Business Brief

St. Louis entrepreneur Akeem Shannon has enjoyed a busy few months, pitching his smartphone accessory, the Flipstik, on the television show “Shark Tank” and earning a spot in the inaugural Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Accelerator at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He credits opportunities like the accelerator with helping him gain important introductions and access. Shannon joined this week...

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Shelley Cooper saw an increasing demand for health care and a shortage of doctors. Cooper found a solution through virtual doctors appointments. She founded telehealth consultancy Diversity Telehealth in 2014. In 2019, she launched SureShow, a startup that works to help doctors replace no-show appointments with virtual visits. Once the pandemic hit, Cooper saw her...

When the COVID-19 pandemic created more uncertainty than startup investors could handle, they took a break. But it didn’t last long. Brian Matthews, a founder and general partner of St. Louis-based venture capital firm Cultivation Capital, said after a few months of watching the market, the group decided to jump right back in to investing. Data suggest Cultivation Capital wasn't the only firm to r...

Speaking Startup: A pandemic, a Netflix hit and a chess boom by Missouri Business Alert

Hunting in the U.S. has grown over the past few decades to be a billion-dollar industry. That has implications for entrepreneurs in Missouri, where hunting-related businesses draw outsiders to spend time — and money — in rural communities. During the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. has seen "unprecedented spikes" in hunting and fishing, according to Matt Dunfee of the Wildlife Management Institute....

With the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's $1.7 billion new western headquarters under construction in St. Louis, a flurry of activity around geospatial technology has followed. The federal intelligence agency isn't scheduled to move into its new facility until 2025, but numerous efforts — especially at the intersection of geospatial technology and early-stage business — have been announce...

From honey to paw paws, the final pre-Thanksgiving episode of Speaking Startup features a veritable cornucopia of Missouri produce. First, we look at the business of bees. Honey bee colonies add $15 billion of value to U.S. agriculture annually, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report, but the U.S. honey bee population has declined by almost half since the 1940s. Today, entrepreneurs...

In Kimmswick, located about 25 miles downriver from St. Louis, flooding and the coronavirus pandemic have dealt back-to-back blows to local businesses and the municipal budget. Two major festivals in Kimmswick — the Apple Butter Festival and the Strawberry Festival — have been canceled the last two years. The events can draw 100,000 visitors to the small town and account for about 80% of municipal...

Nearly two in three small business owners said they were more interested in this year's election than in the 2016 election, and 40% of entrepreneurs said they were "much more" interested this year, according to a September survey from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Election interest was especially high in the Midwest, where 71% of small business owners expressed interest in this year's proceedings....

Kansas City's BCP Tech Accelerator concluded its first cohort earlier this month. The debut was not without challenges. The coronavirus pandemic delayed the start of the accelerator and forced it to go from an in-person format to a virtual one. But the program, which is focused on startups developing technology for the insurance brokerage industry, eventually went on. Nathan Kurtz of Brush Creek P...

Thrift shopping and resale have grown significantly over the last few years, and Missouri entrepreneurs are riding the wave of that popularity. Take Caylin Willis and Jared Armstrong, the co-founders of vintage and upcycled clothing store Yvonne and Mitchel. The couple turned a love of fashion and thrifting into a social media-driven clothing resale business. "We tried to tell (people) that you ca...

Fast-growing plant science startup Benson Hill cut the ribbon on a new headquarters in Creve Coeur last month, officially opening a facility the company dubbed "a new home for the future of food." Jason Bull, who became Benson Hill's CTO earlier this year, joined the Speaking Startup podcast to discuss his company's trajectory and the significance of its new headquarters, which he called "a symbol...

Kyle Richards, Derick Thornton and Dade Sprague form RTS Trio, a Maryville business that manages vending machines, rental property and an expansive Ebay store — with plans to open a brick-and-mortar store. The three would be juniors at Northwest Missouri State University this fall. But, after launching their company in February and weathering the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, they opted...

Women make up half of the total college-educated workforce. However, in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM — fields, women only make up 28% of the workforce. The disparity is even more pronounced when it comes to women of color. Cheryl Cooper is looking to help close that gap. She's the founder of Women in Security Mentors, an organization based in the Kansas City area...

Male and female startup founders whose companies raise capital are equally likely to lead those companies to sales or initial public offerings, according to a study from researchers at the Columbia Business School and London Business School. The trouble is, female-led ventures are 63% less likely than male-led ventures to obtain such funding. Those funding disparities were one topic addressed at t...

Maria Kunstadter remembers hearing a speaker discuss the jaw-dropping statistics. Toothaches perennially rank among the leading reasons for emergency room visits, she said, driving $1.7 billion in annual emergency room spending. Kunstadter's answer to that conundrum, The TeleDentists, is a startup that connects people with dentists for virtual oral health consultations in an effort to save them ti...

Across Missouri, startups have shifted their products and services in response to the the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple businesses that have undergone pandemic pivots participated in the Black & Veatch COVID-19 Response Accelerator. The program, run by Kansas City-area engineering firm Black & Veatch, was created to help accelerate the growth of businesses trying to address problems presented by COV...

Entrepreneurs start businesses for all sorts of reasons. For some, the motivation stems from discrimination or an unwelcoming environment at a previous job. Research points to the value of diversity within a workplace. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to outperform their peers, and companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to do th...

With businesses disrupted, employees working remotely and lots of people seeking the latest information about the coronavirus, the pandemic has been something of a perfect storm for cybersecurity. Since the start of the pandemic, cyberattacks have gone up by 300%, according to the FBI’s Cyber Division. On this week’s podcast we explore the roots of that increase in cyberattacks and how people can...

Millennials are the target of plenty of criticism. Other generations say they're narcissistic, need constant validation and overspend on avocado toast. A critique less frequently leveled against the generation is its lack of entrepreneurial inclination. But some research published by the Small Business Administration suggests millennials are the least entrepreneurial generation in a century. On th...

As calls to support Black-owned businesses grow, Christal Rogers is taking a grassroots approach to that effort. A Black entrepreneur herself, Rogers founded an organization called Brownpreneurs, which seeks to teach principles of entrepreneurship to African American youth. "As we pursue this endeavor to shop Black and look at racial equality, we need to look within the industries and actually mak...

Discussion of coworking among those who support it most are often peppered with descriptions like communal, collaborative and close-knit. In the age of COVID-19 and social distancing, many of those once-complimentary descriptions are akin to four-letter words. Amid that shift, shared workspace operators and tenants have been forced to adjust. This week's episode of Speaking Startup features a conv...

Early numbers on job losses resulting from the coronavirus suggest women in the labor force have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. But what about women business owners? In this week’s episode of the Speaking Startup podcast, we look at how women entrepreneurs in Missouri are faring in the face of COVID-19. Plus, as protests across the country have brought attention to police brutality and...

With the COVID-19 pandemic leading to historical levels of job losses, entrepreneurship by necessity is likely to spike in the coming weeks and months, according to research of past recessions. The latest episode of the Speaking Startup podcast focuses on that type of entrepreneurship. First, we look at entrepreneurship among formerly incarcerated people, who tend to experience high rates of unemp...

As lawmakers have worked this week to finalize the state's budget, entrepreneurial support organizations across Missouri have been watching with interest. They are concerned about the downward trend in state funding for the Missouri Technology Corporation, a private-public partnership established to promote entrepreneurship and boost the growth of technology startups in the state. Over the last fe...