Startland News

A liquor brand distilled from the vision of three Kansas City natives is expanding to Texas after landing national exposure and a key investment meant to elevate minority-owned spirit and beverage companies. “Pronghorn is just awesome. Their whole mission is to change the face of the spirits industry,” said McCoy. “For women and people of color, their goal is to help them excel.”

When GEWKC pulls into Kansas City this fall, the metro’s largest educational entrepreneurship event will be stationed within one of the community’s crown jewels — a link to the past that points to a brighter future for the regions’ innovators, said Chante Keller. KCSourceLink on Thursday formally announced Union Station as the 2024 base camp for Global Entrepreneurship Week – Kansas City, a multiday event series expected to draw thousands to network, learn and grow Nov. 19-21.

The reopening of Thelma’s Kitchen — a pay-what-you-can restaurant on Troost Avenue — not only flips the menu on the “soup kitchen” concept, but serves as an anchor of compassionate, community-focused care in the face of neighborhood gentrification, said Father Justin Mathews. “We view what we’re doing here as kind of like urban acupressure,” said Mathews, CEO of Reconciliation Services, the parent nonprofit of Thelma’s Kitchen. “It’s a particular pressure point in the body of the city where when you press in a very specific way, it can cause a greater healing that can be multiplied and ripples out from here.”

LeAna Flores knows those three little letters — DEI — can trigger a lot of people these days, she said. “For me, as a DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) practitioner, I live and breathe by this quote — especially in the climate that we have right now — ‘They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds,’” continued Flores, the director of diversity, inclusion, and belonging for H&R Block, which boasts headquarters in downtown Kansas City. The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce awarded H&R Block its 2024 Champion of Diversity award Friday at the annual POWER of Diversity Breakfast. The event drew more than 900 people to the Marriott Downtown Hotel, bringing together the region’s diverse business community to celebrate leaders in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Joseph Macklin forged a successful music career through trial and error, he said, but that doesn’t mean the next generation should be forced to endure those same challenges just to feel like they earned credibility. The multi-platinum, Grammy award-nominated music producer, songwriter, engineer, and vocal arranger — known as Jo Blaq — is on a mission to make it easier for Kansas City creatives to hit the right note as they break into a highly competitive and daunting industry, he said. West Coast artists shouldn’t be the only ones with an advantage, Macklin explained.

A record number of Kansas entrepreneurs joining the NXTSTAGE Startup Programs Enterprise Engagement Series means the program’s latest cohort will scale up its impact, said Amber Dunn. “It’s exciting to witness the relationships formed and the knowledge gained among cohort members and our enterprise partners, both new and returning,” said Dunn, program manager at Wichita-based NXTUS, which coordinates NXTSTAGE programming. The 21 companies selected include three ventures from the Kansas City.

Aligning the stars as a forward-looking founder and business owner isn’t easy, Maria Flynn noted, so she wrote her own guidebook. “Entrepreneurs are my tribe of people,” said Flynn, a serial founder and regional digital health leader. “And I was telling the same stories over and over again, so I started to write them down. I realized there’s a book in here somewhere although I didn’t exactly know what it looked like. It was a bit of a puzzle putting these pieces together.” She released “Make Opportunity Happen” earlier this year.

Two recently opened Kansas City attractions were announced today among 100 extraordinary destinations to visit; named to TIME’s list of the World’s Greatest Places. TIME’s annual feature includes CPKC Stadium, home to the KC Current and the first stadium in the world purpose-built for a women’s professional team, and The Rabbit hOle, a North Kansas City children’s literary museum that debuted this spring after years of anticipation.

A limited-release craft lager at Jim’s Alley Bar and Alma Mader Brewing pays homage to classic American brewing traditions and a shared family name, said Nick Mader and Eric Flanagan. The duo joined forces this summer to release “Hank” — in honor of several family relatives with the middle name “Henry,” as well as Flanagan’s son, Henry, who also serves as the namesake of the soon-to-open Hank’s Garage and Grill in Shawnee. Flanagan previously launched King G and Jim’s Alley Bar in Kansas City’s East Crossraods.

While the third iteration of BioKansas’ Innovation Festival might initially seem scaled back, said Dr. Kevin Mills, the summer biosciences conference is amping up its emphasis on what makes Kansas City a great biotech hub. “The idea is really to get people with really diverse viewpoints and diverse jobs and careers together to hear from one another about what’s new and what sort of emerging challenges are out there,” said Mills, the new president and CEO of BioKansas, which organizes the annual Innovation Festival. “In large part, our goal is to get people together to interact and see what kind of magic happens.”