Big Kansas City 2013

  • Watch the Big Kansas City 2013 Video Series presented by NIC, Inc.

    Our inaugural Big Kansas City event is in the history books, but don’t think you won’t be able to relive the two days of inspiration and education delivered by our speakers. We’re excited today to release videos of the 16 entrepreneurs and innovators who took the stage March 27-28 in Hangar 9 at the National…

  • See more than 1,100 Big Kansas City photos, stay tuned for videos Friday

    Two weeks ago we were entering the second day of our inaugural Big Kansas City conference in the National Airline History Museum, a venue that proved to be our most Instagram-worthy venue yet. Since then, we’ve rounded up more than 4,500 pictures from our photographer Kenny Johnson and nearly 350 Instagram photos by our attendees.…

  • Code for America chief of staff sees “civic startup ecosystem” emerging

    Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., together are a 2013 Code for America partner city, and Abhi Nemani, the organization’s chief of staff, shared his passion for more connected governments during the final afternoon of our Big Kansas City event last week. “We’re trying to show what’s possible for governments,” Nemani said. The San…

  • Bart Stein’s five startup lessons from the company he sold to Yahoo!

    Though Bart Stein is no longer part of a startup, he has plenty of advice to share from his experience founding one. In early 2011, he and his co-founder began building Stamped, a mobile app that aimed to show users meaningful recommendations made by their friends. Less than a year after lauching the app, the…

  • Micah Baldwin urges entrepreneurs to optimize themselves

    After years of advising startups and founding companies, Micah Baldwin was tired. During his talk last week at our Big Kansas City event, the serial entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Graphicly told the audience how he became so worn out he almost sold the company. Graphicly started out as a marketplace for selling comic…

  • Reddit co-founder wants you to start working on your idea

    Projected behind reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian on the Big Kansas City stage last week was his personal motto in all caps, paired meme-style with a snarling wolf: “Have an idea. Start doing it.” Before his user-generated website built steam, he had to let another idea crash and burn. At our Big Kansas City event, he…

  • Mike Macadaan on redesigning MySpace, helping startups at Science

    When Mike Macadaan was asked to redesign MySpace in 2009, he said that was the only thing that could have kept him in Los Angeles. The redesign of the large social media company was, he said, “the most sophisticated problem I’ve ever faced.” MySpace was an organization that Macadaan said had a lot of invested…

  • Education, mistakes and community are focus of speaker Q&A session

    Our inaugural Big Kansas City event kicked off Wednesday with talks from eight entrepreneurs and innovators. Staying true to traditions established at sister seminars Big Omaha and Big Des Moines, our first day wrapped up with a speaker Q&A session. Jamie Wong of Vayable, Dhani Jones of BowTie Cause, Micah Baldwin of Graphicly, and Dan…

  • Clarity founder Dan Martell credits his success to motivation, hustle

    The importance of hustle and motivation in the making of a successful entrepreneur was central to Dan Martell’s talk Wednesday at our Big Kansas City event. Martell is the founder and CEO of Clarity, a community of more than 7,000 entrepreneurs that offer advice over the phone to users across the world. Motivation trumps knowledge…

  • Jamie Wong’s challenge: “Build the world you want to live in”

    On a spring break trip to Morocco while studying abroad, Jamie Wong, co-founder and CEO of Vayable, discovered her love for travel and desire to have unique experiences. When she spoke yesterday morning at the inaugural Big Kansas City, Wong used her experiences traveling to more than 35 different countries to stress the importance of…