Episodes

With the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's $1.7 billion new western headquarters under construction in St. Louis, a flurry of activity around geospatial technology has followed. The federal intelligence agency isn't scheduled to move into its new facility until 2025, but numerous efforts — especially at the intersection of geospatial technology and early-stage business — have been announced in recent months, with St. Louis looking to strengthen its position as a hub for the industry. The...

From honey to paw paws, the final pre-Thanksgiving episode of Speaking Startup features a veritable cornucopia of Missouri produce. First, we look at the business of bees. Honey bee colonies add $15 billion of value to U.S. agriculture annually, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report, but the U.S. honey bee population has declined by almost half since the 1940s. Today, entrepreneurs across Missouri are working with bees to help the pollinator ecosystem — and build businesses. Then,...

In Kimmswick, located about 25 miles downriver from St. Louis, flooding and the coronavirus pandemic have dealt back-to-back blows to local businesses and the municipal budget. Two major festivals in Kimmswick — the Apple Butter Festival and the Strawberry Festival — have been canceled the last two years. The events can draw 100,000 visitors to the small town and account for about 80% of municipal revenue. Business owners are struggling, too. In the latest installment of Outstate, our series on ...

Nearly two in three small business owners said they were more interested in this year's election than in the 2016 election, and 40% of entrepreneurs said they were "much more" interested this year, according to a September survey from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Election interest was especially high in the Midwest, where 71% of small business owners expressed interest in this year's proceedings. On the eve of the election, the latest Speaking Startup episode features perspectives from a handfu...

Kansas City's BCP Tech Accelerator concluded its first cohort earlier this month. The debut was not without challenges. The coronavirus pandemic delayed the start of the accelerator and forced it to go from an in-person format to a virtual one. But the program, which is focused on startups developing technology for the insurance brokerage industry, eventually went on. Nathan Kurtz of Brush Creek Partners, the insurance brokerage behind the accelerator, joined the Speaking Startup podcast to disc...

Thrift shopping and resale have grown significantly over the last few years, and Missouri entrepreneurs are riding the wave of that popularity. Take Caylin Willis and Jared Armstrong, the co-founders of vintage and upcycled clothing store Yvonne and Mitchel. The couple turned a love of fashion and thrifting into a social media-driven clothing resale business. "We tried to tell (people) that you can just go to the thrift store and find really cool stuff for really cheap," Willis said. "But a lot ...

Fast-growing plant science startup Benson Hill cut the ribbon on a new headquarters in Creve Coeur last month, officially opening a facility the company dubbed "a new home for the future of food." Jason Bull, who became Benson Hill's CTO earlier this year, joined the Speaking Startup podcast to discuss his company's trajectory and the significance of its new headquarters, which he called "a symbol of our growth and how our innovations are panning out." Plus, as local governments across Missouri ...

Kyle Richards, Derick Thornton and Dade Sprague form RTS Trio, a Maryville business that manages vending machines, rental property and an expansive Ebay store — with plans to open a brick-and-mortar store. The three would be juniors at Northwest Missouri State University this fall. But, after launching their company in February and weathering the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, they opted to step away from school for the fall to focus on building their business. In the latest episode of ...

Women make up half of the total college-educated workforce. However, in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM — fields, women only make up 28% of the workforce. The disparity is even more pronounced when it comes to women of color. Cheryl Cooper is looking to help close that gap. She's the founder of Women in Security Mentors, an organization based in the Kansas City area that helps women interested in the cyber security field by providing education, workshops and profes...

Male and female startup founders whose companies raise capital are equally likely to lead those companies to sales or initial public offerings, according to a study from researchers at the Columbia Business School and London Business School. The trouble is, female-led ventures are 63% less likely than male-led ventures to obtain such funding. Those funding disparities were one topic addressed at the virtual Startup Missouri Expo, which ran from Tuesday to Thursday and addressed a range of startu...

Maria Kunstadter remembers hearing a speaker discuss the jaw-dropping statistics. Toothaches perennially rank among the leading reasons for emergency room visits, she said, driving $1.7 billion in annual emergency room spending. Kunstadter's answer to that conundrum, The TeleDentists, is a startup that connects people with dentists for virtual oral health consultations in an effort to save them time and money. The Kansas City-based company has really taken root since the onset of the coronavirus...

Across Missouri, startups have shifted their products and services in response to the the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple businesses that have undergone pandemic pivots participated in the Black & Veatch COVID-19 Response Accelerator. The program, run by Kansas City-area engineering firm Black & Veatch, was created to help accelerate the growth of businesses trying to address problems presented by COVID-19. On this week's podcast, we caught up with a couple of Missouri-based companies that participa...

