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The Talent Recruitment
Initiative is a program
that helps companies
within the Kansas City area
talk about Kansas City
when they're looking
to hire a new employee.
This initiative works
to showcase the lifestyle
of Kansas City to potential
new hires and interns.
It's a way to talk about
the livability and the assets
here in the region for someone
who's looking to relocate
to the Kansas City area.
♪
Young professionals are
looking for a hotspot.
They pick a location
before they pick
a company to work for.
We've heard several times
that companies do a great job
of selling their company
and their culture,
but it's the talent
that they need,
and young professionals
are gonna go where others--
other talented people are
and where they have
the opportunity to really
grow themselves
and their business,
and their lives personally
and professionally quickly.
Kansas City is a hub
for creativity and innovation.
It's a hotspot for young,
talented people and it's my job
to help showcase that
and help companies
explain that to potential
new employees.
And three, two, one.
Welcome back
to the Entrepreneur KC Show
I'm Sara Davidson
with my amazing co-host,
Jason Grill.
Sara, it's lovely
to be here today.
I'm excited about
this next guest.
I've been a lifelong
Kansas Citian and grew up here
and have seen a lot
of the different
entrepreneurship stories
through my life
and I started writing
for different publications
and really started
to go to more entrepreneurial
tech events in Kansas City.
Came up with the idea
to push an entrepreneurial show
because nobody was doing it
in Kansas City.
I met Sara Davidson,
my co-host,
and from that point on
we just kinda worked it
and went to all the different
events and we've had
great guests on our show so far.
Guys, we have Peter DeSilva,
the President
and Chief Operating Officer
of UMB Financial Corporation
with us.
Peter, how are you?
I'm good.
How are you, Jason and Sara?
Good.
We're doing great.
We really appreciate--
Even better now.
Yeah, we really
appreciate your time today
and we've got a lot of stuff
to talk about with you.
You're a busy man.
We saw that there was a void
in a lot of the media coverage
of all the incredible activity
and things that are going on
in Kansas City.
You know, there's a lot
of new startups,
all the incubators going on,
and all the public and private
initiatives to support
entrepreneurship and we felt
like no one was really getting
all of the stories
on a weekly basis
to really tap inside
the heads of, you know,
these successful entrepreneurs,
aspiring entrepreneurs,
and all the people
and organizations that
help support them as well.
I did it because I didn't
think the mainstream media
was really covering
the scene enough
with entrepreneurship
in Kansas City.
I think there is a void
and there's a lot of great
stories to tell, and Sara and I
wanted to be that voice
on the Silicon Prairie
for entrepreneurs.
We have three to four guests
on every one of our radio shows.
We have key influencers,
we have startups, we have
people that have come
from the civic sector.
We have great content
and, you know, we're having
to tell people we don't
have enough time.
You know, we're an hour show
right now and we hope to expand
to a bigger show
in the future.
I met Harry S. Campbell,
he goes by Harry,
at--I don't know, an event
or I think it was
the Raise Mobile launch party
a few months ago
and I would love for you
to tell a little bit about
what your story is and your
background in business.
In this community.
Yes.
I'd be delighted to do that.
I came to Kansas City
in the spring of 1992,
and I'm not leaving
by the way, so I'm closing in
on 21 years.
I love it here.
I came from Procter & Gamble
and I came to work for Sprint,
but in the 21 years here
I've had kind of a winding road
that's been fascinating
and blessed in the same way.
This show is not just
focused on technology startups,
we're focused
on product startups.
We're focused on manufacturers.
We're focused on
entrepreneurship as a whole
and I think that's important
because sometimes
we only talk about
the technology entrepreneurs
in this generation.
We need to talk about
the product manufacturers
as well.
There's all different types
of entrepreneurs and we try
to cover all of them
on our show.
I really don't think
there could be a better place
to be right now as
an entrepreneur.
To be a part of a city
and building this
entrepreneurial community
from the ground up
is really incredible
and I think that all
of the, you know,
public and private sectors
coming together,
everyone's pouring in resources,
everyone's working together.
A year ago it seemed like
a lot of the different
entities and groups
and even startups weren't
talking to each other
and there wasn't a lot of--
you know, a place
for people to gather
and they're, they're booming
all over the place right now
and it's just a really
exciting time to be here.
I think Kansas City
has always been
an entrepreneurial city
throughout its history.
I think right now
is our time to really
push the envelope on that.
I think there's been
a lot of national coverage
and media coverage about
the Google Fiber initiative
and now is the time really to--
we can't look back
10 years from now and say,
"We should've done this.
We should've done that."
I think that's why there's
more push right now is because
people are really excited
about it and, you know,
a lot of the mainstream
individuals don't even know
about the stuff going on
and that's kinda what
we're trying to bring to table
with The Entrepreneur KC
Radio Show.
