Local Entrepreneur Launches StartupShopKC, a One-Stop Shop for Local Startup, Entrepreneur and Investor Information

Responding to the call for a one-stop shop for Kansas City entrepreneurs, local entrepreneur Tyler Prochnow has launched StartupShopKC.com.  StartupShopKC is a community-riven online map for local entrepreneurs to learn, engage and interact with the growing startup scene in and around the Kansas City metro area.

“For several years now, Kansas City has received national recognition as a hotbed of startup activity, and at the same time, at various conferences, workshops and meetups, I have heard entrepreneurs complain about the difficulty they had in discovering all that our emerging startup scene had to offer,” said Prochnow, StartupShop founder and co-founder Think Big Partners. “There are so many great organizations in town that have contributed to that growth, it has become difficult for entrepreneurs to know where to go to get the help they need.  The biggest challenge for entrepreneurs is connecting the dots on the resources available.”

“It’s a good problem to have,” said Prochnow.  “Having so many essential resources for startups speaks volumes about what is occurring in KC.  The power of today’s technology and the social community platforms available makes organizing these resources relatively simple.”

StartupShopKC.com allows online users to explore a number of different entrepreneur-focused entities that exist in the Kansas City area including events, accelerators, coworking spaces, investors, educational organizations and schools and service providers.  The site displays an interactive map of the Kansas City metro region in which users can search for and identify the resources necessary to take their next steps.

The location-oriented online guide not only displays startup resources in an organized list of categories, but also allows users to search, add their own startup information and provide feedback via Twitter.  Users are encouraged to add their own events, company information and any other relevant data to the site.

“This is not about one company or one group,” said Prochnow.  “It’s not branded or for the benefit of any one organization.  We’ve populated StartupShopKC with  many of Kansas City’s more recognizable names, but this works best when the whole startup community contributes.  We’ve put the power to manage the site in the hands of those closest to the needs.  Anyone looking to connect or contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem can add their information and hopefully find their answers.”

To learn more about StartupShopKC or to add your own startup resource to the online map, please visit www.startupshopkc.com.

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When is the Best Not the Best?

WRITTEN BY TYLER PROCHNOW, SENIOR PARTNER AT THINK BIG PARTNERS


One of the biggest traps for entrepreneurs is the temptation to choose a partner, an employee, a vendor, a consultant, a lawyer or any other service provider, simply because that person/company is supposed to be the “best” in their particular field.  If we at Think Big had a nickel for every person who came through the door touting their team as having the best web designer, the best software engineer or the best sales director, we’d have a pretty big jar of nickels.  And while excellence is an extremely important factor in choosing one of the above mentioned providers, the question is not whether that individual/company is the “BEST”, but rather whether they are the “BEST FOR YOU”.

My standard stump speech on entrepreneurship always includes a few minutes on the importance of learning from one’s mistakes.  Not a day goes by that I don’t counsel someone on  how each mistake can make you and your business stronger if you are willing to embrace it.  And yet, just because one says it over and over does not mean that we don’t sometimes ignore our own advice.

A couple of years ago, I  pursued a new venture that had significant geographic spread.  The venture required the involvement of individuals in New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta and Kansas City.  Even though I am an attorney by trade and have been involved in hundreds of millions of dollars of complex transactions, this particular deal was beyond my area of expertise.  Trying to prove that I belonged with the big boys in all of these cities, I retained the services of an attorney who had a reputation for being the “best” in the city in handling this specific type of transaction.  It didn’t matter that I had not worked with this attorney before.  I was convinced that he was the right person for the job because he was deemed the “best” by others.

I won’t bore you with all of the ugly details, but hiring this attorney was a huge mistake.  In the middle of our transaction, my attorney decided that one of our potential business partners had a better chance at landing the deal and he kicked me to the curb in order to switch his representation to that person.  To this day, I’m still shocked by the way things transpired.  I don’t know whether it was an ethics violation, and I’m not interested in spending any time to find out.  Instead, I used that error in judgement on my part as a learning experience going forward.

Since that day, I have never hired a service provider or taken on a partner based solely on competence.  I now look for someone I know or trust above all else.  Someone who I know has my best interest at heart and will look to protect me when things get difficult.  And I must say this philosophy has paid significant dividends.  Any endeavor worth pursuing has its ups and downs.  There are always going to be those critical moments in the life cycle of a business when the easy thing to do is just throw up your hands and give up.  At those critical moments, it is extremely important to have a support structure around you that assists you through the difficult time.  Those are the people who are the BEST, because they are the best for you at that point and time.

Don’t misunderstand.  I’m not suggesting that ability and expertise are not extremely important.  Every vendor, consultant, provider, and/or partner that you retain has to be capable of getting the job done.  However, there is almost always more than one person who is capable of providing excellent service.  In the past few years, I have been very lucky to find both tremendously talented people who are also exceptional friends: my partner at Think Big, Herb Sih, my partner at Connexsus, Rusty Rahm, my attorneys, financial advisors, and others.  I go to sleep every night knowing that each of them is an outstanding business operator and a great friend who I trust to support my business and life ventures.

The bottom line is this: In most instances, there is more than one person/company capable of providing excellence.  Your challenge is to find that person who is both proficient and aligned with your interests.  They may be aligned personally, financially or philosophically, but your business will operate much better if you can match up at least one.

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