Startland News

07/23/2025

After a decade-long journey building his BBQ business — from tailgates to a just-opened brick-and-mortar restaurant — Wardell Hooks Jr. would only change one thing along the way: He’d have quit his full-time job sooner.

07/23/2025

With doors temporarily closed early this week to mourn the loss of co-founder Jeff Evans, the team behind Mean Mule Distilling is asking its community to “grieve with us, raise a glass with us, and share the stories and laughter he gave us.”

07/22/2025

GolfTRK locations also serve as an incubator space for tech from Kansas City-built Noonan — a patent-pending digital caddie platform that uses simulator data to deliver intelligent shot recommendations and help golfers lower their scores.

07/22/2025

Scoring state-side shooting locations for the newest season of “Ted Lasso” reflects a strategy by the KC Film Office that’s straight from the hit Apple TV+ series’ playbook: the harder you work, the luckier you get.

07/22/2025

The fail-fast mindset and high risk tolerance many American entrepreneurs employ in their quests to build unicorn startups are arguably foreign concepts to business builders on the other side of the globe, said Lucy-Llonna Larbi during a special 1 Million Cups Kansas City event at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The fail-fast mindset and high risk tolerance many American entrepreneurs employ in their quests to build unicorn startups are arguably foreign concepts to business builders on the other side of the globe, said Lucy-Llonna Larbi.

07/21/2025

Trially’s product faces a lot of pent up demand, said Brett Calhoun, general partner at Redbud VC, noting the team's background in analytics, trials, data, and security — along with co-founder Kyle McAllister's charisma and sales expertise — puts the startup on the cusp of big deals.

07/21/2025

Over the course of a decade, ScaleUP! Kansas City not only has helped develop a foundation of success for dozens of companies; the acclaimed initiative built a legion of champions from within 14 cohorts of growth-minded small business owners.

07/21/2025

It’s all about the pan for Carlos Saura, a Spanish chef whose new paella and tapas spot in Kansas City’s bustling and diverse City Market is set to arrive in late summer or early fall — helping bring the historic marketplace district to 100-percent-leased capacity.

07/20/2025

“I needed time to pause, and became more and more interested in wellness practices, eating healthier; time and space to reflect and build healthier lifestyle practices,” said Matthew Matsch, who just opened Klā Sanctuary and the tea-focused Selah Lounge. “I fell in love with the ritual of pause.”

“I needed time to pause, and became more and more interested in wellness practices, eating healthier; time and space to reflect and build healthier lifestyle practices,” said Matthew Matsch, who just opened Klā Sanctuary and the tea-focused Selah Lounge. “I fell in love with the ritual of pau...

07/19/2025

Dwayne Overton is no stranger to the hustle, he said. The Kansas City entrepreneur once juggled gigs with Lyft and DoorDash — jobs that gave him an up-close look at the struggles drivers face every day.

07/19/2025

Missouri’s oldest-operating Black-owned bookstore is set to evolve into a public archive, programming venue, and the new headquarters for The Kansas City Defender — a bittersweet turn of the page for a space marked by resilience and community action, organizers said.

07/13/2025

When Wes Elder and Caleb Vetter launched CreatorSpace more than a year ago, they set out to carve their own path through the blended world of entertainment and technology, Elder shared. Now their startup — what they bill as the world’s first creator marketplace — is taking a new turn.

“We need to bring the influencer community and creative community together — because there's a lot of them here and it's fragmented,” Wes Elder said. “They don't talk to each other and they don't even know each other exists.”