Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

BIG OMAHA

Halfway around the world, Jeff Slobotski has been involved in creating a startup community in Omaha, Nebraska.

I started my journey into helping create the Omaha startup community about five years ago. I had always been fascinated and passionate around studying communities, whether within a social service or volunteer organization, political party, or the private sector. I’ve applied this energy to our startup community including the investors, mentors, university professors, and the entrepreneurs themselves.

I returned home to Omaha after working for a technology company based in New York City. I had been exposed to the startup community that was developing rapidly in NYC along with those in San Francisco and Boston, and was fascinated by the level of connectivity and grassroots energy that was evident. When I returned home, I realized that we had the same quality of individuals here in Omaha and there was no reason we couldn’t create a vibrant startup community here.

The entrepreneurs I met were heads-down and siloed, working on their own initiatives alone and largely unaware of what was going on around them. At the time, there was no outlet for telling the stories of the entrepreneurs working hard in our own backyard. This was the inspiration for Silicon Prairie News, a web site we started to highlight and document the individuals doing unique things in and around the greater Omaha, Des Moines, and Kansas City communities. Our goal has never been to build Omaha ...