Sioux City’s entrepreneurial community mingles at Base 3 in July 2015. Photo credit: Rachel Eisenbraun.
On January 28th Sioux City’s premiere startup event Base 3 will return to showcase 3 new speakers, 5 local startups and 2 craft breweries. SPN caught up with Base 3’s organizers, Ryan Martinez and Sean Richardson of Flyover Technology, over Skype.
SPN: What was the response like to Base 3 last July?
RM: It was good all around. People enjoyed the diverse topics; they liked the character and personality [of the speakers]. We had a local brewery there, and this time we’re going to have the other one from Sioux City there as well.
SR: We did a post-event survey to all the people that came. A lot of people didn’t have too many suggestions. They really liked the event and hearing the stories of the speakers.
SPN: What’s been happening in Sioux City since the last Base 3?
SR: We’ve been having a lot of Biz Brews, about one every month. The Springboard Coworking space is going good. We had a Startup Weekend, and there’s a lot of talk about more startups coming online, which is really exciting. After Base 3 this month, in February there’s a whole week and a half event in Sioux City called Entrepalooza.
RM: One cool thing about the Startup Weekend is that it was organized by Morningside College’s entrepreneurship group. We thought that was pretty cool that students took the initiative to get sponsors and make that happen.
SPN: You were also involved in starting that Silicon Prairie Tech Slack group, right?
SR: That was me and a guy named Geoff Arnold. It’s been awesome.
RM: I was just telling Sean today that I’m DMing all 3 speakers and our sponsors inside of Silicon Prairie Tech. It’s made communication a lot easier for Base 3.
SPN: Who are the speakers at Base 3 this time?
RM: The first is Joshua McNary, entrepreneur and marketing technologist. The second is Stacy Carlson out of Lincoln. We found her through SPN’s best advice articles of the year.
The third is Tito Hamze, who is a video editor and shooter at TechCrunch out in California. We’re really excited to have him here, and he has a few of his own businesses as well. I met him a few years back at a Startup Weekend in Lake Tahoe. He was on my team, and out of 114 participants we got second place. We’ve stayed in touch ever since.
SPN: Are there still tickets available?
SR: There’s just a handful of tickets left. It’s kind of cool that people have started getting their tickets early. In the past they’ve just been getting their tickets the week before. I think that’s a good sign for the event.
Another cool thing we’re doing is giving five local startups free booths to promote their stuff during the Biz Brew. In the past we’ve just had a table for startups to put their swag, but this year we’re trying the startup booths. We’ll see how it goes.
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For tickets and details, visit the Base 3 event web site.
SPN is a media sponsor of Base 3.