Startups Stories

Blade & Timber

Coming to Leawood: Blade & Timber hopes to stick another win with second axe throwing space

Kansas City comes first, said Matt Baysinger. And that means providing cutting-edge experiences like Blade & Timber to folks across the metro. “As we were looking at expansion — and obviously we’re looking at cities outside of the metro and outside of Kansas — it made so much sense for us to say, ‘This is…

App snaps pics of items to ease moving process, MovinHouz founders say

What started as a couple of bad moving experiences developed into a mobile app to simplify the relocation process, said MovinHouz co-founders. Dominic Klobe and Chris Perrin, co-founders of Olathe-based MovinHouz, a tech startup incubated at Digital Sandbox KC, are building an app that connects moving companies to customers in need of their services, Klobe…

NBA hires Alight Analytics to collect, analyze data from fans’ social engagement

The volume of data created within a professional sports team’s fan base is enormous, said Matt Hertig, chief executive officer of Alight Analytics. “Being able to see all of that data together across all of the popular social channels — from Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat — in one place and really understand the correlation…

Christian entrepreneur hopes to convert believers to veganism

Kris Taylor’s inspiration for a vegan, Christian lifestyle traces back to the first book of the Bible, she said. Modern people eat meat because of original sin and the fall of man, as described in Genesis, Taylor said. “But if you go back to the creation story in Genesis, every seed-bearing plant was given to…

Caffeine tours give ‘pub crawl’ experience for lovers of coffee, tea and chocolate

Escaping corporate life in New York, Jason Burton moved to Kansas City in 2004 and began pouring his work into a new passion. As a marketer for Kansas City’s Roasterie, Burton soon recognized coffee and tea lacked the social component of events and festivals that are more associated with specialty beverages like beer and wine….