platform grown at UMKC could trim time

By Tommy Felts / May 28, 2019

Born in the barber’s chair, Kansas City-based ScheduleMe could take more than a little off the top for service-based retailers. The startup plans to use artificial intelligence to groom the haphazard scheduling process entirely, its co-founders said. “We discovered that [our barbershop] was having issues with scheduling. What we wanted to do was try to…

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KCultivator Q&A: Chad Feather ventured to China and back, stayed for KC kindness, community

By Tommy Felts / May 24, 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. Age doesn’t define entrepreneurial talent and Chad Feather is proof, he said…

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