Entrepreneurs start businesses for all sorts of reasons. For some, the motivation stems from discrimination or an unwelcoming environment at a previous job. Research points to the value of diversity within a workplace. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to outperform their peers, and companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to do the same, according to a study by McKinsey & Company. On this week's episode of speaking startup, we l...

With businesses disrupted, employees working remotely and lots of people seeking the latest information about the coronavirus, the pandemic has been something of a perfect storm for cybersecurity. Since the start of the pandemic, cyberattacks have gone up by 300%, according to the FBI’s Cyber Division. On this week’s podcast we explore the roots of that increase in cyberattacks and how people can protect themselves and their information. Plus, we speak with Ann Duplessis, senior vice president a...

Millennials are the target of plenty of criticism. Other generations say they're narcissistic, need constant validation and overspend on avocado toast. A critique less frequently leveled against the generation is its lack of entrepreneurial inclination. But some research published by the Small Business Administration suggests millennials are the least entrepreneurial generation in a century. On this week's podcast, we dig into that idea, looking at some of the numbers on entrepreneurship by gene...

As calls to support Black-owned businesses grow, Christal Rogers is taking a grassroots approach to that effort. A Black entrepreneur herself, Rogers founded an organization called Brownpreneurs, which seeks to teach principles of entrepreneurship to African American youth. "As we pursue this endeavor to shop Black and look at racial equality, we need to look within the industries and actually make (entrepreneurship) a possibility," Rogers said, "if not for our generation for the generation that...

Discussion of coworking among those who support it most are often peppered with descriptions like communal, collaborative and close-knit. In the age of COVID-19 and social distancing, many of those once-complimentary descriptions are akin to four-letter words. Amid that shift, shared workspace operators and tenants have been forced to adjust. This week's episode of Speaking Startup features a conversation with Ben Rao, founder of Bridge Space, a coworking facility in the Kansas City area. He dis...

Early numbers on job losses resulting from the coronavirus suggest women in the labor force have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. But what about women business owners? In this week’s episode of the Speaking Startup podcast, we look at how women entrepreneurs in Missouri are faring in the face of COVID-19. Plus, as protests across the country have brought attention to police brutality and systemic racism, some people have sought ways to support black-owned businesses. We checked in with ...

With the COVID-19 pandemic leading to historical levels of job losses, entrepreneurship by necessity is likely to spike in the coming weeks and months, according to research of past recessions. The latest episode of the Speaking Startup podcast focuses on that type of entrepreneurship. First, we look at entrepreneurship among formerly incarcerated people, who tend to experience high rates of unemployment even in healthy job markets. Kyle Smith co-founded Determination, Incorporated, a Kansas Cit...

As lawmakers have worked this week to finalize the state's budget, entrepreneurial support organizations across Missouri have been watching with interest. They are concerned about the downward trend in state funding for the Missouri Technology Corporation, a private-public partnership established to promote entrepreneurship and boost the growth of technology startups in the state. Over the last few years, state funding for the MTC has decreased from more than $17 million per year to less than $3...

In the small Missouri River town of Hermann, winemaking is big business. So is the tourism surrounding that wine industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated tourist traffic, presenting a new — and potentially existential — threat for small wineries looking to carve out their niche. “This is probably our 2020 version of prohibition, when Hermann obviously made some huge changes," said Tammy Bruckerhoff director of tourism and economic development for the town. On this week's podcast, we check ...

For 20 years, the InvestMidwest Venture Capital Forum has provided an annual opportunity for Midwestern startup founders to pitch in front of a room full of investors. This year, that room full of investors is moving online. Due to COVID-19, InvestMidwest will take place remotely this year. The conference is teaming up with the Midwest Growth Capital Symposium, an annual event held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to host a series of startup pitches and investor meetings over the internet. Phyllis Elliso...

As the coronavirus pandemic started to spread across the world, Nick Ward-Bopp began to get requests to use the Kansas City-area makerspace where he works to produce personal protective equipment. Ward-Bopp is makerSpace facilitator for the Black & Veatch MakerSpace at the Johnson County Library and co-founder of Maker Village KC. Lately, the makerspace has been producing face shields and protective masks to help meet demand for the personal protective equipment during the pandemic. Ward-Bopp jo...

TripleBlind, a Kansas City startup that makes security software, has joined an international effort to develop an app using GPS data from mobile phones to track the spread of COVID-19 — without compromising users’ data security. Greg Storm, a TripleBlind co-founder, joined Speaking Startup to discuss how TripleBlind is contributing to that effort while navigating the other challenges of running a business that’s less than a year old. Plus, at a time when the coronavirus has cast uncertainty over...