Minority-Led Stories

ScaleUP! KC touts revenue success stories as latest small biz cohort opens applications

Growth outcomes don’t always follow entrepreneurs’ graduation from ScaleUP! KC — sometimes they come before the game-changing, no-cost program is even complete, its leaders said. Rickey Leathers made significant strides in his business, Savvy Salon — co-owned with his wife, Lenora — while enrolled in the cohort, he said. “I successfully opened a second location…

A sneaky wink in each brutal piece: How one artist’s work paints his reality within a world of big, heavy events

Emerging Kansas City contemporary artist Addison “A.L.” Parrish believes that to create a work of art, he must first observe and understand the world around him. “I feel like, as an artist, my main job isn’t necessarily painting,” Parrish said. “It’s seeing and being — not detached — but in a neutral state of observation.”…

Meet Kauffman’s new CEO: Foundation taps former diplomat, higher ed official to lead

Editor’s note: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a financial sponsor of Startland News. A Kansas City native is poised to take leadership at one of the region’s most prominent nonprofit organizations tackling upward mobility and economic prosperity, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced Tuesday. Dr. DeAngela Burns-Wallace has been named Kauffman’s next president and…

Negativity sells, but these producers want to give creatives love (and ownership of their art)

A pair of childhood friends from Kansas City are on a mission to help small artists bring their creative visions to life, while spreading a message of love along the way. Marquis McIntosh and Kiandre “KP” Pugh — the duo behind Lovey Dovey — said that seven years of creating their own content has prepared…

It started as a T-shirt company (now it’s a popular cheesecake destination); meet the nonprofit that helped this Kansas biz pivot

Startland News’ Startup Road Trip series explores innovative and uncommon ideas finding success in rural America and Midwestern startup hubs outside the Kansas City metro. This series is possible thanks to Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures (EGV), a business unit of NetWork Kansas supporting innovative, high-growth entrepreneurs in the State of Kansas. WICHITA — Side hustles don’t…