So, I wasn't here
in Kansas City back then.
I've only been here
for about two years.
So what, what was
the entrepreneurial community
like when you moved
to Kansas City?
Well, Kansas City has
a great legacy of entrepreneurs.
You know, all the names that
I know for great companies
that have been started
by great individuals
and many of which are
still here today.
♪
In addition to the radio show
I run a marketing firm
that focuses on technology
companies and also
early stage startups.
And then I most recently
started a new company
that is focused on scaling
technology B2B startups
through digital marketing
on a revenue share basis.
So, really passionate
about working with startups.
I went to law school,
but just always really liked
the small businesses
in the entrepreneurial world.
I also am an entrepreneur.
I started a company
through this--you know,
through doing all these
different things myself
with a couple other
friends of mine and that's
been going well.
That company's called Sock 101
and we've been presented
at the Kauffman Foundation,
and 1 Million Cups, and at
Global Entrepreneurship Week,
and you know, we're really
just entrenched right now.
I'm entrenched in all of these
different communities.
You know, I think the sky
is the limit and I think
the only way we really
reach our full potential
as a city--as an entrepreneurial
city, as a technology city,
and create jobs is
through collaboration.
And it's one of the things
that maybe we've been lacking
in the past with getting
big projects done, but I think
now we've seen that more
and I think if we're gonna grow
and help the economy,
and help create Kansas City,
you know, make it the most
entrepreneurial city
in the country that
collaboration is key.
And that's one of the things
the radio show's trying to do
is give people a different
element to looking
at different entrepreneurs.
You know, it's great
to read articles,
it's great to see people on TV,
but when you hear their voice,
when you hear their story,
that's one of the things that
Entrepreneur KC is trying
to provide to the public
and to the entrepreneurial
community.
Excited about another
great show next week, Sara.
We're gonna keep
rockin' and rollin' here
on the Entrepreneur KC Show
so, guys, you need
to pay attention to us
Thursdays from one to two.
We'll be here every Thursday.
Very excited, Sara.
So, we appreciate you
listening today,
and we'll talk to
you guys soon, guys,
on the Entrepreneur KC Show.
Have a great day.
♪
♪
One of the things that
we hear from entrepreneurs a lot
is it's lonely to be at the top.
And people wonder,
"Are there other people
out there that have
the same issue that I have?
And how can I solve
the problems that I have
when I don't know
who to reach out to?"
Well, KCSourceLink provides you
a nice network of people
who have been in your position
before and can help you
meet the people and do the work
that you need to do
to get your business
started successfully.
♪
This is the entry point
for 4747 Troost,
our KCSourceLink
Business Resource Center.
Here you can take advantage
of a lot of resources
including our computers
that you can walk up to
and utilize the internet,
maybe create a business card
or a brochure and sit down
and work on your business plan.
The UMKC Innovation Center
is very simple.
It offers services to start
and grow businesses.
The center has a emphasis
in technology commercialization
so we can help people with
businesses that start
on a particular
kind of technology or IP
to grow those businesses,
but we help a very broad
range of businesses.
Whether you're
a technology business,
a Main Street business
doing retail or restaurants,
or a microenterprise.
Maybe you just work
from home by yourself
and need help
with supporting businesses.
And we provide support
and services to all of these
types of businesses,
and we offer referrals
to a very large network
of partners across
the community through our
KCSourceLink program
to get you the right resource
at the right time
for your business.
♪
KCSourceLink connects
together a network of more
than 180 organizations here
in the community that support
small business development.
Our mission is simple:
make it easy
for the entrepreneur
to find the resource
that they need.
One of the programs
that we started
back in 2009 is called
Whiteboard to Boardroom,
and that program
helps take technologies
from research institutions,
especially our universities,
and move them into the hands
of entrepreneurs
who can do something
with those technologies.
One of our big successes
is getting UMKC technology
that is in the biometric space
in the hands of Toby Rush
who is one of our local
serial entrepreneurs,
and he turned that
into a company called iVerify,
and we're happy to see him
progress into the future
with that.
♪
KCSourceLink works so well
here in Kansas City
that it wasn't long
before other cities
came asking for help
in creating their own
entrepreneurial ecosystems.
So, we've created
U.S.SourceLink.
U.S.SourceLink connects
a network of about 25 affiliates
across the country that support
small business development
using the same techniques
and methodologies
that KCSourceLink uses
here in Kansas City.
Across the country
we have 25 affiliates
of the SourceLinks.
We have AlaskaSourceLink,
MissouriSourceLink,
DallasSourceLink,
and a variety of SourceLinks
in-between.
Through this network
we connect almost 5,000
resource partners
across the country that support
small business development
making us America's largest
resource network
for entrepreneurs.
