Yearly Archives - 2021

August 12By Comments OffRead more...

Dallas Startup Week – Here’s What Happened!

Dallas Startup Week, hosted by The DEC Network, is a vibrant conference focused on innovation and entrepreneurship in Dallas. Sessions include educational classes, workshops, networking opportunities, and much more. I was able to join The DEC Network on Monday to attend sessions in person at Cox Business School at SMU, as well as follow throughout the week – virtually! Overall, I love that Dallas Startup Week’s setup was designed to be accessible online or in person. This gave more opportunities for entrepreneurs to learn, connect, and find new opportunities. Disrupt Dallas This event was a full day dedicated to diversity and inclusion during Dallas Startup Week. Its reputation precedes itself as a pillar of what makes Dallas Startup Week great. I love that the event happens on Sunday, so people with full time jobs can attend...

July 21By 0 CommentsRead more...

Accelerator vs. Incubator: Which One is Right for You?

An entrepreneur has several different options to choose from when it comes to getting help with their scalable startup. Sometimes they need a mentor. Other times they need a developer, an accountant, a lawyer, or funding. In the end, entrepreneurs will almost always need some kind of help to either get their business off the ground or to grow and scale it. Two commonly used options are an accelerator and incubator. You may have heard these two terms thrown around before, but what are they, and what are the main differences between them? Accelerator The goal of this program is to “accelerate” the growth of these companies by preparing them to be attractive to early-stage investors in a short amount of time. An accelerator is a program that...

July 1By Comments OffRead more...

Innovator Spotlight: Dr. Vanessa Bouche of Savhera

Let’s start with the basics...What are essential oils?   " Essential oils are the essence of a plant. You grow a plant, fruit, or vegetable, and you can extract various things from it. You can extract the water or oil from it. It is the very highly concentrated essences of some fruit or herbs or plant that you receive. " Savhera has had a fascinating history from its inception. What started as a question challenging Dr. Bouche became a personal mission to make a difference. “I am a professor of political science at TCU, and I have been doing research on the issue of human trafficking for over a decade. I was leading a study abroad trip in India on transnational human trafficking. We were sitting in the red-light district at a medical clinic one year when a woman that happened to be...

June 21By Comments OffRead more...

Fort Worth’s First African-American Entrepreneur

What if I told you that there was an incredible entrepreneur, right here in Fort Worth, who was a trailblazer, an inspiration, and a guide to so many entrepreneurs after him? What if I told you that this man overcame incredible adversity and tragedies that we will never be able to understand or imagine? What if I told you this incredible man beat the odds and ‘made it’ in Fort Worth? No, I’m not talking about Amon Carter or some other big names you might know. I’m talking about John Pratt. Chances are you've never heard of him. Thanks to the archives of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, websites on local history, and some...

June 10By Comments OffRead more...

Innovate Fort Worth Podcast: Favorite FW Innovators, Part III

Fort Worth is full of innovation and innovators. The Innovate Fort Worth podcast was launched in 2019 to provide a platform for those local innovators to tell their stories and share their latest projects with our community. At the end of each episode the host, Cameron Cushman, asks each guest who their favorite innovator is in Fort Worth. We compiled a list of our guests’ favorite local innovators.  Be sure to check out the favorite innovators for episodes 1-21 here. Episode 22: Kevin Henry is the founder and CEO of Accountable, a company that is easing HIPAA training for employees Favorite Fort Worth Innovator: Energy and Real Estate Innovators “Fort Worth in an amazing city for business and entrepreneurship. I think you see that particularly...

June 3By Comments OffRead more...

Innovator Spotlight: Tamara Payne of Ensemble Coworking

Burleson City Councilwoman and co-founder of Ensemble Coworking, Tamara Payne, sat down with the Innovate Fort Worth team during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2020 to discuss her entrepreneurial adventure and her love for the Fort Worth entrepreneurial ecosystem. Here are some highlights of that discussion. Before serving on the city council and before starting her coworking space, Tamara went to school to study communications. She worked at a few television stations and then veered into marketing when she decided she wanted to start a family and the stress of working was not making that easy. “I had a couple of years of a difficult pregnancy and had miscarried twice and I was trying to get pregnant. I knew that if I was going to do...

May 20By Comments OffRead more...

Texas Startup Indicators: 2020 Update

Early Stage Capital Slips Again Fort Worth-based startup companies raised $13 million in early stage capital in 2020. If that sounds low, it’s because it is, especially when compared to other large Texas cities and to the nation as a whole. In fact, while the United States set a 10 year high for most capital invested ($148B), Fort Worth actually slipped in its funding efforts, raising $4 million less than our previous five-year average of $17 million per year. In the past, we’ve looked at early-stage capital raised in Texas’s largest cities. This time we are taking a look at 2020’s updated...