Startup founders, Nebraska economic development leaders and employees gathered Friday in Lincoln at the new Don’t Panic Labs (DPL) offices in the Telegraph District. The ribbon cutting event was a celebration of the company’s 15th anniversary as a contributor to the state’s entrepreneurial and tech ecosystems. 

DPL is a software engineering and innovation consulting company based in Lincoln that provides software solutions for early startups and established companies. 

“Our services and value props…at DPL have obviously expanded over the last 10 years, especially in support of entrepreneurs and how they evaluate ideas,” said DPL Co-founder and CEO Doug Durham. “Not just the building of these technologies, but working with them to help make good decisions about the viability, desirability and feasibility of their products before they spend a bunch of money building software.”

Durham said DPL began as the product development arm of Nebraska Global, the venture capital fund he started circa-2010 with Steve Kiene. Nebraska Global, in conjunction with DPL, built ideas into products and then businesses. EliteForm and Beehive are two such examples. 

In the larger context of economic instability during the Great Recession, Durham said he and Kiene were motivated to challenge the perception that Nebraska wasn’t a place where tech innovation and software companies could thrive, or even be made. Aware of the skills fostered at institutions like the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management, they made it a priority to attract and hire local talent. 

Eventually the fund stopped making new investments, and in the mid-2010s DPL started to expand beyond the venture fund to help others with their software needs. Durham said he and his team grew the business to the point of buying out Nebraska Global’s interest and making DPL a standalone entity in 2022. 

“Over the years, we’ve worked with about 200 companies, primarily here, but including 20 other states, through referrals from local people,” said Durham in his opening remarks Friday. “None of this impact would have happened without the folks, the employees, of Don’t Panic Labs — both the current and past ones.”

At the 15th anniversary celebration, Jason Ball, president and CEO of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce and Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development, thanked DPL for its impact in the community — especially in upskilling and supporting Nebraka’s workforce.

“They’ve been a leader in working with educational institutions, with folks like Doane University, to create their Pathways [Program] and tell people who are in other industries or have had other career paths [how to] get into software engineering and software design,” said Ball. “That’s real leadership.”

Filling a gap for new and existing companies

Durham said DPL clients typically fall into one of three categories:

• Startup companies with no — or a limited — product development team
• Established companies with a new product or adjacent product in the works
• Established companies with a legacy application in need of upgrades or a transfer to a modern platform

“We work with seasoned entrepreneurs, as well as new entrepreneurs,” said Durham. “But I think everybody could benefit from having somebody ask them questions that might lead to them realizing that their idea is not a good idea or that maybe there’s a different take on it that actually they should be pursuing.”

DPL invited several startup founders and organizations currently working with the company to attend the ribbon cutting to showcase their products in development. 

One such startup founder was Bo Jones. He’s the founder and CEO of CareerPathway.com, an online platform created to connect businesses and colleges with aspiring students and employees. As the president of a construction company with no prior experience building software, Jones turned to DPL for assistance.

“[DPL] was the group that really took it from an idea, through concept, all the way up to an MVP product, and have built everything since,” said Jones. 

Working with DPL, Jones said the company provided him guidance beyond coding help, including assembling a pitch deck and writing questions to gather customer feedback. While he didn’t initially see the significance of this type of work prior to development, Jones said he appreciated the information he got out of it for moving CareerPathway.com forward. 

“They’re not going to come in and build a software product or platform for you without requiring you to test the market first to make sure that what you’re stepping into is viable,” said Jones. “We were seven months into it before they typed their first line of code.”

Supporting young talent and career changers 

DPL employees at the event said the company has shown great interest in supporting the next generation of developers and software engineers — attending career fairs and offering internships. Beyond seeking out newly trained tech talent, DPL has also demonstrated interest in providing training to nontraditional students and those with no software or coding experience. 

The Pathways Program is led by DPL in partnership with Doane University. It assists organizations with expanding their software development teams and upskilling their current workers with software development experience. 

Jenny Nielsen, a software engineer at DPL, participated in the Pathways Program when she previously worked for Nelnet. After studying biochemistry for her undergraduate degree, she said she didn’t have the time to go through more schooling while working a full time job in marketing. Still, she believed she had the mindset for something in tech.

“My brain is a really big spreadsheet,” joked Nielsen.  

Nielsen said she was enamored with DPL during her time in the program. She returned to Nelnet as a software engineer after completing her training. Nielsen said she eventually took her shot for a job opportunity at DPL when she later ran into Durham at a coffee shop and asked him if there were any open positions. Nielsen has been working at DPL for six months now.  

Looking toward the future

Durham said DPL is looking for ways to be more involved in the ecosystem. Currently, he said DPL has been participating in local and regional developer conferences, giving guest lectures at colleges around the state and supporting community initiatives like 1 Million Cups, Nebraska Tech Collaborative and Startup LNK. 

Durham said increasing interaction between experienced entrepreneurs and new founders would benefit everyone, and he envisions DPL hosting future events to encourage these types of meetings. 

“We’re scratching our heads, wondering what we can do as an ecosystem to help make those collisions happen more frequently,” said Durham. “We haven’t lost sight of that mission that we want to be a catalyst for economic development in the state.”

Durham said DPL has room to further expand its impact and presence in Nebraska with the recent upgrade to a larger space.