Midwest Moxie
WUWM 89.7 FM - Milwaukee's NPR
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The successes, failures, insights and opportunities that shape some of the Midwest’s most exciting entrepreneurs. Host Kathleen Gallagher talks with company founders who are taking risks, disrupting the status quo and driving economic growth in the region.
Available episodes
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Apr 23, 2023
Curious robots and inventory management: Sankalp Arora
Sankalp Arora figured out while in graduate school at Carnegie Mellon how to make robots curious.
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Apr 16, 2023
Autonomous drones and video interviewing: Danny Ellis and Kurt Heikkinen
Danny Ellis and Kurt Heikkinen know first-hand how difficult, and ultimately rewarding, a startup can be.
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Apr 9, 2023
Pea protein and novel battery materials: Nicole Atchison and Francis Wang
Nicole Atchison and Francis Wang are both building a more sustainable future.
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Apr 2, 2023
Protecting the wellbeing of youth athletes: Tyrre Burks
Tyrre Burks' desire to create the safest environment possible for a young athlete to play the sport they love resulted in forming an insurance company.
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Mar 26, 2023
Computer engineering and biological products: Nancy Benovich Gilby and Katie Thompson
Nancy Benovich Gilby and Katie Thompson have both figured out how to bring unique products to market in business.
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Mar 19, 2023
Nuclear fusion and the era of abundant energy: Greg Piefer
Greg Piefer's company, Shine Technologies, has about 400 employees and $700 million of funding directed at harnessing the reaction that powers the sun.
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Mar 12, 2023
Surgical robots and autonomous inspection: Shane Farritor and Josh Riedy
Shane Farritor and Josh Riedy have small town roots and big tech attitudes.
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Mar 5, 2023
Redefining flavor and live event streaming: Matt Rubin and Gordon Daily
Matt Rubin and Gordon Daily are using their technical skills to build growing businesses.
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Feb 26, 2023
Grain elevators and specialty meds: Jake Joraanstad and Julia Regan
Jake Joraanstad knew about row crops and grain elevators. Julia Regan understood getting patients on specialty medications. Both saw an opportunity to digitize a paper process and seized it.
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Feb 19, 2023
GrubHub to Fixer: Mike Evans
Mike Evans turned a desire to order take-out food more easily into Chicago-based GrubHub, which raised $200 million in a 2014 IPO. Now, Evans' insights are informing his latest startup, Fixer.
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Aug 7, 2022
Midwest Moxie: Tips from season one entrepreneurs
The first season of Midwest Moxie produced a treasure trove of tips from experienced founders about how to be an entrepreneur. The problem is we didn’t get to air all of them, so this special episode brings you tips from some of the founders ranging from startup finances to company culture and vision.
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May 15, 2022
Virtual doctor visits and software quality control: Jon Pearce and Valarie King-Bailey
Jon Pearce got an internship with a startup while still in college, setting his path toward becoming a founder. Valarie King-Bailey spent more than 20 years working for other companies before starting one of her own. Despite different timelines, both found their calling.
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May 8, 2022
Semiconductor chips and B2B marketing: Mo Faisal and Lindsay Tjepkema
Mo Faisal set out to build better and more energy efficient semiconductor chips. Lindsay Tjepkema wanted to update the business-to-business marketing playbook. Both founded startups to do it.
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May 1, 2022
Enabling the healthcare revolution: Niko Skievaski
Niko Skievaski and his co-founders started building an interface for accessing health data so members of their coworking space could more easily grow their tech companies. But the interface itself turned out to be the basis for a scalable tech business that would provide a platform developers can use to build and distribute software that is revolutionizing healthcare.
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Apr 24, 2022
Smart devices and smart software: Sridhar Deivasigamani and Zach Halmstad
Sridhar Deivasigamani knew the world was ready for smarter, more efficient water heaters. Zach Halmstad knew businesses needed more software tools to manage their Apple devices. It turns out that both of them were right.
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Apr 17, 2022
Big bets and serial startups: Brian Wiegand and Craig Markovitz
Brian Wiegand started his first company in the early days of the internet, which he’s been mining ever since. Craig Markovitz found his success with medical technologies. They share one important characteristic: A willingness to take risks — over and over again.
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Apr 10, 2022
Rethinking transportation: Alisyn Malek
Alisyn Malek has impacted sustainability as an engineer and innovation leader at General Motors, as co-founder of self-driving shuttle startup May Mobility and now as head of the nonprofit Coalition for Reimagined Mobility. Her work has influenced not only how new transportation technologies are being developed, but how they are being integrated into our social fabric.
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Apr 3, 2022
App development and plasmid DNA: Ankur Gopal and Michael Chambers
Ankur Gopal struck out into the world but returned home to Kentucky to start his companies. Michael Chambers stayed in North Dakota and built a high-growth company right there in his own backyard. Both of their home states have benefitted.
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Mar 27, 2022
Building tech and fighting cancer: Christopher Day and Tom Gajewski
Christopher Day grew up in rural Indiana without much visibility into any career. Tom Gajewski grew up in Chicago with his eye on a medical career. Both became serial entrepreneurs.
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Mar 20, 2022
Taking on the credit card industry: Jim McKelvey
Jim McKelvey was a nationally known glass blower, but blew past that accomplishment to grow an even bigger reputation with Square. The company Jim co-founded forever changed the credit card industry, and perhaps even more amazingly, successfully fended off competition from Amazon.
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Mar 11, 2022
Coffee meetings and phishing attacks: Taralinda Willis and Norman Sadeh
Taralinda Willis never imagined she would start a company; Norman Sadeh never imagined he wouldn’t. Despite those different perspectives, both founded startups and built them into successful businesses.
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