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The New York Times makes a compelling case for Seattle’s tech startup scene as a promising future competitor to Silicon Valley. The statement that resonates the most is:
“A start-up ecosystem needs social networks, support businesses and a business culture that views failure as a badge of honor, not shame.”
I think Houston has elements one and two, but lacks three. Agree or disagree. Let’s hear your thoughts.
The Small Business Development Center at the University of Houston has a nice slate of seminars for small business owners and entrepreneurs lined up in February and March. Here are some that might be worthwhile for Startup Houston readers:
Panelist include: Richard Scruggs, Houston Angel Network; Gary Henderson, Amegy Bank; Fred Whitlock, DRDA; Nancy Comenares, AmeriSource; Miguel Ruiz, SBA.
Cost: $19 if registered and paid on line. Pre-registration required.
Cost: $39 if registered and paid online.
Cost: $49 if registered and paid online.
Cost: $39 if registered and paid online.
The SBDC’s full calendar is here.
Congratulations to Josh Tabin on being featured in the Moneymakers / Business section of the Houston Chronicle today. Here is a quick excerpt:
Tabin recently spoke with Chronicle technology reporter Brad Hem about the state of Houston’s tech sector.
Q: One of Houston’s biggest promoters of technology is Walter Ulrich, who leads the Houston Technology Center. His vision calls for Houston to become an epicenter for development and commercialization of technology in five years. How realistic is that?
A: I think it’s as realistic as people want to make it. No one can argue that Houston doesn’t have the resources to make it happen. Rice University is a flagship research university for the country.
They have a fantastic engineering program. It’s a major center for nanotechnology. The health science center here is a fantastic place for innovation in the life sciences and biotech area. There’s a lot of commercialization that happens out of there. You’ve got NASA with a major presence. When it comes to energy, Houston is second to none. So when you look at the industry, there’s a huge presence here.
You can read the complete article and more of Josh’s insight here. Also, a big thanks to Brad Hem and the Houston Chronicle for the coverage. As I’m sure you are finding out, there are a lot more great startup companies to write about here in Houston.
The Rice Alliance has gone and outdone themselves again by nearly doubling the amount of funds that will be awarded at this year’s Business Plan Competition. They will be awarding over $600,000 dollars in funds for approximately 36 different graduate teams from around the world, which enables them to lay claim to hosting “the largest and richest intercollegiate MBA/graduate-level business plan competition in the world, with more prize money, more teams competing, and more judges than any other competition.” (Somebody please tell me they are videotaping this thing, because I think this would make a great reality show). Also, according to their web site, every team will receive some type of cash award so noone goes home empty handed.
Are you a graduate team with a killer business plan? You can still register your team by submitting your executive summary before February 21st here and you can find all of the complete details about the event here.
The UP Experience will be in SugarLand tomorrow and it looks to be a very promising event. If you are going, please make sure to come back here and give us the scoop in our comments section, or provide us a link to your blog post. You can find more information about The UP Experience here.
You can also see our previous coverage of Ernie Rapp and The UP Experience here and here.
If you love <3 Startups as much as we do, then you don’t want to miss our next Houston Startup Happy Hour this Thursday (tomorrow), Feb. 7th!
Our last Houston Startup Happy Hour was such a smash (over 100 people) that we decided to make it part of a full time schedule. From now on the happy hour will always be on the first Thursday of every month, starting with our next event on Thursday, February 7th (tomorrow). Sonoma Wine Bar has a great venue where everyone feels instantly relaxed, can try some great wines (and other mixed drinks), and share the latest and greatest info on themselves and their new tech ventures.
So here is your chance to meet Houston’s growing network of emerging startups, entreprenuers, investors, and technology enthusiasts to share drinks, tips and beta invites. Swap business cards and war stories and learn something new about Houston’s Tech Scene!
Here are more of the specifics:
When: Thursday, February 7th (tomorrow), 6pm - 9pm
Where: Sonoma Wine Bar
Map: Click Here
RSVP: Click Here
Hope to see you there!
A Few Updates:
• I just confirmed with Sonoma that we will have a screen, projector, and laptop (and free wifi) there for people to be able to show off their sites. This is a great chance to show people more about what you do or give them a sneak peek at that beta you’ve been working on.
• Rakesh Agrawal of SnapStream will be giving away a couple of “Set” decks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(game)) at the happy hour.
• And, last but not least, if you are an experienced developer, sales engineer, or office manager, SnapStream is currently looking to fill these positions and you can find out more from Rakesh at the happy hour or see the info on their site here.
Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much lately and that Josh has been adding most of the content. Well, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m back in action and you will be seeing a lot more posts from me in the near future. For those interested, essentially things got really busy both at work (see my profile for info on my day job) and at home and well, those being my top priorities, my posting has suffered. Also, my preference is to provide as much information, graphics and links as possible for each post, so traditionally it has taken me a little longer to post maybe than other people, so this has also somewhat hampered my posting. To get past this I will begin doing shorter posts (in more of a Twitter style dubbed QuickPosts) so that I can post more and more often; because I believe it is better to just get the information out there, rather than spending too much time on getting things perfect.
As I always say, the more we write, the more we find to write about, and I think we are only beginning to see Houston’s startup community take off. So here’s to cutting to the chase and getting more info out there…
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