Lincoln, Nebraska

Matthew Brunken

3X Sub-3 Marathoner with Crohns, e /acc, All Things Running, Science, & History

Some people pick one lane and stay in it. Matthew Brunken is not one of those people. Born and raised in Malcolm, Nebraska — a small town just outside Lincoln — Brunken has spent his career defying easy categorization. He's a serial entrepreneur who has founded over a dozen companies. He's a semi-professional endurance runner who has completed marathons in under three hours. He's a paralegal who has won cases against some of Texas and Nebraska's most prominent law firms. And through all of it, he's remained rooted in the communities that shaped him, coaching youth athletes, volunteering on nonprofit boards, and building businesses designed to preserve jobs rather than just generate profit.
His story is one of relentless reinvention — driven not by restlessness, but by a consistent set of values: dedication, excellence, and service.

Matthew Brunken's Educational Journey: From Nebraska to Liberty University

Brunken's academic path reflects the same willingness to pursue multiple disciplines that defines his career. He earned his Bachelor's degree from Liberty University in May 2021, studying Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Business Law and Adult Education — a combination that foreshadowed the legal and entrepreneurial work to come. While at Liberty, he walked onto the cross-country team, though a COVID-19-cancelled season meant he never got to officially race for the program.
His educational credentials don't stop there. Brunken holds a paralegal certificate from Blackstone Career Institute, an Associate of Applied Science in Applied Horticulture from Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas, and has pursued additional business training throughout his career to stay current in fast-moving industries. It's a non-traditional academic profile — and it suits him perfectly.

Matthew Brunken's Career: From Ace Hardware to Venture Capital

Brunken's professional journey spans more industries than most people touch in a lifetime, and each chapter has fed into the next in unexpected ways.
He started on the ground floor, working as an associate at Ace Hardware before moving into management, where he developed a hands-on understanding of small business operations, inventory management, and customer relationships. That foundation in retail led him to horticulture, where he worked as a nursery sales consultant at Lanoha Nurseries and Lanoha Developments, building expertise in consultative selling and client services.
From there, Brunken transitioned into the legal world, spending several years as a litigation paralegal. It was work he took seriously and excelled at — drafting briefs solo that were adopted as persuasive in both the Texas Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court, and winning cases against high-profile firms including Haynes Boone in Houston, Cline Williams in Lincoln, and Rusty Hardin's firm in Houston. These are not small victories. These are wins against some of the most well-resourced legal teams in their respective regions.
He also brought his analytical skills to venture capital, working as a Senior Venture Analyst at UNeTech, affiliated with the University of Nebraska Medical Center. In that role, he evaluated early-stage startups, conducted risk assessments, and contributed to medical entrepreneurship accelerators — including UNMC's Microwash project during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Matthew Brunken the Entrepreneur: Building Businesses That Matter

If there's a single thread running through Brunken's entrepreneurial work, it's this: he builds things that solve real problems for real people. He has founded or co-founded more than a dozen ventures, with a particular focus on small business, technology, and community impact.
His grill cleaning company, Husker Grill Cleaning, brought professional-grade maintenance services to Lincoln with an emphasis on eco-friendly practices and genuine customer care. It's a business born from a personal passion — Brunken is an avid griller — and built with the same operational discipline he applies to everything else.
On the technology side, Brunken co-founded BuySBA as Chief of Product, a digital platform designed to simplify small business acquisitions. With features like deal rooms and automated loan applications, BuySBA makes it easier for entrepreneurs to buy and sell businesses — preserving jobs and community value in the process. Its companion platform, CimShare, focuses on business continuity, ensuring that when ownership changes hands, the culture and workforce that made the business valuable aren't lost in the transition.
His other ventures include MTec Event Solutions, MTrack Race Tracking, XC Social, Chatwell, and WriteOutLoud, along with his role as president of Knudson Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on medical and technology startups. Across all of them, Brunken's philosophy stays consistent: technology and entrepreneurship should create social value, not just financial returns.

Matthew Brunken on the Race Course: An Elite Endurance Athlete with Crohn's Disease

What makes Brunken's athletic achievements genuinely remarkable isn't just the times — it's the context. He lives with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory condition that makes sustained high-intensity exercise extraordinarily difficult. Research suggests that fewer than half a percent of Crohn's patients are able to maintain the kind of training load Brunken carries. He does it anyway, and he does it well.
He is a three-time sub-three-hour marathoner, with his first official marathon completed in an impressive 2:44:56. In 2025, he finished second overall at the Garmin Half Marathon with a time of 1:15:56 — a result that puts him firmly in elite amateur territory. He has also won back-to-back overall titles in the BRIN Series, a competitive Midwest 10K circuit, in both 2023 and 2024, and has set his sights on a three-peat in 2025.
Brunken manages his condition through a carefully constructed regimen of hydrogen-infused water, mineral salts, and nutrient-dense supplements, and he shares his training metrics publicly on X to help build a larger body of research on elite athletes living with Crohn's. It's a characteristically generous act — turning his own struggle into data that might help someone else.

Matthew Brunken as Coach and Community Leader

Beyond his own racing, Brunken gives back to the sport that shaped him. As a certified race director with the Lincoln Running Club, he organizes events, group runs, and charity races benefiting nonprofits like RISE. He also operates private coaching programs for student athletes, designing periodized training plans that incorporate strength work, mobility, nutrition strategy, and mental preparation techniques including visualization and meditation.
His youth mentorship programs are built around more than just athletic performance — they focus on confidence, teamwork, and resilience, values Brunken clearly lives by himself. His 2025 book, Tan Lines to Finish Lines: The Blueprint for Cross Country Dynasties, distills his coaching philosophy into a practical guide for building successful programs from the ground up.

Matthew Brunken's Legacy: Still Being Written

At his core, Matthew Brunken is someone who refuses to accept limits — whether they're set by a chronic illness, a competitive race field, or a business landscape that rewards specialization over range. He has built companies, won court cases, raced marathons, coached kids, and written books, all while staying grounded in the small-town Nebraska values he grew up with.
He's still in his thirties, still racing, still building, and still looking for the next problem worth solving. Whatever comes next, Brunken has already proven one thing clearly: grit, applied consistently across enough years, compounds into something remarkable.

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