February 21, 2018
Special Guest: Jenna Pederson, Minnestar board member and Hack the Gap cofounder
Riffing points
- Upsie closes $1.7m seed round funding
- Two MN tech startups, SparkDJ and Players Health, leave MN to join Techstars programs in Los Angeles and Boulder
- Casey’s rant on startup moving away
- Tech ecosystem observations from Jenna Pederson
- What Minnebar is and what’s in store for 2018
December 27, 2017
Special Guest: Maria Ploessl, new Director of Minnestar
Riffing points
- The state of Minne*, present and future
- Tech ecosystem observations, good and bad, from Maria Ploessl
- Inclusion in the Minnesota technology community
- Cargill and Ecolab Techstars launching in Minneapolis in 2018
- Priorities, outlooks, and predictions of tech jobs and hiring in 2018
December 11, 2017
Riffing points:
The top, most popular tech stories of 2017 get dissected in true geek fashion. We throw out detailed funding, IPO, and recruiting predictions for 2018. Also new announcements for Optum Ventures who formally launched, Revel Health who raised a ton of cash, and WeWork which graced Minneapolis with location #2.
November 27, 2017
GUEST: Rob Weber, Great North Labs Venture Fund + Startup School
Riffing points
1. Why Rob is starting a fund rather than doing another startup. For more details on Great North Labs, see: Great North Labs on MSPBJ
2. How Rob and his partner Ryan think about investing and what kind of startups the fund will invest in.
3. Rob's best angel investment ever and his biggest miss.
4. What the startup community needs more of and how Rob is trying to fix that.
5. MN tech startup products that you can buy as holiday presents for colleagues or family:
Casey's picks - CooperAndKid.com Trevls.com/gift RelateToday.com
Rob's picks - QFOLabs.com Jamstik.com LocalCrate.com
Paul's pick - Kidizen.com
Kathy's pick - YOXOtoys.com PetChatz.com
6. Follow us at www.twitter.com/mspondeck where we don’t tweet about politics. Ever.
November 6, 2017
Riffing points
1. Techstars is launching a brand new program in Minneapolis in 2018. Find out which huge corporation they’re partnering with
2. If we won’t get Amazon, who would we want?
3. The reason why big tech companies opening offices in MN is actually good for tech companies already here
4. What you missed at TC Startup Week
5. Follow us at www.twitter.com/mspondeck to see the minute a new episode is launched.