In October 2018, Startup Crawl KC – a free event sponsored by the Kansas City Startup Foundation and the Kauffman Foundation – invited attendees to tour several startups in the Crossroads Arts District. The First Friday event drew a crowd of more than 600.

The impressive attendance for Startup Crawl KC isn’t surprising – Kansas City has a strong entrepreneurial culture and plenty of support for startups. The available resources for new businesses, along with upscale apartments and a thriving cultural scene, makes Kansas City a place that creative people want to call home.

Funding for Great Ideas

Since 2015, LaunchKC has awarded $1.5 million in grants to entrepreneurs that agreed to start a business in Kansas City. Many grant recipients have been local residents, but the program has also awarded grants to people moving to Kansas City to launch their business.

The LaunchKC program is highly competitive – from a field of 586 applicants in 2018, a volunteer panel of 35 business leaders chose nine winners. Luckily, for those entrepreneurs who didn’t make the cut, KC has numerous other options for funding.

Training and Support

The founder of Ladybird Style Lab and Salon – a personal styling business on Southwest Boulevard – was working as a paralegal and doing fashion consulting on the side. After she took the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Entrepreneurial Mindset Training and ElevationLab New Venture course, she was able to make fashion consulting her career.

UMKC offers scholarships for their training classes. Other forms of support and training for KC entrepreneurs include BetaBlox business incubator, Techstars Kansas City Accelerator, and Digital Sandbox KC.

A Culture of Creativity

The Crossroads neighborhood is full of independently owned businesses that stemmed from a single creative idea. Crossroads Westside – a new luxury apartment community – embodies that spirit of innovation. Our common areas are vibrant meeting spaces, where residents gather to share ideas, play games, or relax. If you want to be a part of this energetic and entrepreneurial neighborhood, you want to live at Crossroads Westside. Call to ask about availability: (816) 307-0937