Silicon Prairie News Seeking National Exposure for Nebraska’s Entrepreneurs

The phrase “Midwestern character” conjures up a consistent, yet nebulous temperament, an image of someone determined, but humble who minds his or her own business and does that business well. While that unassuming resolve has no doubt been instrumental in shaping the central United States, that modesty can — on occasion — be something of a detriment.

Silicon Prairie News, a blog and event producer founded in Omaha in 2008, believes there’s a fine line between sharing your success stories and outright boasting. Furthermore, SPN is convinced Nebraska’s entrepreneurs are also aware of that intangible divide, and place their loyalties squarely on the side that inspires rather than alienates. Started after co-founder Jeff Slobotski toured the country’s urban centers and concurrent tech scenes, Silicon Prairie News seeks to celebrate Nebraska’s entrepreneurs and encourage others to follow their example.

“When Jeff came back to Nebraska, he knew entrepreneurs here were doing things similar to what was happening in bigger cities, but they were hidden under the woodwork or they were in their own worlds doing work,” said Dusty Davidson, SPN’s co-founder and current technical lead. “People in this region don’t really celebrate their successes the way people do other places. Here, it’s kind of heads down, kind of humble. SPN isn’t about boasting — it’s more about, ‘Hey I finally raised some money for my startup and I want to tell the world about it.’”

Realizing the value of telling entrepreneurs’ success stories — both to other entrepreneurs and to the community at large — SPN quickly set about cataloging Nebraska’s presumably nascent start-up culture. What Davidson and Slobotski quickly discovered, however, was that a vibrant entrepreneurial framework was already present in the state — it was simply sequestered from the public eye.

Dusty Davidson, Co-found of Silicon Prairie News, photo courtesy of Silicon Prairie News

“Three years ago, nobody mentioned ‘Omaha’ in the same sentence as ‘startups,’ and certainly not at the national level,” Davidson said. “We realized one reason there wasn’t a lot of discussion about entrepreneurship was because people who were interested looked around and didn’t see others doing it. So, our hypothesis was that if you build a community and showcase that entrepreneurs are out there, you help the the community grow as more people join the fold.”

Fresh off a new site design, SPN’s mission is twofold. First, to intertwine local entrepreneurs in a organic support network that bolsters the entire business community by connecting ideas with talent, and second, to promote the zenith of Nebraska’s entrepreneurial scene on the national stage. While the first goal is off to a great start, the second, more ambitious task will take some doing.

“Part of what we’re doing is just facilitating a discussion, just trying to put ‘startups’ and new ‘technology’ on people’s tongues when they’re talking about Omaha, because that isn’t really the case,” Davidson said. “How do you put Lincoln, Omaha, Iowa on the national radar? Right now, we’re trying to take some of the best success stories, use the best ideas, the best interviews, the best content that we have and push that out to a larger audience, really put us on the map.”

Big Omaha - May 13-15 2010

In the meantime, Silicon Prairie News is devoting its energies toward preparing for Big Omaha 2010, a summit that will attract business innovators and startup gurus from around the Midwest. As SPN’s traffic steadily improves, so does its resolve to inform the world of the entrepreneurial whirlwind blowing through the Great Plains.

“We’re really excited with where things are heading,” Davidson said. “We started the site to promote some of those people hanging out in the shadows, so to speak, and to get their stories told.”