HipHire

Kirby Montgomery, TheraWe Connect, Pure Pitch Rally

Pure Pitch Rally passes $1 million in prizes; FastDemocracy and TheraWe lead winners

A quick-paced pitch competition Wednesday saw big wins for political tracking startup FastDemocracy and child therapy resource TheraWe Connect, with more than $1 million in prizes awarded between 10 young companies. “Our sponsors felt a funding head-rush like a speeding train — throwing money everywhere,” said Michael Williamson, an IP attorney for Polsinelli, one of…

Julia Luetje, Storm Sleeper, pre-teen innovator

Pure Pitch surprise twist: Techweek competition adds pre-teen innovator to KC startup lineup

In a surprise announcement Monday, organizers of the Pure Pitch Rally announced the third annual pitch competition would feature the Kansas City pre-teen innovator behind the Storm Sleeper. Update: Click here to find out who won big at the Pure Pitch Rally. Julia Luetje — a Barstow School student from Leawood, who at 10 years…

Quickly-growing HipHire to launch app for part-timers

A startup facilitating part-time job placement is finding traction. Launched in 2015, HipHire digitally matches people looking for and offering part-time gigs. HipHire founder Brian Kearns wanted there to be a solution that was “a step up from CraigsList” that the public could rely on to find quality jobs. Kearns said that over 1,000 job matches have…

Brian Kearns HipHire

Brian Kearns soothes intern trepidation with these 4 tips

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. Last year I got involved with MECA Challenge, a one-day student innovation competition. As part of the event, I presented high schoolers with a business problem my startup was currently tackling. I went in without expectations and was pleasantly surprised when my group…