Innovation index: Cross-newsroom startup data partnership puts Kansas City on the map

Finding relevant, actionable information on innovation happening in one’s own backyard can be tough, said Christopher Wink, announcing Kansas City’s inclusion within a new resource for navigating innovation communities.

“Every metro region, every state has some website or page — ‘This is where you start if you’re going to join the KC tech community or whatever,’” said Wink, co-founder and CEO of the Philadelphia-based, digital tech publication Technical.ly. “But we were missing a piece of the puzzle — if you didn’t even know where to look for the Kansas City startup community, where would you start?”

Technical.ly’s startup newsroom created a Map of Innovation Ecosystems — featuring 24 listings — to give movers and shakers a view to some of our nation’s leading and emerging tech and innovation hubs. To flesh out data for its Kansas City entries, Wink turned to collaborators at Startland News.

He envisions Technical.ly as “the national voice of the local tech ecosystem.” In a bid to earn that distinction, he and his team relied on six metrics when considering any locale for the map: cost of living, ease of conducting business in the region, general economic mobility, density of software developers in the area, R&D spending and valuation of all startups in the region.

Click here to explore the Map of Innovation Ecosystems, including Kansas City’s place on Technical.ly’s Innovation Index.

Map courtesy of Technical.ly

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What is Technical.ly?

As mainstream news outlets suffer from viewers’ and readers’ lack of trust in them (and continue to shed readers and relinquish influence as a result), independent reporters and new outlets are filling the void. Founded in 2009, Technical.ly was ahead of the trend, but with a post-mainstream news twist. 

Journalism is just the beginning of Technical.ly’s efforts, Wink said, but it’s the essential ingredient: Technical.ly has built an organic readership through business, tech and innovation reporting that is focused on several East Coast markets: Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and a few others.

In addition to these efforts, Technical.ly makes itself available to organizations that want to connect with hard-to-reach professionals in a variety of ways — advertising, event sponsorships, research and storytelling support and package plans that include a diversity of strategies. 

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Making a Midwest collaboration

So, how did Startland News catch Technical.ly’s attention?

The newsrooms first connected in April 2021 when Baltimore-based Spark Coworking played host to a conference that featured speakers Tommy Felts, editor-in-chief of Startland News, and the then-managing editor of Technical.ly’s Baltimore operation.

Years later, Shervonne Cherry, partnerships director at Spark, encouraged further crossover, noting the individual strengths and focuses of each newsroom. 

“Shervonne first connected us, seeing how similarly we operate. From there, we started working with Chris and his team and the rest is history,” said Austin Barnes, who leads partnerships and business development at Startland News.

The Technical.ly collaboration offers Startland News — and other entities across the nation — an opportunity to use local and national data as a resource from which publications can “level up,” Barnes said.

It’s already helped Startland News identify gaps in coverage, he added, noting the newsrooms also are discussing projects that could bring other innovation journalists deeper into stories impacting entrepreneurs in Kansas City. 

“The work we are doing together has the opportunity to elevate entrepreneurs and inspire the future of innovation on a much wider scale,” Barnes said.

Is the map complete?

“One of the most common conversations I have goes like this,” Wink said. “Folks are like, ‘Oh, you just don’t realize what’s happening here in insert city.’ In response to that I say, ‘Well, everyone now has an entrepreneurship strategy. Everyone now has activity. It’s now all about whether or not you’re telling your story to anyone.’”

Wink’s vision for this first iteration of the map was to pinpoint the areas in which known activity and capacity building are occurring. In future updates, he hopes to add entries for new communities that either have a bustling ecosystem that somehow didn’t hit Technical.ly’s radar or help communities tell their stories and raise their profile with Technical.ly’s back-of-house storytelling and marketing abilities and data expertise.

Christopher Wink, founder of Technical.ly, speaks during a tech conference in 2024; courtesy photo

In a Technical.ly article introducing the map, Wink noted that “most locations mapped include a catalog of the ecosystem resources to get you started. Several local resource directories are included, thanks in part to our friends at EcoMap, which powers tools like Baltimore.Tech from UpSurge Baltimore and Tech Town Detroit’s Startup Navigator.”

In the end, Wink said, there are two ways to get onto the map: “Be doing high quality storytelling about your ecosystem, or work with Technical.ly to do it right.”

In the case of Kansas City and Startland News, Wink said the choice of an organic, unpaid partnership was an easy one as Startland and other entities in the region are already doing great storytelling work. 

“But, with some of the other regions, we are sponsored by an economic development organization,” he said. “In the end, and whatever the setup behind the scenes, this is a map of ecosystems that are active enough to have their story told.”

The map is already live and ready to use — with an official debut this week during Technical.ly’s Builders Conference. The event is part of the 14th annual Philly Tech Week, which is expected to focus on storytelling, economic mobility and AI.

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Haines Eason is the owner of startup content marketing agency Freelance Kansas. Previously he worked as a managing editor for a corporate content marketing team and as a communications professional at KU. His work has appeared in publications like The Guardian, Eater and KANSAS! Magazine among others. Learn about him and Freelance Kansas on LinkedIn.