Hi there,
The
Welch Avenue Daily continues to go strong and yesterday I introduced a new weekly Iowa Tech Jobs post. A lot of folks ask me if I know candidates for a position they're looking for and I think a post like this will be the most effective in getting the word out about the opportunity.
The post will include paid full time jobs and contract gigs as well as people looking for equity-only help. It's free to list but if you'd like to highlight the opportunity there's a small fee of $50 for the first week and $25 for each additional week. Any tech job (not just startups) is eligible as long as its in Iowa, for an Iowa company or is remote. Please help spread the word about this opportunity to companies and job seekers alike. Details
here. Submit a job
here.
Also, one last pitch for our sponsor the past few weeks,
the #iowahour at SXSW.
The big event is this Sunday from 5-7 p.m. at Old School Bar & Grill in Austin. Some members of our community are already en route to SXSW and I'll be joining them this weekend. It should be a great showcase for the community -
RSVP here. Thanks for your support of Welch Avenue!
Best,
Geoff
Top News This Week
1. Jack Henry Completes Banno Acquisition - StreetInsider.com (March 4)
Banno (Cedar Falls and Des Moines) announced this morning that they have been acquired by Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. (JHA) a large financial tech company who had been white labeling their products since July 2013. Banno will be part of JHA's ProfitStars division and will retain both management and operations teams in its two Iowa offices.
My take: Banno (originally founded as T8 WebWare) has been an important part of our community for many years and its wonderful to see that their team and their tech will remain in the state. Integration into the larger company should help them scale with both resources and customers (Banno currently has 375 financial institutions as customers while JHA has 11,300, according to a release). Further, "fintech" is one of the industries with the deepest roots in our tech community. This acquisition and a closer association with JHA are both positive steps for all fintech companies in the state.
2. Bawte Helps You Catalog And Take Care Of Your Stuff - TechCrunch (Catherine Shu, February 26)
Bawte (Des Moines) launched version 3 this week. Bawte still allows you to tag products you want and inventory items you've purchased. "Its most unique feature, however, is a free customer support service that you can contact in-app to help you deal with broken items," according to
TC which is the focus of this new version.
My take: This relaunch seems to have been so successful in getting the word out that it caused a temporary
traffic issue in the app - getting
TechCrunched is a great problem to have. Congratulations to founder John Jackovin and the team. And, yes, that is a Bawte icon on the left (John helped create these icons several months ago and snuck that one in).
3. Baseball loyalty program takes top prize at Startup Weekend - Des Moines Register (Marco Santana, March 3)
The inaugural Startup Weekend Cedar Rapids is now complete and the winner is
Major Trading Cards (Cedar Rapids), which according to it's website is a "mobile marketing platform for sports teams to reach fans inside and outside of the stadium to increase loyalty and retention". The Major Trading Cards team was lead by Zach Sanderson, a University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics employee participating in his first Startup Weekend.
My take: Congratulations to the Cedar Rapids community on hosting what seemed to be a very well attended (90 participants) and successful event (35 pitches that gave rise to 8 teams). For more thoughts on the what the weekend was like, see the
We Create Here team who posted from the perspective of participants:
here.
This Week on the Welch Avenue Show
Road trip! We're doing our third on-location show this week live from the IC CoLab in Iowa City. Our featured entrepreneur is Tony Vanden Bush, co-founder and Chief Science Officer at
Memcine Pharmaceuticals (Coralville). We record live at 10:30 a.m. following 1 Million Cups and you're invited to
join us online and participate in the chatroom. As always, please check out last week's show with Brad Dwyer and Abby Rowling of Hatchlings at
welchavenue.com/show.
Last Week on the Welch Avenue Daily
The Welch Avenue Weekly is perfect for busy founders and Iowa expats who don't have time to keep up on all the local news. Do you know someone who fits that description? Please share.
