Spare Room Radio - Kansas City Startups & Entrepreneurs

Ernesto’s fascinating journey has led him to realize his dream of connecting the world through language. His company Ariel Media works on a number of different projects with clients all over the world with the goal of bringing Kansas City to the global community. I really enjoyed talking with Ernesto.

Entrepreneur and angel investor Matt Watson started a side business in 2003 helping car dealers get pictures online. 8 years later he sold VinSolutions for $135 million dollars to AutoTrader. Now he’s working on his new business, Stackify and investing in new Kansas City startups. In this episode we talk about the history of VinSolutions, creating a environment for growth, bootstrapping vs funding, helping his Dad at the flea market, Kansas City’s entrepreneurial community and a lot more.

Anyone that’s met Ilya Tabakh knows that you can’t talk to to him without learning something new and interesting. As a Co-Founder of Edge Up Sports he’s using his computer science background to make fantasy football more fun. As a Co-Founder of Somametrics he’s changing the way people experience physical spaces using innovating tracking techniques. And as a motivated Kansas Citian he’s started several community initiatives to make this city a better place.

For 22 years Danny O’Neill has been searching the world for the best coffee beans to bring to his customers. It all started in High School on a student exchange program with Costa Rica where he fell in love with coffee farming. Years later he made the jump, starting a roasting company in the basement of his Brookside home when everyone he knew was telling him he was nuts. In this episode we talk about Danny’s journey, applying for the CIA, going to Ice Cream School, "Making it" and how Kansas City's favorite coffee roaster came to be.

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The Roasterie

Band of Angels

Mike Rowe Ted TalkVideo Outtakes on YouTube

After going head to head with Pinterest in Silicon Valley, Ryan Bennett came back to Kansas City using the lessons he learned to turn an auto mechanic’s invention into a growing successful business. Tune into our conversation as we talk about product market fit, the value of education, differences between the valley and the prairie and the future of IdleSmart. Listen Now:Links:Idle SmartDiana KanderKC RoundtableGiving the Basics

Jeff Rohr has a story I think a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to. Using his vacation time he took Fridays off to go down to ThinkBig Partners to develop his idea on the side. Now Jeff has a team, funding, an office in the Startup Village and is growing his business SquareOffs every day.

Mike has an impressive entrepreneurial background including co-founding four new ventures, raising over seven million dollars of capital and authoring or co-authoring 10 patents. Most recently he's working on redefining search with Leap.it for which he's raised around $2.5 million dollars. Needless to say I had a lot of questions for Mike and we talked about taking on Google, the value of higher education, innovative disruption, strategic product development, going mobile first, managing other people's money and a lot more.

With 30 years as a social entrepreneur, Michael Liimatta is a truly inspiring man. As if providing support for homeless veterans or creating an accredited college for addiction studies wasn't enough, now he's trying to solve the "Digital Divide" in Kansas City through Connecting for good. Don't miss this one.

Kyle's company Knoda has achieved a considerable amount of success in only one year. Listen to his story from laying sod with his Dad, to managing Sporting KC's digital strategy, to turning a simple idea into an awesome mobile app.LinksKnodaSparkLabs KCDigital SandboxKauffman Founder's School LiveKansas City Chamber of Commerce

Chris and Jennifer recently moved back to Kansas City from LA to grow their web based graphics design platform Whobaloo. Bootstrapping it out of their web design and development company Upside Down Design, they've created a great product and managed to keep their sanity in the process.