One of the items we have been asked to create since Day One of StartupIowa was a directory of the startups within the state, and inevitably a list of the entrepreneurs as well.  We have kept this on our list as we wiki-fied the Regional Plan (Iowa Startupedia), launched a statewide entrepreneurial events calendar, and hosted multiple events (Iowa Startup Fair, Open Iowa).

Today we are pleased to announce the Iowa Startup and Entrepreneur Directory.  The directory leverages the great work that Shane, Stefan and Dave have done in launching the Startup Genome Project, which is an ambitious effort to have local entrepreneurial communities develop their own social graph.  The benefit for Iowa entrepreneurs and startups in leveraging Startup Genome is in the connections it develops between similar efforts in other cities, states and countries.

We would encourage you to do two things, right now.

1) Check out the Startup Genome for Iowa and make sure that you (the entrepreneur) and your company(s) (startups) are listed and that the information is complete and accurate.

2) Go to Startup America and register your startup if you haven’t done so already.  The sheer volume of great things that come for free as a benefit of registering with SA is considerable, ranging from free tools, education opportunities, and increased visibility of your company nationally.

For the Genome, you’ll notice two current ‘curators’ for the state, Tej and Christian.  We would encourage you all to become curators of the region, as this is ultimately (as Shane said so well) ‘by the community for the community’.

The StartupIowa team