What Led to the Idea Behind Knoda?

My mom forgetting something I said, actually. In 1999, KU had a great incoming class of basketball players in Nick Collison, Drew Gooden and Kirk Hinrich. After the first game that year, I turned to my mom and said “When these guys are seniors, KU will win the national title.” Fast forward to 2003 and KU is about to play Syracuse for the NCAA championship. I go back to my mom all excited and remind her of my brilliant prediction from 4 years earlier. She looked at me with a blank stare on her face like I was crazy. From that moment on, I always looked for a way to record and track predictions over time. I never found a good system, so eventually we decided to build Knoda.

Any Surprises With the Way Users Are Making Predictions?

We’re surprised every day by the creative things people come up with. Since Knoda is a completely open system, people can predict literally anything they want. We see everything from the winner of the World Cup to when a friend will break up with his/her girlfriend/boyfriend. One of the craziest predictions we saw was about someone having sex at work with a hot co-worker. We all got a good chuckle out of that one.

What Are the Benefits and Challenges Startups Have in Kc?

Kansas City offers a lot of great advantages to young companies. There are tons of great programs here like The Digital Sandbox and SparkLabKC, the accelerator we went through. People in Kansas City are also extremely generous with their time, advice and assistance. One challenge in Kansas City is access to capital. That isn’t to say that there aren’t potential investors in town, but because people in Kansas City are more modest than in some other parts of the world, sometimes those people are harder to find. There are some efforts underway to change that a little bit, which will help. That isn’t to say that everyone in Kansas City with a business idea will magically get funded in the future. Convincing someone to put money into your business is never an easy task, no matter how many potential investors are around.

What Do You Predict Is Next for Knoda?

I think that people will start seeing Knoda predictions on lots of their favorite websites. Predictions make a great companion to other types of content – TV shows, news stories, blog posts. We are working with several publishers already to embed Knoda predictions within their websites to add a new dimension to their existing content. This lets people have something on the line when they’re watching a sporting event or following a breaking news story. I think you’ll continue to see this more and more as Knoda grows.

What Is Your Latest Epiphany?

Self-driving cars change everything. Imagine not having to pay attention while driving the 30 minutes from south Overland Park to downtown. Or the 45 minutes from the middle of KC to Lawrence. You can work, read a book, nap, FaceTime with family. Everything changes when previously dead time becomes productive time. I can’t wait until these cars go mainstream. It’ll be awesome.