What exactly does Andy Stoll do? Even he has a hard time nailing that down. Most recently, he helped launch a statewide initiative called StartupIowa, part of the StartupAmerica partnership to help entrepreneurs find resources. After traveling the world for four years, Stoll came back to Iowa in 2010 and started Seed Here, a company aimed at growing the entrepreneurial community in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area. Through that, he opened Vault Coworking in Cedar Rapids. He also does film work, which he says “pays the bills,” and was the creative director for Charlie Wittmack’s world triathlon project.

What do people need to know about StartupIowa?

I think the goal of StartupIowa and a lot of similar public-private initiatives that are going on is to cultivate the conditions that give entrepreneurs and start-ups the best chance to thrive in Iowa. So the key is that those conditions are markedly different than the conditions that we’ve been cultivating for businesses the last 10 or 20 years. Typically we’ve been, as a country and as a state, focused on economic development primarily on large businesses, large corporations and small businesses. Start-ups are a little bit different. StartupIowa’s purpose is to be the umbrella brand and sort of a front door for start-ups and entrepreneurs in Iowa.

How important is it to think as a region?

I think the interesting distinction I like to make is in traditional economic development work, Des Moines gets a business’s manufacturing plant, which means Omaha does not, for example. There is only so much pie to go around. In the start-up world, a start-up making it in Des Moines helps Cedar Rapids, showing that the Midwest is a place where we can build scalable homegrown businesses. If we can have an entrepreneur in Iowa City meet a funder in Des Moines who uses a marketing company from Omaha, everybody wins.

What kind of momentum exists in the start-up community in Iowa?

I’m really excited about the new momentum we’re seeing in Eastern Iowa, particularly Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. There is a maturing that I think is going on in Des Moines now where we are beginning to see companies like Dwolla Corp. on the national stage becoming a national player in the start-up world. I think that with co-working spaces in Pella and university programs in Cedar Falls, there seems to be a growing movement. But I think there’s a lot of opportunity to involve the 85 percent of the state where I haven’t heard much in the entrepreneurial and start-up world.

What is the biggest challenge of involving that 85 percent?

I still think we’re at an early stage in this. I think (it’s important to have) awareness that cultivating and growing start-ups is possible anywhere, but that cities and regions and towns have to up their game, and individuals have to realize that you can have a successful start-up in Iowa.

What drew you to being an entrepreneur?

I had been watching the growth of the Omaha entrepreneurial community through Silicon Prairie News for a number of years. I was really impressed that the city I grew up in, which wasn’t cool when I grew up, had all of a sudden become cool for creative and entrepreneurial people. I read a bit about the story of New Orleans post-Katrina. New Orleans had this resurgence, this growing entrepreneurial community. I considered moving there for a bit, but recognized that there may be an opportunity in Iowa with the floods that happened in 2008. The realization was you could re-create some of that success in Iowa with the rebirth and resurgence of Cedar Rapids. Along the way, I learned a lot from what was going on here in Des Moines with Silicon Prairie News, the Business Innovation Zone and StartupCity Des Moines and Dwolla. The realization was that we are all doing the same thing, and we could build stronger networks if we worked together more.

Tell me about your world travels.

I took a trip around the world between 2006 and 2010. I wanted to do social entrepreneur work – I more or less wanted to change the world. I realized that it was egotistical of me to say I wanted to change the world when I had no idea how it really worked. In 2006 I got my one-way ticket to China and left. My goal was to go for a year. I came back four years later. I lived and traveled and worked in 40 countries. I lived in a Buddhist temple in Korea, I ended up working on a couple of Bollywood movies, I lived in a mud hut in Zambia, I worked at a cattle ranch in Australia.