We have helped
over 60,000 people
across this country
find the help that they need
to build their businesses.
One of our new babies
on this block is
the Digital Sandbox KC Project.
This project started
to support our
technology businesses
here in Kansas City
and now offers support
through proof of concept
services and funding
for new companies
or existing companies
to take products
to the next level.
We'd like to help
get those products over the hump
and on to helping
that business grow.
I'm Jeff Shackelford
the new Director of
the Digital Sandbox Kansas City.
You know, I've been
an entrepreneur since
before time.
I'm pretty much classified
as an old entrepreneur
having started first in 1996
again in 2000 well before
Kansas City was recognized
as kinda this
entrepreneurial city.
And what I've seen
in the last three years,
four years, has been
just amazing.
The Digital Sandbox
is another example
of continuing to add
to the ecosystem we have here,
to grow the entrepreneurial
community.
Digital Sandbox is
a proof of concept center,
if you will, to help
researchers take that
research off the shelf
from academic institutions
and commercialize that
and turn it into a business.
Techies coming up
with new technology
and a new way to do things.
Take that from idea concept
to a business.
Inventors coming up
with something, you know,
a better mousetrap.
How do we take it
from their mind
and from the back
of a napkin to a business?
♪
There was one small piece
missing in this large
ecosystem we have,
that being a proof of concept
environment where really
you take early on ideas
and concepts.
It's a terrific marriage
between federal funding from
the Economic Development Agency,
the state of Missouri's
Technology Corporation,
private sector funding
that we have as well
which makes it so powerful
that we have combined
both private and public
into one entity whose
sole focus is to take
business ideas and turn them
into businesses very rapidly
over the next two years.
♪
The Digital Sandbox
has a direct mission
to take ideas and concepts
to a finished business
and when I say a business
it's funded, it's in business,
and it hires people
because the real driver
for all of us is
growing the economy
in the Kansas City
metropolitan area.
I'm a firm believer that
the growth will come
from the entrepreneurial
community that we've seen
over the last--well,
number of years and decades.
We're not, we're not really
attracting five and seven
and ten thousand employee
companies to move here
we grow them from within,
and if you look at the roots
of the city all the way back
to Ewing Kauffman
who started Marion Labs,
and the number of businesses
that have really generated
from that beginning.
You know, those are
the kinds of things
that we have to create.
One day we step back and say,
"Boy, where the did
the 5,000 employee company
come from?"
Well, we grew it here.
Hopefully it came
out of the Sandbox
and then through
our partners it generated
a new business that hired
three, four, five thousand,
even 100, 200 people.
That's how we grow the economy
and keep this city vibrant.
♪
♪
Welcome to BetaBlox,
I'm Alex Altomare,
co-founder of the program,
and we are currently
10 stories beneath
downtown Kansas City
in the downtown underground.
We have one of the coolest
spaces of any business
incubator or seed accelerator
in the country.
Come on in, and let me
show you around.
I am one of the investors,
technically the first investor,
but not the largest investor
in this group of 13 people
that run BetaBlox.
My job, because I don't
actually have a real job,
is I get to hang out
with entrepreneurs
on a regular basis.
I can't tell you
how much I've learned
and now I get to impart
that knowledge back
onto these people.
Wes and I have known
each other since we were kids
in elementary school.
We began doing companies
and startups and things
which meant we were
mowing people's lawns,
but we started that
from a very young age,
and we've kept in touch
since then.
Wes has always been
absolutely passionate
about business.
He loves Excel,
and spreadsheets,
and I'd always
make fun of him for it.
I had always been passionate
about brainstorming,
creativity, science,
and technology.
And so, it was kind of
a mutualistic thing where
we balanced each other out
with all our endeavors.
We got back together
after college and Wes said,
"I'm kind of working
on this idea, it's like
a heaven for entrepreneurs."
And so we went to
the whiteboard, we started
brainstorming and we created
this model where we knew that
we didn't want to offer
another service that people
paid for.
If we really wanted
to help entrepreneurs
we had to find a way
to make a business model
which can exist,
which doesn't charge
its main customers a dime
for any of the things
that it does.
It took some brainstorming,
but here we are
a couple years later.
To be a successful
entrepreneur it's
a very dynamic skill set.
I really don't think
you have to be an A+
at anything, but I think
you have to be a B+ or an A-
at everything.
You have to wear a million hats.
People say that entrepreneurs
have a red line right here
from how they keep spinning
their hats around,
keep putting on different hats.
So, we look at all sorts
of things and honestly we use
a lot of instinct to determine
what type of entrepreneurs
come in here.
We're looking for passionate,
dynamic, outgoing individuals
who like meeting new people,
who want to work together
in teams.
