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Brian Hemesath’s VolunteerLocal takes Pitch & Grow
Des Moines tech company VolunteerLocal today took home the top prize of $2,500 at Pitch & Grow, a business pitch competition hosted by the Technology Association of Iowa. “We did not expect to win,” founder Brian Hemesath told the Des Moines Register. “We had intended on …
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Bootstrappers: Enjoy the ride
(Guest post by Brian Hemesath.) I’m a huge fan of bootstrapped businesses. Those who bootstrap a business enjoy a unique satisfaction knowing they created value from nothing with very-little-to-no outside financial support. I have started several businesses, successfully exiting two, and along the way I have found a few things to be consistent when starting…
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Catchwind co-founder Hemesath sells company to Vande Kieft
Brian Hemesath, Catchwind’s co-founder and, for the last year-plus, its sole owner, has sold the mobile marketing …
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Its ‘concept proved,’ Tikly rolls out new version with controls for users
Tikly, an online ticketing service in Des Moines, today is rolling out its custom web and ecommerce system, a new version that allows users to create ticketing events on their own. “The first chapter of Tikly was a ticketing service that we built out using a third party ecommerce system,” Emma Peterson, the 22-year-old founder…
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Hemesath’s entrepreneurial story is one of seeing, seizing chances
Brian Hemesath wasn’t far removed from the lecture halls of Iowa State University, where he graduated in 1999 with a computer engineering degree, when he took a chance by going to work for a telecom company, Raviant Networks, in 2000. ” ‘Give it a year,’ ” Hemesath recalls being told, ” ‘and you’ll either be…
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BIZ Luncheon Series: Brian Hemesath on bootstrapping
Mike Colwell, director of the Business Innovation Zone in Des Moines, holds a monthly educational luncheon for entrepreneurs across Central Iowa. Called the “Business Insights and Networking Luncheon Series,” each luncheon features a speaker from the community with either expertise or thought leadership in an area that’s applicable to people working on building high growth…
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PrairieCast with Brian Hemesath of Catchwind & VolunteerLocal (Video)
Episode 56: The one where everybody got funded This week our guest on PrairieCast was Brian Hemesath the Des Moines-based serial entrepreneur who has founded five companies, including Catchwind, VolunteerLocal and Notifyworks. Hemesath previewed his BIZ Luncheon Series presentation on lessons learned while bootstrapping his startups. Stay tuned here at Silicon Prairie News to see…
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PrairieCast: Live at 2 p.m. with Brian Hemesath
Join us live at 2 p.m. CDT for Episode 56 of PrairieCast with guest Brian Hemesath. Hemesath, a serial entrepreneur currently working on Catchwind, VolunteerLocal and NotifyWorks, will preview his presentation for tomorrow’s BIZ Networking Lunchoen on boostrapping his startups. He’ll also discuss the news of the week including Startup Weekend Omaha, Tom Chapman’s “Stack…
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With automated email, NotifyWorks hopes to keep deadlines in mind
If the team at NotifyWorks has its way, cluttered file drawers will no longer be the place that memory of important dates and deadlines goes to die — not if the owners of those file drawers use NotifyWorks first, anyway. NotifyWorks …
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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…