Gravitate

Transcript: Geoff Wood: Welcome to the Welch Avenue Show, episode Number 60! This is the second part of our conversation with Scott Herren, a growth hacker and entrepreneur from Des Moines. When I first interviewed Scott, I started to wrap up the show and he told me that he wanted to talk about some community building topics (an area where I have a lot of thoughts) so we decided to break that part out into Part 2 of this episode. Before you listen, why don’t you do us a favor, go to bit.ly/welchavenueitunes rate us (5 stars!) and leave a review. Even if you listen in another podcast player, I use Instacast, Chris? Chris New: Downcast is my podcatcher of choice. I’m going to call it a podcatcher Geoff Wood: Even if you use Instacast, even if you use Downcast, this is important. It helps with discoverability and growth over the long term. Thanks a bunch. Now enjoy the second part of our conversation with Scott Herren. Scott Herren: I do want to talk a little b

Geoff Wood: Welcome to the Welch Avenue Show, episode Number 59! Today we’re talking with Scott Herren, a young entrepreneur in our community who I’ve known for a few years. First when he was a student at Iowa State, then he started hanging around StartupCity and most recently as a member here at Gravitate. He’s a growth hacker by trade who was considering moving to San Diego when we recorded this and has recently made that move. We wish him the best and I’m sure you’ll listening to his story. In the meantime, help us out and consider pledging a small amount to keep this showing going through our Patreon on at patreon.com/WelchAvenue. You can give $1 or 25 cents, it doesn’t really matter — what does is your support. Thanks to everyone who has done. There are 33 of you right now and you are my favorite people Speaking of my favorite people, enjoy episode 59 with Scott Herren. Geoff Wood: At some point we need to get actual audio equipment, we w

Geoff Wood: Welcome to the Welch Avenue Show Episode #58. This is the third and final part of our State of Now monster episode recorded by Ben McDougal during the Gravitate Grand Opening. If you missed part 1 or part 2, be sure to go back and check Episodes 56 & 57, respectively. Now take it away Ben. Ben McDougal: All right. As the evening continues, I'm starting to grab more and more people that I haven't met before, and I'll be honest, you're the first. What's your name? Tell me a little bit about what you're doing, and a little bit more about what you're building here, in the community. Chuck Hoffman: Sure. My name is Chuck Hoffman, I work in this building upstairs, a few floors at Banno. Banno was a startup out of Cedar Falls, startup by Wade Arnold, up there. They got into doing web and mobile banking things. Ben McDougal: Interesting. Chuck Hoffman: Just this past March we were acquired by Jack Henry and Associates. It's not exactly a startup now. They have an office here i

Transcription Geoff Wood: Welcome to the Welch Avenue Show Episode #57. This is the second part of our State of the Now monster episode recorded during the Gravitate Grand Opening. If you missed part 1, you probably want to go back and check it out. That’s episode number Episode 56. Big thanks to guest co-host Ben McDougal for his hard work in recording this, Ben take it away:  Ben McDougal: Cheers. All right, I saw Shawn really close by, so I had to grab him, bring him over here to learn a little bit more about where you're building, the state of now for you. Shawn, I overheard a year anniversary, so I'll let you take it from here, bud. Shawn Harrington: Yeah, one year anniversary. Everyone's here to celebrate Gravitate, today, and it's awesome to have them here, in the space. Yeah, we'll be hopefully, some of the next big startup events. I know you're rolling with Des Moines Startup Drinks.  Ben McDougal: Yeah, that's happening nowish.  Shawn Harrington: Yeah. B

Geoff Wood: Welcome to a very special edition of the Welch Avenue show. I'm sitting here with Ben McDougal, from Jet Set Studio, Drake Homes, and thirty other things, probably. We're at 1 Million Cups before things get started, we're looking back at an even that happened last week. The Gravitate grand opening, then you sat down, and had this cool idea to record a how during the night. I haven't listened to it yet, I'm really excited to hear it. Why don't you tell the folks what it is that they're going to hear? Ben McDougal: Yeah. The initial idea was to chat with as many people as possible by sitting in one place the whole evening. Drinks alongside of me, as the evening progressed. Choosing a variety of different people, and talking super concisely with who they are and what they were building. The result was, hopefully, going to be kind of a state of now. As to where people are at, what the community is up to, and with that grand opening at Gravitate, it made a perfect location for that type of co

Transcription Geoff Wood: Welcome to the Welch Avenue Show, Episode #55. Our guest today is Peter Awad, co-founder of GoodBlogs. I’ve known Peter for a few years but I don’t see him very often since he’s up in the northeast corner of the state and I’m here in Des Moines. He stopped by Gravitate the other day when he was here and we sat down to talk about what startup life is like in Decorah, how GoodBlogs platform works and his new podcast, Slow Hustle. You can find that online at slowhustle.com. We also talked about how exactly you pronounce his last name (hint: the answer is "OW WID", like I just said, not "A WAD" like I’ve been saying for years). That makes a lot of sense. Do us a solid and give the ol’ Welch Avenue Show a rating in iTunes whenever you can, 5 stars preferred and maybe leave a review. That would be super helpful. And while I'm asking, this is also a really good time to check out our Patreon campa

