Bobby Burch
Recent Articles by Bobby Burch
Beyond Collisions: KCSourceLink duo craft book to build entrepreneurial ecosystems
When you’ve worked more than 15 years cultivating an entrepreneurial community, you’re bound to pick up a wealth of tools and insight. And in the case of Maria Meyers and Kate Hodel, the duo’s experience and knowledge have coalesced into a book that aims to provide cities a guide for how to broadly support entrepreneurs….
Contract Canvass develops tool for future dominated by freelancers
Chris Brown is working to put his law firm out of business. The Kansas City attorney — who for years has served creative professionals across the metro — recently created a contract automation tool for freelancers, eliminating a part of his business at Venture Legal. But while Contract Canvas might disrupt a facet of his…
American buying habits push Swappa to $70M in 2017 hand-me-down tech sales
Grown from a one-person, side-hustle project to a team of more than 30 people, Kansas City-based Swappa is swelling. The user-to-user marketplace for buying and selling used technology enjoyed its best year to date in 2017. The platform sold more than $70 million in hand-me-down electronics in 2017 — up about 17 percent from 2016, said…
KC named a top ‘dark horse’ to land Amazon HQ2
National media is lending credence to Kansas City’s prospects of attracting Amazon’s second headquarters. Inc. Magazine on Wednesday published a list of “5 Dark Horse Cities” to land Amazon HQ2, a prospective project that promises to create upward of 50,000 new jobs in whatever locale that nabs the online retailer’s massive new hub. While speculative,…
Missouri, Airbnb announce revenue-sharing state sales tax deal
As Kansas City wrangles with its own short-term rental rules, Airbnb and the Show Me State announced an agreement Wednesday that will allow the home-sharing giant to collect and remit taxes on behalf of 6,300 Missouri hosts. Effective Feb. 1, the tax agreement with the Missouri Department of Revenue adds a state sales tax — now…
Happy holidays: Three startups receive Digital Sandbox funds
They might not be wrapped with a bow, but Digital Sandbox KC has delivered three gifts to area startups ahead of the holidays. The proof-of-concept incubator program is dishing grants to TradeLanes, Hungry? and MusicSpoke — three startups that aim to revamp their respective industries with innovative technologies, said Jeff Shackelford, director of Digital Sandbox….
Flu season, ‘Good Morning America’ give Sickweather a booster shot
It’s not every day a Hall of Fame football player pitches your product. And while it wasn’t a flawless performance, Sickweather isn’t complaining about “Good Morning America” host Michael Strahan’s effort to highlight the Kansas City-based company’s illness forecasting tech during a flu season segment, CEO Graham Dodge said. “We had no control over how…
Football tech startup Lazser Down scores big with NCAA championship game
When two out-of-state foes face off Saturday at Children’s Mercy Park, the NCAA Division II Championship game will still host a hometown team. The title game — between West Florida University and Texas A&M University-Commerce — features local tech created by Lazser Down, a Kansas City-based startup that created a new down marker system that uses…
Plexpod acquires Think Big Coworking, expanding KC footprint
Plexpod isn’t playing. Amid Kansas City’s competitive coworking market, Plexpod is doubling down with the acquisition of Think Big Coworking’s 1712 Main Street location, Plexpod founder Gerald Smith said. The acquisition adds more than 30,000 square feet of space to Plexpod’s already large footprint in the area and forges a new partnership between the two…
Harvard University recognizes KCMO digital inclusion map
Kansas City’s geographic work to illustrate the area’s digital divide earned high praise from a prestigious university. Harvard University recently highlighted the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s Digital Inclusion map, a tool that — at a block-by-block scale — detail residents’ access to internet connectivity overlaid with poverty levels. “This visualization was chosen as Harvard’s…