Building something special

CEDAR RAPIDS — Every new business in Iowa starts with a “big idea.”

But how does an entrepreneur market that idea? Many don’t know where to start.

“New companies have plenty of expertise when it comes to their product, but they need a lot of creative and tech support,” said David Tominsky, chief relationship officer at NewBoCo. “That can be a pretty big obstacle right out of the gate.”

Tominsky saw that obstacle coming up repeatedly during the early years of NewBoCo’s Iowa Startup Accelerator.

That’s why, in 2016, NewBoCo decided to address it by creating NewBoCo Studios, a local firm that offers web and application programming, creative services, marketing services, WordPress development and hardware prototyping and engineering.

The aim? To take new products to market — or to improve upon their marketing — using knowledge that’s geared to the needs of Iowa startups.

Seven years later, that idea has grown into a team that’s not only served dozens of new Iowa companies, but also established organizations like UFG Insurance and the Cedar Rapids Community School District.

“NewBoCo Studios is a software team, it’s a digital marketing team, and it’s a creative team,” Tominsky said. “And while we still aim to provide services primarily to startups, we’ve found that there’s a pretty strong need for those services across the board.”

From the ground up

Software developer Stacey Teltser joined the NewBoCo Studios team in 2021. She says she quickly felt at home with the team’s approach to working with new teams with limited budgets and timetables.

“Over the past year, we’ve had a few companies come to us wanting us to build the first iteration of a new app for them,” she says. “The things we have been able to turn around and put out in just a matter of months — and making sure that clients are seeing what they want to — have been really great experiences.”

In 2022, one such company was Haggle, an online platform for lending and borrowing farm equipment. Founder Nathan Greuel launched Haggle shortly after taking part in that year’s Iowa Startup Accelerator spring cohort.

“With Nathan not having a technical team, he entrusted us with helping what his first version of his site would be,” Tominsky said. “With clients like Haggle, you’re looking at a really driven founder who knows what they want, but doesn’t necessarily know the best way to build it. That’s the ideal client for NewBoCo Studios.”

Another startup client is Wrabit (wrabit.com), an app that’s designed to help writers write better by “game-ifying” the process.

Wrabit rewards writing progress, frequency and other accomplishments with in-app kudos. It has a word processor as well as a feedback/comment mechanism so users can share their writing with others for critiques.

NewBoCo Studios’ Matthew Barnhart called Wrabit one of his favorite projects of 2022 because it allowed the team to “expand the kind of work we do and allow us to use some new technologies along the way.”

He also points to Children’s Cancer Connection of Des Moines as another project the team took great pride in.

“The whole of my positive experience at NewBoCo is helping organizations and people who have big ideas about making the world a better place,” he said. “These people can’t otherwise afford this or do it for themselves. So being able to help them out is rewarding.”

‘Liking the underdogs’

Another project NewBoCo Studios works on with clients is website accessibility. The team works to make sure websites are optimized for as many users as possible, from screen colors and contrast to captioning of videos.

“I love solving problems and figuring out puzzles that result in creating something,” Teltse saysr. “Even if it’s just ‘Hey, this feedback mechanism now works’ or ‘Hey, this button now does this thing,’ I love being able to figure out that puzzle and solve it.”

NewBoCo Studios has worked to create VR apps for organizations like the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library and Iowa BIG, a school-based startup. It’s prototyped products for SwineTech, worked on a number of online projects for UFG Insurance and even created video production for TuitionFit and Stratafolio.

Robbie Nesmith joined the NewBoCo Studios team as a software developer after years of doing software work for a considerably larger company — Amazon.com. He says he was drawn to the freedom and flexibility offered in a smaller team.

“With a team of our size, developing new products for up-and-coming businesses, it's easy for us to pick a new software stack or a new design pattern or something and implement that into our work,” he said. “We can make good choices from the beginning with all of our products. And communication is much easier on a smaller team.”

Every job has brought in different people, founders, users, and experiences, says UIUX Developer Jess Bertling.

“There really is no size that fits all, but we are pretty equipped to handle anything you throw at us,” she says. “We are pretty eager and curious, so we are open to what there is to build next.”

For Bertling, there’s another strong draw for being part of the NewBoCo Studios team: Helping to keep tech businesses in the state as they grow, rather than seeing them relocate to other markets.

“I would like to see these opportunities remain for people in Iowa,” Bertling says. “I like the underdogs. I like to see them do well. We’re able to help make that happen.”

To learn more about how NewBoCo Studios, visit newbo.co/studios.