Software Builders Challenge Scheduled for March 30 in Lincoln

The 2013 Nebraska Software Builders Challenge has been scheduled for this Saturday at Assurity Life Insurance Co. headquarters, 2000 Q St. in Lincoln. Students at any level are invited to form teams of up to four people to participate in the challenge. Teams will be given a real-world business challenge and will compete for cash [...]

Dusty Davidson on building great teams and processes

Many people dream of working at a job they love. Dusty Davidson made this dream come true by leaving a standard software development job to start his own company. “I wanted to create a place that employees would love to work at every day,” he said. “I also wanted to surround myself with smart and [...]

SharePlow Founder: ‘Mountain’ of Opportunities for B2B Products

Working in the startup industry since the height of the dot-com era in the early 2000s, Ron Osborne describes his passion for building companies as simply “euphoric.” The founder and president of one of Omaha’s latest tech startups, SharePlow, Osborne has worked with a variety of startups since his first job as a stockbroker and [...]

Self-Taught Programmers Nab First Place at Software Challenge

Two teenage self-taught computer programmers split a $1,000 prize as they took first place in the first annual Nebraska Software Builder’s Challenge, held March 31 at Lincoln’s Technology Development Center. Cousins Timothy Miller, 17, and David Dovel,18, were challenged to create an application for an Omaha fencing company that would allow customers to estimate the [...]

Video: Startup advice from MindMixer and TELCOR

The first Startup Track at the 2012 Nebraska Summit on Entrepreneurship was a great one. Moderated by Danny Schreiber of Silicon Prairie News, the topic covered the five ways to break in. On the panel was Nick Bowden with software startup MindMixer as well as veteran software  pioneer Jim Terrano with TELCOR. 1. Identifying an [...]

PitchBurner hopes to improve business competitions nationwide

Universities across the country participate in quick pitch and business plan competitions, giving students a chance to share their entrepreneurial ideas. However, many of these competitions have trouble getting organized and often miss the mark on providing solid feedback for those who don’t win the overall event. Ethan Meyer, managing director of PitchBurner, and his [...]

Nebraska Global’s Kiene to Give Closing Keynote at Friday’s Summit

Steve Kiene, managing principal at Nebraska Global and a leader in the state’s startup community, has been doing something of a speaking tour lately. In November, he spoke at TEDx Lincoln about creating a software ecosystem in Nebraska. At the end of January, he gave an informal “State of Nebraska” speech in Omaha at the launch event [...]

AgilX utilizes client relationships, lean startup model to bootstrap GratisLite

If you want to meet two people who understand and employ agile development, it would be Dustin Clonch and Jake McElroy. Clonch and McElroy are the co-founders and operators of the aptly named AgilX, a software development company centered on GratisLite, a point-of-sale software that offers and meets the needs of clients, business partners and tasks [...]

AIM Institute Presents – From Innovate to Dominate: Perspectives on Rapid Growth in the Cloud

The AIM Institute has been a longtime supporter of information technology leadership in the region. It does this through a number of different programs and initiatives and one of those has always been a speaker series. For 2012, the AIM Institute is focusing its speaker series around the impact that innovation, marketing, management and ‘the cloud’ have on the business [...]

Game Development & Starting a Company

Nebraska Entrepreneur recently attended a talk at the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The speaker was Justin Hall and the topic focused on game development and the process of starting a company. Hall started a product called PMOG, later changed to The Nethernet, which focused on making [...]

Simplifying IT

Ameet Savant has always been a scientist at heart. Growing up in Mumbai, India, Savant could usually be found disassembling his toys – or for that matter the family radio and television – simply for the sake of understanding their inner workings. “In retrospect, the minor cuts, scrapes and 240-volt shocks were worth the natural honing of my [...]

Business Model Innovations – Paul Eurek, Xpanxion

Paul Eurek, chief executive officer and chairman of Xpanxion, was one of three companies that presented on a panel about business model innovations in information technology at the 2011 Nebraska Research and Innovation Conference. Xpanxion’s business model is very unique in that it is not just an offshore outsourcing company, but rather a company that combines offshore [...]

Nebraska Global Investment Fund Raises $37.3 million

[UPDATED] LINCOLN, Neb. — October 4, 2011 — Nebraska Global today announced that it has completed the capital raise portion of its Nebraska Global Investment Fund at $37.3 million. The fund is one of the largest software investment funds in the Midwest, and has attracted investors drawn to the idea of building sustainable, impactful and [...]

Nebraska Global and the State of Venture Capital in Nebraska

Patrick Smith, Principle and COO of Nebraska Global brings the good, the bad and the ugly of venture capital in Nebraska.  The amount of venture capital being moved in the state ranks Nebraska as 52nd, even behind DC and Puerto Rico. This presentation was given on September 14th, 2011 at the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce [...]

Startup lessons and insights from Nebraska Global and Agile Sports founders

On April 27, the Lincoln Young Professionals Group and its Entrepreneurship Committee brought together two local entrepreneurs, one seasoned and one fresh, to talk about their startup experiences. John Wirtz, COO of Agile Sports, is best known for the product Hudl, which is marketed to high schools, universities and professional sports teams to allow coaches and [...]

BrightMix – from software consulting to product development

Dusty Davidson met with Nebraska Entrepreneur to talk about BrightMix and their newest product Tripleseat. BrightMix transition from consulting to product development How a company makes the transition What goes in to making a good partnership Funding product development – when and why Attracting and retaining the best for the team

Lessons Learned: Jim Terrano Shares Wisdom Gained Along the Way

Entrepreneurs today have something Jim Terrano wishes he would have had in 1974; role models. “I didn’t have a good set of mentors or examples in front of me and so I had to go learn all of this on my own through trial and error,” the president and CEO of TELCOR said. “I think that [...]

Mike Murman shares field notes from growing businesses

Mike Murman knows a little something about growth. In 2007, Inc. magazine recognized Murman’s company, Pen-Link, as one of the fastest-growing private businesses in the United States. This year, the entrepreneur’s newest venture, Glacial Till Winery, opened a satellite tasting room and expects to double the amount of wine produced last year. When he was [...]

CropMetrics provides exclusive services for area farms

Expansive fields of crops are common sites in Nebraska. Behind every field there’s a specific science that focuses on the best way to plant, irrigate and harvest these crops.  Many farmers don’t have the proper equipment to yield the best results. This is where Nick Emanuel and CropMetrics come in. Emanuel, a native of North [...]