There may be a team
of co-founders,
and that's great,
but in BetaBlox you're
going to have to interact
with all the other nine teams
in here to help solve
each other's problems.
You may think,
"What does my business
have to do with someone
providing a service?"
A lot in terms of growth,
and problem solving,
and strategy.
And even more in terms
of what are the opportunities
that are gonna come
from working together?
You never know what's
gonna happen.
People come in misinformed
from time to time.
So, they think that
we write checks, and we don't.
We partner with people
and help them achieve
the metrics that are
going to either get them
investment dollars
or create a situation
where they don't need
investment dollars.
People come in thinking
that we are just going
to build websites.
That's also not what
we do here.
We build a community
of entrepreneurs,
and so the people who will
fit best in our own community
of entrepreneurs are
who we accept.
You'd think that the idea
would be--or the business itself
would be what we think of
as the most important,
but honestly it's not.
We use a metaphor
from Collins who basically
says that you're supposed
to invest in bus drivers
not buses.
A phenomenal bus driver
will figure out
how to get a bus
across the country.
If it's a bad bus
they'll pull over,
they'll get the tires changed,
they'll get a new paint job,
but either way they'll get
from Point A to Point B.
Whereas I could give
the best bus in the world
to the worst bus driver
in the world and they will
find a way to quit.
They will find a way
to get into an accident.
They will find a way
to mess up that good bus.
And so, we don't care
what the bus is,
we care what the bus driver is
'cause ultimately the idea's
gonna change so much
that we wanna make sure
that the leader is who
we're investing in.
An entrepreneur who
comes to us and is
accepted into our program
offers us five percent
non-dilutable equity
in their startups
and what that means
is we're a co-founder with them
so, we don't view ourselves
as a partner we view ourselves
as a founder.
We're there with them
from the start, on their
board of directors,
helping guide the way,
and giving them access
to all these resources
in our network just like
any other founder would
bring to the table.
Once we grow our investments
to the point where there's
an IPO or acquisition
then that's when we'll get paid.
We'll get five percent of that,
but until then we won't
ever get a dime because
we believe in them,
and we believe in the long-term,
and we believe that
Kansas City has enough
incredible entrepreneurs
that if we partner
with all of them,
and help everybody
that we'll all be fine.
Paul Santulli,
I'm with Invenitas.
Josh Nelson, I'm working
on the Flood.FM project
with Paul and a handful
of other people who
are involved with BetaBlox.
Eloyce Gillespie
and my company
is called BraneKid.
My name is Greg Ross
and I have a product called
the ShamBibby.
My name is Nathan,
and my company's called FlexPro.
My name's Kenneth Cleveland
and my startup is called
Givstrong.com.
Lauren Kimball
and my company's called
Mottofit.com.
I'm Eric Miller
and this is Kevin Bradford
and we're working on
a social networking app
called GossUp.
My name is Lucas Tickles.
I'm the founding partner
of Utility Contractors Xchange.
My name is Dylan Dreiling
and I'm the founder of TeenFit.
Yeah, I'm, I'm 16-years-old
and this is my mom.
He had no other way
to get here.
So, I'm here with him.
I'm also a founder and CEO.
♪
All--I mean not 90 percent,
not 99 percent, 100 percent
of all net new jobs
in the past half decade
have come from small businesses
and startup companies.
And so, in this economy
when everyone's running around
scared of where they're
gonna get their next paycheck
or wondering how their son
is going to get a job
after they get out of college,
is really looking for
startup companies
and looking for new
small businesses to fix
the problem of the fact
that there's not enough jobs.
We always have looked up
to these big business
to fill that job,
but they're not doing their part
and so people like BetaBlox
have to step up and start
creating jobs using our own
private dollars.
BetaBlox offers a variety
of products and services
that aren't actually unique,
but it's why and how
we offer them that's unique.
We offer a six-month
structured program
to our entrepreneurs
where we take 'em through
everything they need to know
in order to get off the ground
and get going or accelerate
their revenue and their growth.
Everyone talks about
connecting everybody in town
and about how this organization
and that organization
all needs to work together,
but if that's true then
why is it not true that
different startup communities
can't work together?
Why can't Milwaukee mentors
work with Kansas City investors,
and Kansas City investors work
with St. Louis entrepreneurs?
We're trying to replicate
BetaBlox in as many cities
as we possibly can.
That's our long-term vision.
We wanna make it possible
that in a way that it
never has been before
to connect those
three different types of people:
the entrepreneurs,
the mentors, and investors
so that way we can utilize
the different startup
communities to accomplish
everything that
this country needs which is
more jobs and more tax dollars.
♪
A co-production of KCPT
and Outpost Worldwide
at home in Kansas City.
♪
Captioned by