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January 1By Comments OffRead more...

A look at Sparkyard in 2022

Sparkyard held its grand opening during the 2019 Global Entrepreneurship Week. We thought this would be a great opportunity to see how 2022 shook down with some general stats and entrepreneurial assistance.  Total number of website Users: 13,909 (22% increase from 2021) Fun Fact: With the exception of the United States, the top 3 countries that have  interacted with our website are the Philippines, United Kingdom and India.  Total Sparkyard Pageviews: 31,577 (3% increase from 2021) Fun Fact: Similar to last year, with the exception of the Sparkyard homepage, the top 3 most   viewed pages on the website are:  Business Entity Types  Resource Navigator   Calendar Total Published Blogs: 35 Sparkyard had the opportunity to have 7 guest authors in 2022 which included Women and Mentorship by Council...

December 2By Comments OffRead more...

Meet the Companies of Techstars Physical Health Fort Worth Accelerator 2022

Get to know the startups in the Techstars Physical Health Fort Worth inaugural 2022 accelerator cohort. Meet the founders and check out their innovative solutions for addressing the challenges and opportunities that exist in the world of Physical Health.  Meet Josh Rabinowitz, CEO of Articulate Labs. Articulate Labs focuses on changing how knee braces affect healing. Articulate Labs uses sensors to monitor movement for assessment as well as provide neuromuscular electrical stimulation to improve patient’s physical mobility.  Learn more about Articulate Labs and how they developed innovative solutions for physical health problems on Innovate Fort Worth. Meet Anne Shuford, CEO of BoomRoom. BoomRoom is...

November 29By 0 CommentsRead more...

Breaking Down Barriers to Business in Fort Worth

“Would you be interested in making Fort Worth your 21st city?”  Alex Montgomery from the Institute for Justice (IJ) replied with an excited but cautious tone and said, “I’ll have to check with a few folks, but yeah, I think we can do a deep dive in Fort Worth.”   We had just seen a presentation of IJ’s Barriers to Business Report, research that compared the processes, costs, steps and bureaucracy involved in starting small businesses in 20 US cities and then provided actionable recommendations on how to make it cheaper, faster and simpler to start a business. The only city in Texas...

November 22By Comments OffRead more...

The State of Entrepreneurship in Fort Worth is Strong

I had the opportunity this year to deliver the 5th annual State of Entrepreneurship Address at the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) luncheon event sponsored by HSC Next and FortWorth,Inc and it was an honor to highlight all the great work that was accomplished by local innovators, entrepreneurs, startups and ecosystem builders in the past year. I have highlighted a few of my key talking points below, but you can also watch the full event, recorded by the FWISD students in the Broadcast Journalism/Media Technology program at Southwest High School here. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram did a nice recap of the event and...

November 15By Comments OffRead more...

5 Things You Should Look for in a Cofounder

Starting a company is hard. For most people, starting a company is probably the hardest thing they will do in their entire lives. And, as much as we think about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg starting the companies that made them into billionaires, they had cofounders and founding teams around them  every step of the way.   There is a common myth of the “solopreneurs” but in reality, most companies start with more than one founder. And yet, according to research cited in Noam Wasserman’s The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink A Startup, 60-65...

October 12By Comments OffRead more...

SCN Series: Telling the Stories of Entrepreneurs in Fort Worth

The Startup Champions Network (SCN) Fall Summit is happening in Fort Worth this October. Ashley Ray, the Social Media and Communications lead at SCN, has been shining a light on the University of North Texas Health Science Center team hosting this event in Fort Worth. Here are some highlights of Marco Johnson, the Associate Director of Entrepreneurship at HSC Next.  J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.” - Sam Gamgee When Kendel Rogers landed a job at HSC Next, she knew she hit the jackpot. She had her sights set on healthcare because she...

October 6By Comments OffRead more...

SCN Series: Growing, Guiding and Connecting Entrepreneurs in Fort Worth Highlights

The Startup Champions Network (SCN) Fall Summit is happening in Fort Worth this October. Ashley Ray, the Social Media and Communications lead at SCN, has been shining a light on the University of North Texas Health Science Center team hosting this event in Fort Worth. Here are some highlights of Marco Johnson, the Associate Director of Entrepreneurship at HSC Next.  If you’re trying to start a business, navigate the myriad resources available, or develop your business model in Fort Worth, Marco Johnson is the guy and Sparkyard is the platform. Marco’s work in a nutshell? Business wayfinder. His toolbox includes assets created...

September 26By Comments OffRead more...

SCN Series: Fostering What’s Next in Fort Worth Highlights

The Startup Champions Network (SCN) Fall Summit is happening in Fort Worth this October. Ashley Ray, the Social Media and Communications lead at SCN, has been shining a light on the University of North Texas Health Science Center team hosting this event in Fort Worth. Here are some highlights of Cameron Cushman, the Assistant VP of Innovation Ecosystems at HSC Next.  Cameron is on our Summit Host team and is working side by side with fellow committee members Marco Johnson and Kendel Rogers to create a unique, Fort Worth experience for attendees. Cameron is a movement maker, who started on the...

September 12By Comments OffRead more...

Innovate Fort Worth Podcast: Favorite FW Innovators, Part V

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 in our previous posts here.  Episode 41: Gary Davis is the president and CEO of Smart Action, a company trying to improve the quality of...

September 8By Comments OffRead more...

10 Takeaways From This Summer

A few weeks after my high school graduation, I found myself entering the 9 to 5 business world. To be completely honest, it was a bit of a shock to the body. That was partly because I was wearing business professional clothes instead of t-shirts and shorts in the summer, but also because I was immersed in such a new environment.   Not only was this position my first internship, but my first real job as well. Fortunately, I began working with a staff who welcomed me with open arms, making the acclimation much easier. While friends my age were out working...