News Stories

Tohi ventures down a Midwest ‘rabbit hole’ to discover a rare berry good enough to drink

Tohi Ventures is on a quest to save the planet — one rare-berry infused beverage at a time.  “I was literally doing Google research on unique ingredients, specialty crops … these one-ingredient wonders,” explained Shari Coulter Ford, CEO and co-founder of Tohi Ventures — maker of Tohi, an antioxidant-rich beverage available in four, all-natural flavors. …

‘Not a good look’: Amid budget cut criticism, Mayor Q shuffles $25K between small biz support groups

Editor’s note: Startland News is a program of STARTLAND, an ecosystem-building organization that is among the participants in an informal coalition of entrepreneur support groups hoping to increase funding for small business support in the 2020-2021 Kansas City, Missouri, budget. This story was produced independently by Startland News’ nonprofit newsroom. Responding to sharp criticism of…

Image courtesy of KCSourceLink

KCSourceLink’s budget clapback: Startups generated $37.6M in KCMO earnings taxes

Editor’s note: Startland News is a program of STARTLAND, an ecosystem-building organization that is among the participants in an informal coalition of entrepreneur support groups hoping to increase funding for small business support in the 2020-2021 Kansas City, Missouri, budget. This story was produced independently by Startland News’ nonprofit newsroom. Financial backing for entrepreneur support…

What’s startup support worth? Orgs threatened by budget cuts rally behind ROI numbers

Editor’s note: Startland News is a program of STARTLAND, an ecosystem-building organization that is among the participants in an informal coalition of entrepreneur support groups hoping to increase funding for startup support in the 2020-2021 Kansas City, Missouri, budget. This story was produced independently by Startland News’ nonprofit newsroom. The impact is in the numbers,…

Danny Ritz and Kevin Ritz, State Your Line

State Your Line: Ritz Brothers’ podcast straddles KC, border between fun and dumb

Holed up at home, recovering from a broken ankle, Kevin Ritz started to toy with the idea of launching a KC-centric podcast — despite living in a city rich with audio storytellers, he noted.  “I did a lot of research as far as seeing if there was a podcast [about Kansas City] out there already…