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Christian Renaud announces Startup City Des Moines
Yesterday afternoon, local entrepreneur and startup enthusiast Christian Renaud (left, photo from christianrenaud.com) gathered a group of 20 or so people in the back half of Java Joes coffee house in downtown Des Moines. The focus of the gathering, which I attended, was to explore the need as well as judge the interest level of…
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Recap of Iowa Entrepreneurs Conference & Venture Forum
Entrepreneurs, investors, students, and startup service providers from around the state gathered in Des Moines this week for the annual Iowa Entrepreneurs Conference and Venture Forum. In practice, two events, the Venture Forum and Entrepreneur’s Conference, were held on adjacent days in the same space. The Iowa Venture Forum kicked off with a welcome from…
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SBIR grants explained & impact on region analyzed
(21st Century Systems, left, is an Omaha-based SBIR recipient.) Guest post by Tom Chapman: In January, I contributed a guest post to Silicon Prairie News that discussed the reasons for measuring venture capital as a bellwether for investment and investible deals (Building an entrepreneurial ecosystem: what does success look like?). Another…
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From animation to mobile apps, Grasshorse reinvents itself
Not every startup is nimble enough to adapt to the constantly changing economic environment of the last few years, but that ability has been key to the success of Winfield, Iowa’s Grasshorse. In 2002, Grasshorse was founded by Stephen Jennings as an animation studio in California. Five years later, he and his sister Kathy Buxton,…
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Prairie Moves: Allied Strategy, Phenomblue, Dwolla & more
(Photo by IndigoValley via Flickr) The goal of Prairie Moves is to keep our readers informed about career moves, press coverage, and product development from the companies and individuals we cover on Silicon Prairie News. If you or your company would like to submit one of the items below for our next Prairie Moves post,…
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Dice Holdings’ Paul Melde talks about history of Dice.com & its Iowa base
Over the past decade, technology professionals across the country have come to know Dice.com as an important site for industry job-seekers and recruiters. What’s not always apparent, however, is that Dice is located in the Des Moines area and has been since the founders moved it to Iowa 15 years ago. The company began as…
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PrairieCast: Andy Stoll discusses social entrepreneurship & World Tri
Our guest this week on PrairieCast is Iowa City’s Andy Stoll, co-founder of social entrepreneurship incubator The James Gang and world traveler. Andy, who is an Omaha native, talks about his experiences with The James Gang, his recently completed 3.5 year adventure around the world and his upcoming project The World Tri. The World Tri…
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PrairieCast: Serial entrepreneur Brian Kaldenberg
This week on PrairieCast our guest is Iowa City-based serial entrepreneur Brian Kaldenberg (above). Brian has founded several companies including Gamerosters.com (which provides NCAA football video game rosters to more than 20,000 customer annually), ProofreadingPal (a proofreading service for the academic and business sectors), and…
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Doug Lewis on Iowa’s entrepreneur resources & targeted industries
Three years ago, the Iowa Legislature noted an opportunity for the state to move ahead in the advanced manufacturing, information technology and bioscience industries. To take advantage of that opportunity, they created the Innovation and Commercialization Division within the Department of Economic Development. Its mission is “to grow Iowa’s economy…
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City of West Des Moines opens business plan competition
The City of West Des Moines, the Mid Iowa Small Business Development Center, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development recently announced that they are accepting applications for their business plan competition. Top prize in the competition is a seed capital award of $25,000, prizes of $15,000…