On a recent episode of the Prairie Founders Club podcast, host Brian Lee sat down with Val Shafak, the founder of NIYOU (pronounced "ENN EYE YOU"), to discuss the meteoric rise of his sports marketing agency.
NIYOU didn't start in a boardroom or a high-rise office; it was born in an eight-week entr...
For many entrepreneurs, the dream of "being your own boss" conjures images of long hours in a garage, building a product from the ground up, and struggling to find that first customer. But according to Mike Kuzma, a partner at the business transactions group of Spencer Fane law firm, there is a fast...
In the heart of Middle America, innovation often looks a little different than the glass towers of Silicon Valley. Sometimes, it looks like a nine-hole golf course in Omaha, Nebraska, where father-daughter duo Bridgette and Shawn Mcguire are redefining how we think about new home construction.
In t...
If you’ve ever found a killer deal on Facebook Marketplace, stared at a couch that clearly doesn’t fit in your sedan, and thought “I’m not calling my buddy with the truck again,” you already understand the problem Clean Move is solving. In this Prairie Founders Club episode, Brian Lee sits down with...
If you’re building a side hustle (or trying to get traction in an existing business), the real bottleneck usually isn’t “ideas” or “motivation.” It’s overwhelm: too many moving parts, too little clarity, and zero system for deciding what not to do. In my conversation with Will Denker, the big takeaw...
Executive summary
Jared Hall’s story is the kind founders need to hear more often: a Midwest creator who turned a meaning-driven brand idea into 3 a.m. luxury, then earned his way from an early wholesale “yes” in Kansas City to international runway opportunities—while staying brutally honest about...
Prairie Founders Club is on a simple mission: travel across Middle America, find the innovators building the future, and share what it really takes to create opportunity.Â
Â
In this special “Golfing with Innovators” episode, we head to Country Drive Golf Course in Ashland, Nebraska, for nine holes ...
If you’ve ever told yourself, “This year I’m finally going to start that business,” and then promptly got distracted by an Amazon return, a toddler meltdown, or an urgent craving for Oscar's pizza… you’re in the right place.
Because here on the prairie, entrepreneurship doesn’t look like yacht...
When you grow up in the middle of the country, you learn two things early:
- Weather is going to ruin at least one major life event (graduation, wedding, Husker games…you name it).
- If you want something done, you’re probably going to have to do it yourself.
That second lesson is part of our DNA...
