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Speaker Q&A addresses investor meetings, mistakes and mic skills
To end the first full-day of Big Omaha on Thursday, four speakers stuck around for an audience Q&A. Megan Casey of Pack, Anil Dash of ThinkUp, Tony Conrad of about.me, and Ben Milne of Dwolla. The group used their personal experiences to respond to questions on their failures in the workplace, personality traits they’re forced…
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Micah Baldwin gives tips for taking care of yourself
“What if we were to stop putting our companies first?” asked Micah Baldwin at Big Omaha Friday afternoon. “Right now all of your stomachs turned. ‘But we’re from the Midwest. That’s what we do.'” But what if we stopped thinking our startups were us? What if the one thing we’ve been told – the harder…
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Gentry Underwood closes Big Omaha with the story of Mailbox
Gentry Underwood is trying to redefine the way smartphone users interact with their email. “We want to build the best email experience in the world for as many people as we can,” he said. Since the Mailbox founder spoke at Thinc Iowa last October, he says the last seven months have been “an absolute whirlwind.”…
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What’s your favorite Style Your Startup Tee submission?
In celebration of our high fashion Big Omaha 2013 brand, we invited attendees to style a startup tee for a chance to win a ticket to next year’s event. From here, it’s up to you. Below are our eight finalists, which ever one get the most collective social media likes by midnight will win the…
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Noah Kagan pushes entrepreneurs to focus on self-improvement
Noah Kagan calls 2012 his “year of failure,” and came to Big Omaha with tips for entrepreneurs who may be a little burned out. His advice? Don’t focus on the money, or even the business. Focus on you. For Kagan, there are three things that control his happiness: wealth, health and love. Wealth “I am…
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McClure’s point that “everything sucks” gets lost in everything else
Dave McClure started his Big Omaha talk warning it would offend some people. He was right. His focus was on the idea that “everything sucks and nobody notices,” but it ended up lost amid potentially offensive exchanges and an abundance of cursing, which quickly sparked a conversation on Twitter. Beyond that, he told the crowd…
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Thanks to our livestream sponsor, Hayneedle
We’d like to thank Omaha’s own Hayneedle for its sponsorship of Big Omaha 2013. Hayneedle is a classic example of a startup from the Silicon Prairie that not only has made it big but understands that it’s important to support other entrepreneurs in the community. Hayneedle is the exclusive sponsor of the Big Omaha 2013…
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On quest to redefine business, Cindy Gallop addresses attitudes on sex
As the founder of If We Ran the World and Make Love Not Porn, Cindy Gallop is taking steps to tackle the absence of honest conversation in society about sex. At Big Omaha this afternoon, she described the business model of Make Love Not Porn as shared values combined with shared action to create shared…
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Thank you to a great group of Big Omaha friends
An event like Big Omaha simply could not exist without the help of a tremendous number of organizations who dedicate their time and resources to making it happen. We’ve been highlighting them during our event and I would now like to thank a group we affectionately refer to as our friends …
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The story behind the Big Omaha standing ovation
By now, Big Omaha attendees have been in and out of their seat several dozen times, and some may be wondering: what gives with giving each speaker a standing ovation before they begin? Credit David Hauser of Grasshopper, who started the tradition when he spoke at the second Big Omaha in 2010. “I remember sitting…