Tech{dot}MN

Minnesota tech entrepreneur Clay Collins hasn’t chilled much since stepping down as the CEO of Leadpages on August 1st.

Instead, he’s already moved on to a new venture called Nomics — a fintech firm focused on the cryptocurrency market.

“Nomics will be “Yahoo Finance for Crypto” and the internet’s home page for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies.” reads the heading.

The outspoken founder tweeted this teaser Saturday morning:

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Via News Release

“Minneapolis – September 19, 2017 – The Minnesota Search Engine Marketing Association (MnSearch) announced today it has appointed its first female president, Jolina Pettice. As President, Jolina will help underscore the importance of gender diversity in marketing tech, and aims to inspire other women to get involved in this community.”

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Via News Release

“BURNSVILLE, Minn., Sept. 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — After a video submission, crowd-sourced voting and a judge review process, 75F was chosen as one of 14 finalists to take the stage in the Accelerate Pitch at the GreenBiz VERGE Conference in Silicon Valley. The attendees and live-streaming global audience voted for 75F to take first place (in a tie) at the Accelerate pitch event on Sept. 20th. View the 75F Accelerate presentation.”

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By Pioneer Press Editorial Board, Pioneer Press

“As St. Paul strives to create a niche for itself as a home for technology and innovation businesses, it’s worth recognizing that it’s a realm not limited to startups. In fact, a homegrown business — one of our city’s corporate points of pride and downtown St. Paul’s largest private employer — is in the midst of a “tech boom” of its own.

We learned more last week about efforts at Securian Financial Group that involve a digital revolution in how its does business, including creation of a collaborative workspace at its downtown St. Paul headquarters.”

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Via News Release

“ARDEN HILLS, Minn., Sept. 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Land O’Lakes, Inc. this week announced finalists for the Land O’Lakes Prize: Drone Challenge, a crowdsourced competition launched in February 2017 to help surface valuable, user-friendly drone solutions that will help farmers make better decisions for their crops as they work to produce more food to feed more people.”

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By Ian Hamilton, Upload VR

“Startup VRChat just raised a $4 million Series A round of funding led by HTC.  The money for the social VR startup comes in the wake of AltspaceVR running out of cash and the earlier closure of Convrge, though Altspace has found a lifeline of sorts.”

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“Tired of being recruited? Become the recruiter.”

That’s the motto of new Minnesota startup Croocial which has developed a recruiting platform that’s all about referral networks and bounty hunting.

“Croocial is for those who aren’t necessarily seeking a new job but know others who are,” explains founder James “JD” Dietrich.

The idea first came to him back in 2013 based on previous experience with technical recruiting while at The Nerdery during their heyday.

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As Minnesota’s ecommerce industry continues to grow in revenue and relevance, the third annual Ecomm Forum returns to Minneapolis October on 5th from 5-7pm at Aria.

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By Mark Reilly, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal

“When the YMCA of the Greater Twin Cities debuts its new downtown Minneapolis headquarters next year, it’ll feature plenty of gym equipment like barbells, treadmills — and a virtual-reality machine that lets users pretend they’re flying.”

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Matthew Dangerfield is a local freelance software developer for hire.

 
What initially sparked your interest in technology?

My Dad is a software developer, so he initially got me interested. He started teaching me to program when I was only about 8. I liked having the ability to create anything I wanted.

What was the first programming language you learned?

Scratch, a block-based drag and drop introductory programming language from MIT. I had a lot of fun making games with it.

What do you do now?

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