University of Northern Iowa homepage

Licensing Our Programs

License Our Programs

Many of the unique services provided to Iowa entrepreneurs by the UNI Center for Business Growth and Innovation can be licensed and used by peers in economic development serving statewide or regional economies. Through licensing our technology as a Software as a Service (SaaS) along with our included expert training, you can provide your own clients with the same award winning programs that our Iowa entrepreneurs enjoy. All of our technologies are plug-and-play and available to be customized to match your needs.

Examples of our key offerings include:

Dream Big Grow Here

Dream Big Grow Here makes conducting a business grant program for your state or region exceedingly simple. Administrators or regional hosts can enter contest information from the backend, track votes, and select a winner. Once the application period is open, users can submit their dream directly on the site. Our social technology integration is used to capture and secure votes, and all contest dates and times directly interact with what is viewable to the public.

Dream Big Grow Here is turn-key and able to host multiple industry specific and/or geographically defined contests simultaneously. We provide a fast, secure, and fun learning experience for owners. Our back-end administration is also amazingly simple, and you’ll love all the places you can insert contest sponsors’ branding on the site.

Business Concierge

The Business Concierge offers an easy to navigate front end where entrepreneurs can access free market intelligence and referrals via email, phone, or through an online form. The backend client relationship management (CRM) software has built-in reporting, a client email interface, a resource library, and dovetails with Connections (our searchable service provider database) to insure high quality connections are able to made with entrepreneur clients. Best of all, the Business Concierge is plug-and-play. It can be embedded into any website instantly- no new web portal required!

Connections

Connections takes key information about your program, organization, and staff expertise and posits it into an interactive database that does more than ‘list stuff’. Your service providers share their data and expertise one time, then have the ability to easily update and change it whenever they need to.

The Connections technology is a separate user interface from your website, but still easily connected via a link or screenshot. Once you use connections, you will see just how robust and interactive this full screen technology is for the entrepreneur. Easily search by county, person, program, organization, zoom, map click, or filter and see full contact details. Getting to the resource needed is now easier than ever.

Let us show you how to build and maintain this amazing database. With user login, each service provider added can access the backend and update their own organization, programs, and people. Easily find referral resources when entrepreneurs contact you directly. Used more often than not in conjunction with the Business Concierge, the backend of Connections is in the same place as the backend of the Business Concierge so you can make your high-quality referrals or provide services and track your client interactions in one place.

Webinars

With our University of Northern Iowa roots, we understand online learning and adult education. We leverage the best technologies available to showcase live, interactive, business seminars online.

With our software, webinar guests can chat, ask questions, and comment directly with the presenter and moderator during each live presentation. Our staff moderates each webinar to ensure quality sound and video is displayed. We also provide technical support, so that from start to finish, all of the logistics are covered for you. Following each online presentation, we survey attendees and solicit their feedback for comments, suggestions, and overall satisfaction.

Every webinar presented is archived and easily accessed. Link out to these via your own website, while we provide all of the content. See an example of how this is done on the IASourceLink site for Iowa. We can also show you how to post webinar registration information to your site, while we do the rest to provide quality webinars centered on business topics of interest.

To learn more about our programs and for licensing information, please call us at: 319.273.4344.

What Others Say

EntreFEST changed our perception of Iowa. We felt like we were on an island before the conference. Our connections from the event have been invaluable to the growth we’ve experienced this past year.

Rachael Roewe, {made} community

Thank you for the free webinars. I find them very easy to use with no travel or fee involved. They have speakers that really know their topic as well.

Laurie Wittmayer-O’Neill, Historic Preservation Publication, Inc.

I used the information on IASourceLink to set up my new business. I appreciated the information, it was easy to follow and the best part…it was all in one place.

Becky Kinney, Small Business Owner

To ensure entrepreneurs get the assistance they need, it’s important that resource providers and other key stakeholders have a clear assessment of the current business landscape. The Iowa Small Business Survey provides an excellent view into the ever-changing dynamics of Iowa businesses; outlining issues to be addressed and opportunities to be cultivated for future business growth.

Amy Kuhlers, Iowa Economic Development Authority

Advance Iowa had a lot of really good suggestions on how we could develop our business. The process was simple and the time commitment was not large. It gave us an opportunity to take a step back and think about what we are really trying to accomplish here.

Pete Downs, CEO, Waterloo Tent & Tarp

The Innovation Incubator was instrumental in starting my new company. The positive environment and top notch staff at the Incubator are reason enough to launch a business; pair that with a great facility and world class Internet, and I have a difficult time believing there is a better place in the state of Iowa to launch a start-up.

Greg Jass, Red Lab Technology

The Business Concierge went above and beyond to provide the most accurate and comprehensive research material. Their team graciously and enthusiastically met every challenge I extended to them, and I do not believe I could have drafted a viable plan without their invaluable assistance.

Cindy Clemen, CC Greens Organic Farm, LLC

Dream Big Grow Here has provided a wealth of publicity and media exposure and the benefits went far beyond the prize money. Within the first five months we reached our licensed capacity, which we expected would take at least two years. I could not have imagined this happening in a rural community without the help of Dream Big Grow Here.

Deb Vandergaast, Tipton Adaptive Daycare

The staff at the UNI Small Business Development Center has been a tremendous resource for us as we have launched and grown this company. They have assisted us with financing, staffing, and marketing issues and their guidance has been critical to our success.

Nate Neuman, System Services