Woman-led Stories

Don’t like cookies? Your new favorite weirdough baker hungrily accepts the challenge

Tierney Larson is on a mission to bake the perfect cookies for those like herself with a not-so-sweet tooth, the Outliers Baked Goods owner shared. Each month, the self-taught baker and New York native experiments, developing four new adventurous flavors to please the taste buds of the outliers or weirdoughs of the dessert community —…

Shocked by a discovery while pregnant, this entrepreneur vowed to make self-care products from ingredients safe enough to eat

‘I might as well make my own’ Jess Winns, founder of Ari Rose Body Care, had always been pretty conscious of what she and her three daughters put into and onto their bodies, she said. However, as she researched more about holistic wellness while pregnant with her second daughter, Winns read about how more than…

Karis Harrington, right, chief of business development at Kansas City G.I.F.T.

GIFT launches We Are Black pitch competition with 10 entrepreneurs vying for $60K

Editor’s note: Kansas City G.I.F.T. is a non-financial partner of Startland News. Ten Black-owned Kansas City businesses are expected to pitch March 24 for their share of $60,000 at what organizers hope will become an annual event that helps to close the funding gap for entrepreneurs of color. The We Are Black pitch competition is…

Zach Anderson Pettet, Money 20/20, Cordell Carter II, Aspen Institute Socrates Program, Terri Bradford, Federal Reserve of Kansas City, and Donald Hawkins, kinly, at the C3KC “Fintech is Revolutionizing Banking” session

National pain points meet local solutions at C3KC; How ‘energy of the day’ can spark lasting change

Editor’s note: The Junior League of Kansas City — through its C3KC conference — is an advertiser with Startland News. Fostering conversations about the most-pressing concerns facing communities not only helps expose the best of Kansas City innovation, said Becky Haddican, it also serves as a catalyst for even greater collaboration in the future. Now in…

‘When puppets talk people listen’: It’s not just storytelling anymore for one of KC’s most beloved children’s theaters

A Kansas City arts institution known for years as the Mesner Puppet Theater is animated with new life, said Meghann Henry, detailing a mission pivot for the freshly sewn and rebranded What If Puppets. Evolution at the nonprofit has taken a turn toward early childhood education since the retirement of Paul Mesner in 2016 —…