Geoff Wood: Hey guys, Welcome to the Welch Avenue Show, episode Number 54! Today we’re talking with David Tominsky, who quite literally “does all the things” from a community builder roll in Cedar Rapids including the Iowa Startup Accelerator, Startup Weekend and more.  You can help out the show by sharing this episode on Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere online or by sending us a suggestion or comment at podcast@welchavenue.com. You can also help us by joining our Patreon. It’s super easy to do, just go online and pledge a dollar amount per show. It can be $1 or it can 10 cents. It’s your call. At the end of the month they do the math and charge you the amount you pledged times the number of episodes and through the magic of the internet — we get to do more shows. It’s awesome. 34 of you are currently doing this and we love you for it. Who is going to be #35? I bet its you. Find out more at www.patreon.com/welchavenue. Thanks and enjoy epis

Transcription Geoff Wood: Hey guys, it's Geoff and Chris. The audio-only podcast that we've been doing have been received really well, so we're going to keep doing them. A couple of things that you should be aware of. We're going to release them at a rate of two per week, so you can look for one each Tuesday and Thursday going forward. We're also going to turn the Patreon campaign on again. Thank you to everyone who supported the show on that platform in the past. We encourage you to keep doing that. If you'd like to help us out, go to patreon.com/welchavenue. That's p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com/w-e-l-c-h-a-v-e-n-u-e.  If you have ideas for the show, let us know. You can suggest guests, format changes, throw verbal tomatoes or do whatever you'd like by sending the email to podcast@welchavenue.com. Also, please share these episodes, we're online at facebook.com/welchavenue and @welchavenue on Twitter.  Today's interview is with Juan Santiago. He's the founder of 

Show page — http://www.welchavenue.com/show/episode-52 Transcription: Geoff Wood: Hey guys, it's Geoff and Chris. We're doing a series of audio-only minisodes interviewing members of the Iowa innovation community to ramp up the Welch Avenue show again. If you have any ideas for the show, let us know. Send us an email at podcast@welchavenue.com. In the meantime, you can support us by becoming a Patron with our Patreon campaign. That's at P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/welchavenue, W-E-L-C-H A-V-E-N-U-E. You can always share these episodes on Facebook. We're at facebook.com/welchavenue, or share them on Twitter, @welchavenue, or send a sponsor our way because that would be really awesome. Thanks and enjoy the episode. Kasey McCurdy: It's the sultriness in my voice. I hate my voice. I think everybody hates their own voice. Geoff Wood: I hate your voice. Kasey McCurdy: Thank you. Okay, cool. I got two votes for hating my voice, that's great. Geoff Wood: Now that I said it, it probably won't go well but we can try t

Transcription Geoff Wood: Hey guys, it's Geoff and Chris. We're doing a series of audio only minisodes, interviewing members of the Iowa Innovation Community to ramp up the Welch Avenue show again. If you have ideas for the show, let us know. Send us an e-mail at podcast@welchavenue.com. In the meantime, you can support us by becoming a patron with our Patreon campaign, patreon.com/welchavenue. You could always share these episodes on Facebook. We're at Facebook.com/welchavenue or share them on Twitter @welchavenue, or send a sponsor away because that would be really awesome. Thanks and enjoy the episode. Geoff Wood: As we kinda talked about earlier I don't know a whole lot about you. I've seen you on Twitter and did we maybe write about you on Silicon Prairie News years ago? Derek Balsley: Yeah, there was a really short article I think earlier this year. Geoff Wood: This year. Okay.  Derek Balsley: We're a pretty new company. We're only be

Transcription  Geoff Wood:    Hey, guys. It's Geoff and Chris. We're doing a series of audio-only mini-series interviewing members of the Iowa innovation community to ramp up the Welch Avenue show again. If you have ideas for the show, let us know. Send us an email at podcast@welchavenue.com. In the meantime, you can support us by becoming a patron with our Patreon Campaign. That's at patreon.com/welchavenue, W-E-L-C-H-A-V-E-N-U-E. You can always share these episodes on Facebook. We're at facebook.com/welchavenue, or share them on Twitter @WelchAvenue. Or send a sponsor our way because that would be really awesome. Thanks and enjoy the episode. Lyndsay Horgan:    Do you listen to Rocketship? Geoff Wood:    I don't. Lyndsay Horgan:    Rocketship does interviews with people from all over, kind of like how ... Geoff Wood:    Like Scott Rocketship? Lyndsay Horgan:    No, no, no. Rocketship Podcast. It's f

Geoff: Hey guys! It’s Geoff and Chris with the Welch Avenue show. We’ve been gone for many months. Several months? Many months?   Chris: About 4 months I’d say.   Geoff: Yeah. Since August I think.   Chris: Too long...too long.   Geoff: Last time we recorded a show, we were at the Science Center and we were talking about a new format for Welch Avenue Show at the time. We took a little bit of a break because I started working on Gravitate and actually getting it open, the Entrepreneurial Center of Gravity. We’ve actually talked about on many shows here, but haven’t had a chance to get back to recording shows yet. So, Chris set up a very nice studio for us in Gravitate. It’s been sitting here empty for a few months and today we decided to do something about it. We are about to have an audio-only interview with one of the members of Gravitate. His name is Garret Meier so stay tuned for that. But before we talk to Garret, I wanted to explain a little bit of