SPN Team

  • Pipeline receives four-year Challenge Grant from Kauffman Foundation

    Pipeline receives four-year Challenge Grant from Kauffman Foundation

    Pipeline Entrepreneurial Fellowship announced this morning that it has received a challenge grant of up to $2.087 million over four years from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to support and enhance programming. Pipeline is a fellowship organization supporting the region’s fastest growing entrepreneurs. Each year up to 13 entrepreneurs are selected for the Fellowship and,…

  • LEVELS 1 through 4: What are we really asking of teams?

    LEVELS 1 through 4: What are we really asking of teams?

    This is the part of a multi-part series authored by The Startup Collaborative cofounding team: The Death (or Evolution) of Startup Accelerators and Incubators as We Know Them! Recently, we have tried to shed more light on why elements of The Startup Collaborative’s methodology has taken form in the manner it has. Stories about launching…

  • Coalition forms to develop Kansas City-St. Louis Hyperloop route

    Coalition forms to develop Kansas City-St. Louis Hyperloop route

    Anyone who tells you Kansas City baseball is preferable to what you’ll experience at Busch Stadium in St. Louis is profoundly misguided, or a biased lifelong resident of Kansas City. Anyone who tells you the BBQ you’ll find in St. Louis is preferable to what you can get at Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City is…

  • 5 Trends Transforming the World of Venture Capital

    5 Trends Transforming the World of Venture Capital

    As a designer with no formal business training, I could be the last person qualified to write about the world of venture capital. However, over the last several years of working with dozens of startups seeking seed funding and scale-ups pitching for Series A, I’ve taken it upon myself to learn the language. (along with…

  • What I’ve learned in three years as a Silicon Prairie entrepreneur

    What I’ve learned in three years as a Silicon Prairie entrepreneur

    Community Series brought to you by Commerce Village To be fair, I have no idea what it’s like to be a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. My wife and I spent most of our twenties living in Phoenix, Arizona, and I was recruited by a few employers in the Bay Area. But, since life with three kids…

  • Alpha BTC opens a second Bitcoin ATM in Lincoln

    Alpha BTC opens a second Bitcoin ATM in Lincoln

    Omaha-based Alpha BTC recently opened a second Bitcoin ATM at The Mill Coffee and Tea in Lincoln’s Haymarket. Their first machine is located in Omaha at Jones Bros Cupcakes in Aksarben Village. “We’re currently at about $50,000 per month on the Omaha machine. We’re hoping to grow Lincoln to a comparable amount,” said Edward Weniger,…

  • Breakthrough Weekend: Starting up in 54 hours

    Breakthrough Weekend: Starting up in 54 hours

    Why start a company in 54 hours? Traditional companies take anywhere from months to years to validate a concept. We’re challenging entrepreneurs to do it in a weekend. Why? We believe in timing, market validation and strong messaging more than we believe in the bells and whistles of a company founded without a clear vision…

  • Rural America Doesn’t Need Saving

    Rural America Doesn’t Need Saving

    Last week, SPN published an article on Brent Comstock’s Rural Impact Hub. As a response to the article which received local and national coverage, Brent Comstock shared a guest post with SPN that dives deeper into his vision and goals for America’s rural communities. –– I’ve recently been traveling throughout the rural parts of the…

  • St. Louis accelerator invests in high-potential agtech startups

    St. Louis accelerator invests in high-potential agtech startups

    By the time I was 27, my wife and I were the parents of three children, including a 9-year-old. That isn’t bragging—it’s more a testament to our poor family-planning skills. For many of those years, I worked for nonprofits or the state government, and my wife was a stay-at-home parent. That meant we didn’t have…

  • What matters: Insights from our venture network

    What matters: Insights from our venture network

    This is the fourth of a multi-part series authored by The Startup Collaborative cofounding team: The Death (or Evolution) of Startup Accelerators and Incubators as We Know Them! We are fresh off an investor roadshow to Chicago and St. Louis, thanks to the support of our partners at Husch Blackwell Omaha, Chicago and St. Louis…