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Brad Dwyer tells the Hatchlings story at BIZ luncheon (Video)
When Brad Dwyer created Hatchlings in 2008, he was a college sophomore who viewed the game as little more than an entertaining way to pass a weekend in the dorms. “At the time,” Dwyer said, “I just thought it was going to be another fun project that I did.” Far from it. Hatchlings, a game…
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Holding yourself to a “hire” standard
(Guest post by Brad Dwyer.) Hiring your first employees is one of the scariest propositions a startup founder will face. It’s often tempting to go it alone and make do with the superhuman efforts of a startup’s founders for much longer than is healthy. The decision to build out your team is a huge responsibility…
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Hatchlings hears from Google
After nearly a year of unreturned phone calls and emails from its Google AdSense account manager, it took a tell-all blog post and an appearance on the front page of Hacker News for Des Moines startup Hatchlings to get Google on the phone. “The (Google employee) who called me made a comment on the Hacker…
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Hatchlings takes its troubles with Google to the web
Hatchlings, a Facebook game billed as “the world’s largest virtual Easter Egg hunt,” published a blog post today detailing its attempts to collect on revenue from its disabled Google AdSense account. “After trying to go through the ‘proper channels’ for almost a year now it’s time to share this story of how Google screwed over…
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Check out our photos and video from the SPN Meetup with Hatchlings
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Groundhog Day Silicon Prairie News Meetup with Hatchlings was quite the sight. Last Thursday, more than 70 people from the Des Moines startup community joined us to celebrate the big holiday. Or perhaps they joined us simply for a chance to pet our spokesrodent Analog the Prairie Dog…
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Join us for the SPN Meetup with Hatchlings on Thursday
With a projected high of 54 degrees in Des Moines today, it’s hard to think tomorrow marks Groundhog Day, a day where many hope and pray the furry guy doesn’t see a wintry shadow. Tomorrow night, Feb. 2 from 5-7 p.m. at Raccoon River, the spokesrodent from a related genus, Analog the Prairie Dog will…
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Reinvigorated Hatchlings founder makes hires, enters ‘re-startup’ phase
There’s nothing quite like quality face time with enthusiastic users and a big IPO from a competitor to renew a startup’s zest for pursuing aggressive growth. That’s a lesson learned recently by Brad Dwyer, the Panora, Iowa-based founder of Hatchlings. Dwyer created Hatchlings, a Facebook game that revolves around finding, collecting and hatching virtual Easter…
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Prairie Moves: Nadine Anheier, Find & Replace, QuickCal and more
Published Tuesdays and Thursdays (two days late this week), Prairie Moves keeps our readers informed about career moves, media coverage, product development and more 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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VolunteerLocal streamlines process for organizers and ‘happy volunteers’
VolunteerLocal has a clear message for event organizers seeking a better way to orchestrate volunteer forces: if you want your volunteer process to excel, scrap the old spreadsheet. “We know we’ve fixed the problem, and I think a lot of our big task is educating the market that there’s tools like this available,” said Brian…
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PrairieCast with Brad Dwyer and John T. Meyer (Video)
On this week’s PrairieCast Andy Brudtkuhl and I were joined by guests Brad Dwyer, founder of Hatchlings, and John T. Meyer, co-founder of 9 Clouds and Silicon Prairie News contributor based in Sioux Falls. Also, PrairieCast is now recorded in a green screen studio which lets us place any image behind us – if you…