Join Us for Next Friday's Entrepreneur Corner

It’s hard to believe that today is the last day of September.  October starts tomorrow and here in the Crossroads the beginning of the month can only mean one thing… It’s time for another First Fridays and Entrepreneur Corner!

Next Friday, Think Big Partners will open up the doors and parking lot of the bizperc coworking space to host Entrepreneur Corner.  The event will bring together Kansas City entrepreneurs, business owners, startup companies and those interested in learning about the KC startup scene.  Those who attend next week's Entrepreneur Corner will have the chance to meet these successful startup companies: 

• Zaarly: Zaarly's easy-to-use digital platform gets you "what you want, when you want it" at the click of a mouse.  As a real-time, location-based marketplace, Zaarly allows its users to get whatever they want from the local community.
• Startup Weekend: Is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate an empower individuals, teams and communities.
• KC Incubator: A new twist on the Kansas City business incubator brought to you by one of our bizperc tenants.
• Life Equals: The team at Life created a line of supplements and multivitamins with the conviction that “a better you can creates a better world”.
• Silo88: A local web design company who employ everything from SEO to social media to PPC to help attract customers to their clients’ websites.
• Motion Machine Studio: A video production company that takes promotional video to a new level by creating video with a shock and awe factor that only the movie industry has used up to this point. 
• Derfour: A Kansas City design firm whose services and creations can range anywhere from small print designs for business cards to extra large graphics for car wraps.
• KC Reporter: An online journal for Kansas City that covers the city government.  By tagging each article by zipcode, KC Reporter hopes to be the next big online journal in the Kansas City area through its usability and breaking headlines.

In addition to the entrepreneurial action, October's Entrepreneur Corner will feature the artwork of Thomas Gripp. 

So, stop by.  Grab a beer.  Socialize.  Even play some games with the entrepreneurs and artists at Entrepreneur Corner.  Join us October 7th from 6:30pm-9:00pm at the corner of 18th and Baltimore.  Can't wait to see you there!

Written By Laura Goede
@LauraGThinkBIG

bizperc Tenant Aims to Save the Journalism Industry- One Zipcode at a Time

How Alan McArthur’s new small business, KCReporter, hopes to revive a dying industry.

It’s no secret that the journalism industry is diminishing.  Over 30,000 jobs in the field were lost in the past three years alone—and this number continues to grow.  But is anything being done about it?     

Saving the Industry

Alan McArthur may have the ability to turn it all around.  And he’s starting in a place very close to his heart—in the middle of downtown Kansas City.  This budding entrepreneur became a virtual tenant in the bizperc office space in the Crossroads District just a few weeks ago.  By utilizing bizperc’s location and mailing services, Alan hopes to successfully launch his new business, The Kansas City Reporter.

KC Reporter is to be an online journal for Kansas City that covers the city government.  By tagging each article by zipcode, KC Reporter hopes to be the next big online journal in the Kansas City area through its usability and breaking headlines.

“I want to provide news that’s being missed in Kansas City,” says Alan.  “These are stories that readers need to know.  They may not be getting this information from current sources.”

Discovering bizperc

Alan is launching The Kansas City Reporter with one goal in mind: to provide news to Kansas Citians.  But he doesn’t need a swanky office space, professional phone line, or a heavy-duty copy machine in order to do it...at least not yet.  What he does need is a professional mailing address.  And that’s why he turned to bizperc.

bizperc’s ultimate flexibility allowed Alan to become a virtual tenant in which he utilizes the professional mailing address and any other services that he may need on a drop-in basis.  After discovering bizperc during First Fridays in the Crossroads District, Alan found that the coworking space would be the perfect virtual home to start up.

“I think that a lot of small businesses are starting up,” says Alan.  “I’m just one of four people in the retail store that I work in that is starting a business.  Having a place like bizperc proves that you’re legitimate and that you do more than just work out of your apartment.”

Thinking Big

As a member of bizperc (which is powered by Think Big Partners), Alan knows how to Think Big:

“Thinking Big is having the courage to start a company, even in an industry that is said to be dying.  I don’t think journalism can die.  It will survive in one form or another.  It’s just time to start a new service and see what sticks.”

Written by Allison Way.

@AllisonThinkBig