If you’re from the Kansas City area, you know downtown Kansas City as a bustling area full of thriving businesses, events, and citizens who both work and live within Downtown. And if you are in your late 20s like me, that is the only version of Downtown that you know. It hasn’t always been like this, however, and the revitalization of downtown Kansas City is a success story brought to fruition by the hard work and excellent foresight of City and civic leaders within the Kansas City metro area.
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Downtown Kansas City: a Downtown’s Comeback
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Open AI Raises Record Capital
Venture capital is an industry fed by ambition and optimism. There is no better example than Open AI’s recent investment round which raised a record $6.6 billion, while also reportedly turning down billions in potential oversubscriptions.
To provide some context, $150 billion is approximately what the entire U.S. venture capital industry had under management in 1999 to fuel the internet bubble. Just ten years ago, the states of New York, Texas and Florida raised about $6.5 billion—combined.
To provide some context, $150 billion is approximately what the entire U.S. venture capital industry had under management in 1999 to fuel the internet bubble. Just ten years ago, the states of New York, Texas and Florida raised about $6.5 billion—combined.
Labels:
Financing
,
High Tech
,
Michael Ewald
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Silicon Valley
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Success and Failure
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
The Tragic Fall of the Tupperware Brand
Most children of my generation are quite familiar with searching through a cabinet filled with plastic Tupperware containers and lids to find the right match for packing up leftovers. The ubiquity of the Tupperware container defined the experiences of generations of families from the post-World War II era through the Seventies and Eighties and up through the turn of the Century. Spurred to tremendous popularity by a revolutionary marketing strategy that introduced easy-to-use and often unusually colorful products aimed to keep foods and drinks fashionably fresh, Tupperware containers seemed to be in every household in America. Unfortunately, the Tupperware Brand, once it lost its market leader status, was unable to keep up in the modern-day, post-pandemic market. It recently filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware.
Labels:
Business Plans
,
Competition
,
Marketing
,
Memory
,
Success and Failure
,
Tucker Griffith
Thursday, September 26, 2024
So Many Things To Do; So Little Funding To Do It
The start of a new business is a pivotal time for any entrepreneur. Unless you happen to be a serial entrepreneur who has played this game before, you are likely overwhelmed with your to-do list and rarely feel like you have a good sense of whether you are making the right strategic choices for your fledgling company. Many first-time entrepreneurs are laser-focused on the product or service they are hoping to bring to the masses, but with that laser focus they may overlook some important considerations, like having the proper legal protections in place.
Even those entrepreneurs who have thought through legal considerations as part of their business planning process often try to get by with the bare minimum in the early days. Let’s be honest, the term “legal” often conjures thoughts of grey clouds in an entrepreneur’s otherwise sunny and optimistic vision for their new company. One of the key drivers of a start-up not putting in place all the legal protections that will help it to be successful as it continues to grow is a lack of funding to obtain expert advice. With minimal available resources, most entrepreneurs prefer to focus their initial dollars on getting their product or service to market.
Even those entrepreneurs who have thought through legal considerations as part of their business planning process often try to get by with the bare minimum in the early days. Let’s be honest, the term “legal” often conjures thoughts of grey clouds in an entrepreneur’s otherwise sunny and optimistic vision for their new company. One of the key drivers of a start-up not putting in place all the legal protections that will help it to be successful as it continues to grow is a lack of funding to obtain expert advice. With minimal available resources, most entrepreneurs prefer to focus their initial dollars on getting their product or service to market.
Labels:
Brandi Lawler
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Business Plans
,
Common Sense
,
Startups
,
Success and Failure
Monday, September 16, 2024
The 2024 Paralympic Games
“I will not be participating at the Paralympics. I will be competing.”
-Hunter Woodhall, Paralympic Gold Medalist in the Men’s 400M T62 Category
With all the excitement surrounding the Olympics this year, people were understandably disappointed when the Closing Ceremony wrapped up. A common sentiment I heard was, “Well, what do I do now?” I wanted to yell from the rooftops, “It’s not over yet!”
Labels:
Competition
,
Entertainment
,
International
,
Maya Sanaba Hebeisen
,
Sports
Friday, September 6, 2024
Fall, Football, and Figuring it Out.
I love September. When the calendar flips to September, it means a lot of things to a lot of people - it’s the arrival of Fall (Fall is the best season, by the way), students begrudgingly returning to school to the delight of their parents, and for a lot of Americans, its marks the return of their favorite sport, FOOTBALL.
About 72% of Americans identify as football fans, that’s more than 241 million people. Football is big business. The NFL generated roughly $20 billion of revenue in 2023 and during the Super Bowl, companies paid $7 million per 30-second commercial. College Football TV rights alone accounted for roughly $4 billion in 2023. That doesn’t include College Football’s merchandise, ticket sales, sponsorships, or any NIL deals, including the recent deal with EA Sports to use the Name Image and Likeness of current College Football players in their new videogame, “creatively” named (in a generic way my trademark colleagues would hate) “College Football 25.” Football is America’s favorite sport, but its also becoming the favorite business of many Americans too.
About 72% of Americans identify as football fans, that’s more than 241 million people. Football is big business. The NFL generated roughly $20 billion of revenue in 2023 and during the Super Bowl, companies paid $7 million per 30-second commercial. College Football TV rights alone accounted for roughly $4 billion in 2023. That doesn’t include College Football’s merchandise, ticket sales, sponsorships, or any NIL deals, including the recent deal with EA Sports to use the Name Image and Likeness of current College Football players in their new videogame, “creatively” named (in a generic way my trademark colleagues would hate) “College Football 25.” Football is America’s favorite sport, but its also becoming the favorite business of many Americans too.
Labels:
Cody Niess
,
Competition
,
Entertainment
,
Leadership
,
Sports
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
To Do or Not to Do: That Is No Longer the Question (at Least in 2024) – Time to File Beneficial Ownership Information Reports (BOIR) Under the Corporate Transparency Act
For those familiar with the beneficial ownership information (“BOI”) reporting rules under the Corporate Transparency Act of 2021 (“CTA”), you may be aware that on March 1, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama issued a ruling in the case of National Small Business United, d/b/a the National Small Business Association (“NSBA”) v. Yellen. The court concluded that the CTA exceeds the Constitution’s limits on Congress’s power and issued an injunction against the Department of the Treasury and FinCEN, preventing them from enforcing the CTA against the plaintiffs. The Justice Department, representing the Department of the Treasury, filed a Notice of Appeal on March 11, 2024, and the litigation is ongoing.
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