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10 people to grab coffee with if you’re new to KC’s startup community
While the Silicon Prairie may span across several states, include vastly different types of companies and entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds (and football rivalries), supportive communities are one factor that tie them all together. Whether you’re in Omaha or Des Moines, Kansas City or Cedar Rapids, you’ll find people who really care about helping their fellow…
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Method’s Eric Ryan makes good on Big Omaha promise to find long-lost soap
Like many entrepreneurs and visionaries who attend Big Omaha, Nate Allen was ready for an inspirational takeaway. As with past Big Omaha events, Allen—CTO of Kansas City-based software development firm Proof—was poised to glean seeds of wisdom from startup royalty such as Evan Williams and Kevin Rose. This year, however, he had an agenda.
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KC dev consultancy Proof teaches startups how to write their own map
It’s easy to have an idea, not too hard to get a startup going and not necessarily all that hard to build an MVP. It’s the last challenge, making something consumers want and will pay for, that separates the field. Turns out a lot goes into that; it’s not one step. A Kansas City startup…
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New Kansas City coworking space for startups gives tenants ownership
A new coworking space focused toward the startup community will fill this location at 1624 Westport Road. Nate Allen, co-founder of 4 First Names, wants to create a community coworking space in Kansas City for startups, run by startups. That means he needs you. The entire operation, from ideation to the space’s upkeep, has and…
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KC duo rocks Kickstarter data, invites others to do the same
There have been about 106,000 Kickstarter projects since 2009 when the site was established. That’s a mountain of data to examine and sift through—an appealing challenge to data visualization specialists Nate Allen and Wes Mikel of Kansas City company 4 First Names. “Our goal was to collect and visualize a data set more complex and…
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Zoo app Wazoo takes top prize at Startup Weekend Kansas City
Without proper planning or the right tools, a day at the zoo can become, well, a zoo. Long walks, overlooked attractions and missed events can leave a patron full of frustration. Just ask Kelly Tomlinson. Tomlinson, a Kansas City-based UI designer, recently listened to her roommate complain of all those issues upon returning from a…
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Prairie Portrait: Nate Allen of 4 First Names
Bio: Kansas City native, resident and enthusiast. Hacker, gamer, entrepreneur and philosopher. | Title: Managing Member and Data Viz Guy | Age: 26 | Residence: Mission, Kan. | Twitter: @neight | Linkedin: linkedin.com/pub/nathan-allen | Intro music: “Embody” by SebastiAn | Silicon Prairie News: You recently sold your share of your game development company, Vicinity Games.…
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Prairie Moves: Mike Hays, Rachel McClung, Allrecipes.com and more
Published Tuesdays and Thursdays, 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, please email editor@siliconprairienews.com. And if…
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Nate Allen of Vicinity Games talks developing local, multi-player games
In May, I wrote an article about Vicinity Games, a game development company located in Kansas City. In that article, co-founders Nate Allen and Mike Koporc introduced Paper Craft, a multi-player shooting game for XBox, and shared a sneak preview of the game. Paper Craft launched in late May and since then has accrued over…
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Vicinity Games aims to bring gamers together with Papercraft
The gaming industry is a tough cookie to bite into, especially with big game producers like EA and Nintendo. But Vicinity Games is not backing away from creating multiplayer video games for XBox and other game consoles. Last October, Nate Allen and Mike Koporc started Vicinity for the purpose of not only developing games but…