Opinion Stories

(S)heStarts: Do tech startups need a techie founder?

Welcome to our new series exploring news and views on men, women, start-ups and the entrepreneurial experience.     Do tech startups need a techie founder? Yes. No. Maybe? Three Kansas City startup founders provided three perspectives on the technical expertise question. While their backgrounds and development paths differ, they all agree that end users…

What the world champion Royals can teach us about investing

“The future ain’t what it used to be” – Yogi Berra, New York Yankee legend Like many kids, I learned from an early age that a game can teach us more about life than most realize. Baseball is adversity. Baseball is success by way of failure. Baseball is discipline and perseverance. Sounds a lot like…

The WTF Series: Artificial Intelligence

On a daily basis, Ben Kittrell translates the jargon-filled world of technology for clients of his tech consultancy. The Words that Frustrate (WTF) series aims to offer readers some clarity in an industry dominated by techies’ confusing argot. Last week I went to my favorite event of the year, Compute Midwest. The last four years…

Gooding: Create your own market — don’t compete in someone else’s

“It’s a $100 million dollar industry, all I have to do is capture 1 percent of that market and I’ll make a million dollars.” After working with hundreds of startups, I have heard this statement countless times. This way of thinking is held by many business owners regardless of their industry, background or target market….

The WTF Series: Agile

On a daily basis, Ben Kittrell translates the jargon-filled world of technology for clients of his tech consultancy. The Words that Frustrate (WTF) series aims to offer readers some clarity in an industry dominated by techies’ confusing argot. In the stone age of software development, there was one way to manage projects, and we called it “Waterfall.”…