New this year to the AIM Heartland Developers Conference is Startup Connections, a networking event geared towards merging developers and attendees in order to promote the sharing of ideas and expertise across the Silicon Prairie community.
AIM HDC Startup Connections will take place Friday, September 8 from 10-1:30 and will feature six area tech startups and their founders. The founders will be available to answer questions and talk with developers as part of a game specifically developed for AIM HDC attendees by Don’t Panic Labs. Attendees will collect cards from the startup founders and use the codes on the back to register for a drawing for a Nintendo Switch.
While the AIM HDC audience has been primarily developers in the past, Startup Connections presents the opportunity for nontechnical founders to attend and interact at the conference which is full of potential technical co-founders.
Mailani Veney, CEO of DealAnyDay, is one of the founders who will be participating in Startup Connections. She knows firsthand the importance of founders with non-tech backgrounds to form connections with the tech community.
“As a nontechnical founder running a technology company, having technical expertise and people to help with strategy and implementation is crucial […] so this is an opportunity to get to learn, grow and interact with leading development talent in the Midwest,” said Mailani. “Strengthening relationships between startups and the development world is crucial for us to see the ecosystem grow and thrive.”
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Mailani is also the founder of Startup Nebraska, a Facebook group that has supported Nebraska’s startup ecosystem since 2011. She said that questions surrounding technology are one of the most frequent issues she sees in the group.
Don’t Panic Labs Business Director Brian Zimmer says his company got behind Startup Connections for the same reason––there’s a need for in-person connections between founders and developers.
“I think for us, as a development company that works with startups contractually and investment-based as well, […] we keep coming across startups that would benefit from connecting with tech talent. We’ve got a really large collection of skilled developers at HDC,” said Zimmer. “HDC is all about learning. What can the startups learn from the developers and also, what can the developers learn from the startups and what they’re doing.”
Both Veney and Zimmer see Startup Connections as an opportunity for startups to get access to the people who can help them push their business forward and speed up the process of building technical teams through networking and collisions.
“We can get more people in the startup ecosystem if they know they have the resources available to support building a business,” said Veney. “This kind of an event will expose people who are not technical and give them the resources to have the confidence in taking that calculated risk of starting a company.”
AIM HDC Startup Connections participating companies
Hip Pocket
Hip Pocket is a FinTech software company that creates apps to help people make better financial decisions from their phone in just two minutes. Their newest product is Hip Money, a financial wellness app that helps anyone save more money and eliminate debt with a simple swipe right.
FYI.IO
fyiio is the next-generation training platform to create video and written guides appealing to your customers and employees. Our mission is to make usable tools that deliver an accessible and wholesome training.
We fix the broken processes that arise from using multiple platforms, services and tools not exclusively designed to train people. fyiio’s feature set elegantly marries the best of content generation, knowledge bases, learning management and video hosting in one platform.
Together Clinic
Together Clinic, LLC is a healthcare technology startup company bridging the gap between patients and providers in the management of chronic disease. We created a mutually beneficial patient and provider platform that has decreased patient readmissions and promoted patient satisfaction. The Together Clinic application offers modules, including heart failure, COPD, hypertension, and more. We also provide the tools necessary for Chronic Care Management (CCM). To learn more about Together Clinic please contact our team.
ScoutSheet
A relationship mapping tool for B2B sales research and prospecting
BlackBox
The Black Box Performance Tracker gives you a whole new reason to ride. The easy to use mobile app lets you record your rides on any Powersports vehicle, anywhere in the world. Black Box will show you where you rode, how fast you went, how high you climbed and gives you points for every mile, every turn, and every foot of elevation change. Use your score to challenge friends and compete in Gear Challenges to win the best gear from the best brands.
DealAnyDay
We are a trusted community resource, connecting local people with local places. We help businesses make money by saving people time and money through our proprietary search engine that lists non-coupon specials in a city. We did the research for you: Food & Drink Specials, Happy Hour, Kids Specials, Student Discounts, Oil Changes, Haircuts, and 1000’s more. Check DealAnyDay.com or download our app to discover your fun.
Event Information
AIM HDC (Heartland Developers Conference)
September 6-8, 2017
Embassy Suites Conference Center
La Vista, NE
Click here for more information.
