Angel Investing

Rubik’s Cube

Curt Nelson and Beth Meyer help entrepreneurs spin the Rubik’s cube that is starting (and scaling) a business. The Entrepreneurial Development Center is celebrating 20 years of really getting involved to make an impact. Curt also leads the Iowa Venture Capital Association.

Together, we chat through the origin story of the EDC, then shift gears to chat about tracking milestones with mentors, giving advice, raising financial capital, managing startup boards, and the investor landscape throughout Iowa.

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By Ben McDougal, ago

Monster Trucks

Danny O’Halloran defines founder-market-fit and Jake Miyazaki is a data scientist. These high school friends, turned roommates, and now co-founders are building MetaFuel. This team worked through the Techstars Iowa Accelerator in 2022. Today, they deliver a turnkey smart fleet platform that plugs into vehicle telematic systems. The MetaFuel Card is their latest innovation, which helps small trucking companies automate IFTA compliance, identify operational inefficiencies, and drive uptime.

Meet Me Half Way as we crush this episode in our monster truck, with a thoughtful discussion around technology in trucking, web3 ideas for a web2 industry, automated transportation, and much more.

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By Ben McDougal, ago

Drams of History

Tej Dhawan is an advocate for entrepreneurs building within all stages of growth. He’s been building technology and has been connecting dots since the earliest days of the Des Moines startup community. Many may hear their name mentioned in this special relic and cheers to all that was StartupCity Des Moines back in 2011!

Now at Principal Financial Group, Tej serves as Strategic Initiatives Officer and helps leads innovation as an intrapreneur within one of the largest companies in the world. He continues to connect angel investors with Plains Angels and is always up for a good chat over great scotch.

You’re going to love this history lesson on Des Moines, Iowa, but no matter where you’re listening from, there are tons of takeaways that can be applied where entrepreneurs are leading the evolution of an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

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By Ben McDougal, ago