Matt Patane, technology and innovation reporter for the Des Moines Register and Geoff Wood, community builder at Gravitate, sit down for an in-depth discussion of the companies, events and ideas making news in the Iowa innovation community.

Topics discussed on this episode: GoFundMe stats, Power Rankings, Men's Style Lab guideshop, Cognizant expansion and state funding awards and the Accelerate DSM event

Feedback, thoughts or suggestions? Hit us up on Twitter or email the show at mvp@gravitatedsm.com

As a natural part of what I do, I’m constantly thinking about the role of a “community” in helping to support innovation and particularly those building startup companies. For most of the past year, however, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the role of startups in a broader community context as I’ve participated in the Greater Des Moines Leadership Institute’s Community Leadership Program.

Welcome back to the Iowa Startup Power Rankings! We kicked things off with a bang last month as Tourney Machine was a clear number one after their big news of being acquired by Sports Illustrated Play. They are absent from the list this month (sorry folks—an acquisition or IPO means you're ineligible moving forward) and we welcome three new companies to their first ever power rankings.

Located in one of the neighborhood’s newer buildings, Scenic Route shares the block with two clothing stores (Locally Grown Clothing and Matilda Muse), and a stationary shop (Pink Print Company) with residential space upstairs. With dozens of shops and other restaurants mere blocks away, the coffee shop is almost always bustling with Capitol staffers on their lunch break, friends grabbing a coffee between errands, or students typing away on their laptops. When it comes to East Village essentials, you won’t find a better place than Scenic Route to host a meeting or put the finishing touches on a presentation.

Des Moines recently started working on the next phase of our community-wide vision plan called Capital Crossroads 2.0 and I was invited to participate in a few meetings with the consultants, yesterday, to help represent the view of the entrepreneurial community. It was a lot of fun—I'm never shy about sharing ideas and I kind of nerd out on things like this going back to my undergrad days in the Community and Regional Planning program at Iowa State. Several times in the discussion I found myself pointing out ideas from Paul Graham's recent post: How to make Pittsburgh a startup hub.

Matt Patane, technology and innovation reporter for the Des Moines Register and Geoff Wood, community builder at Gravitate, sit down for an in-depth discussion of the companies, events and ideas making news in the Iowa innovation community.

Topics discussed on this episode: Dwolla, Shazam and faster national payment infrastructure, TelePharm and telepharmacies throughout the state and several quick hits on ISU research.

Feedback, thoughts or suggestions? Hit us up on Twitter or email the show at mvp@gravitatedsm.com