Latest Stories
Made in KC Cafe opens downtown with experimental blend of coffee, retail (Photos)
A hotly anticipated hybrid coffee shop — Made in KC Cafe — poured into downtown Kansas City Friday, marking the fourth store for a home-brewed retailer. “This will be a living, breathing experiment,” said Tyler Enders, Made in KC co-founder. “Made in KC Cafe is a nice way for us to dip our toe into…
Wonka of Wax: Dark times melt into quirky joy for Brandon Love’s Crumble Co
With scents as varied as “Lavender Lemonade” and “Drunken Unicorn,” Brandon Love’s Crumble Co. burns in a unique — Love would say “joyful” — space within the candle market. A wide grin spreads across the 21-year-old founder’s face as he notes the name of the wax melt spreading aroma throughout his loft apartment at One…
Football tech startup Lazser Down scores big with NCAA championship game
When two out-of-state foes face off Saturday at Children’s Mercy Park, the NCAA Division II Championship game will still host a hometown team. The title game — between West Florida University and Texas A&M University-Commerce — features local tech created by Lazser Down, a Kansas City-based startup that created a new down marker system that uses…
Plexpod acquires Think Big Coworking, expanding KC footprint
Plexpod isn’t playing. Amid Kansas City’s competitive coworking market, Plexpod is doubling down with the acquisition of Think Big Coworking’s 1712 Main Street location, Plexpod founder Gerald Smith said. The acquisition adds more than 30,000 square feet of space to Plexpod’s already large footprint in the area and forges a new partnership between the two…
Raaxo takes shape after pivot from Aphrodite Bra Co’s body scan concept
Despite its use of body-mapping technology, Aphrodite Bra Company wasn’t the right fit for customers’ needs, said Carlanda McKinney, founder of the newly rebooted custom intimates company Raaxo. “Aphrodite had been stuck in the starting-up space,” she said. “We’d never really gotten enough sales or enough traction to say, ‘We’re launched,’ or, ‘We’re in business.’…
Serial entrepreneur leverages past success for Bridge Space coworking project
Bridge Space will be more than a coworking office, Ben Rao said. He hopes it will be the heart of Lee’s Summit’s blossoming entrepreneurial ecosystem. “My No. 1 goal is to accelerate entrepreneurs’ success,” said Rao, Bridge Space founder and a serial entrepreneur himself. “It’s an opportunity for me to build something that would make…
KC Mayor Sly James: FCC must focus on digital inclusion, preserve net neutrality
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in the commentary are the author’s alone. Startland News welcomes opinion pieces from community leaders on subjects that affect the entrepreneurial community. Email news[at]startlandnews.com for more information. In Kansas City, we have a vibrant technology and entrepreneurial community. Our Smart City program is among the best in the nation, distinguished…
KC mom’s humble entrepreneurial journey draws on healing power of creativity
Huddled in her parents’ basement, between the cribs of her crying twin babies, Keliah Smith began to draw. She was unemployed and feeling emotionally drained. The relationship with her children’s father had soured. Her escape: the stylus and smartphone in her hands. The Kansas City mother drew what she didn’t see in the mirror, she…
Harvard University recognizes KCMO digital inclusion map
Kansas City’s geographic work to illustrate the area’s digital divide earned high praise from a prestigious university. Harvard University recently highlighted the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s Digital Inclusion map, a tool that — at a block-by-block scale — detail residents’ access to internet connectivity overlaid with poverty levels. “This visualization was chosen as Harvard’s…
Study: Women angel investors more likely to give back to female-led startups
Women support women, a new study of 13,000 North American angel investors says. As more female entrepreneurs have entered the business field in the past few decades, women have begun to reshape the nature of angel investing, according to a report by the Overland Park-based Angel Capital Association. “Being an entrepreneur is one of the…
