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Spotlight on Entrepreneurship in Texas

Posted on Monday, Dec 3rd 2018

A view of 6th Street in Austin during SXSW.
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We have done several spotlight posts on entrepreneurship in different parts of the world: Colorado, Utah, Czech Republic, Florida, Illinois, Arizona.

Today, we will look at the entrepreneurship eco-system in Texas.

Among our earliest Entrepreneur Journeys stories was that of Manoj Saxena and Webify that IBM acquired back in 2006. The presence of IBM and many other tech firms gives the eco-system a vibrant rhythm. Startup activity is huge in Austin, especially, and exits are not difficult to find.

In fact, the best known Unicorn from Texas is Austin-based and founded by a woman entrepreneur. Kendra Scott was founded in 2002 by Kendra Scott herself. The idea for setting up the business came to Kendra when she was recovering after giving birth to her first son. As a hobby, Kendra used to design and make jewelry for her friends. She knew that jewelry in the shops was either the high-end precious kind or the cheaper knick-knack kind. It did not offer a mid-range option for consumers, a market she figured would be lucrative. With $500 as initial seed money, her collection of hand-made jewelry and her baby in a stroller by her side, Kendra visited multiple stores to collect orders for her new business. Since then, she hasn’t looked back.

Read: Billion Dollar Unicorns: Kendra Scott Shows that Women CAN Build Unicorns

Also Jason Cohen has done three bootstrapped startups, sold two of those, and then bootstrapped a fourth one to heavy duty venture and private equity financing to the tune of close to $300 million.

Read: A Serial Entrepreneur’s Awesome Journey from Austin, Texas: Jason Cohen, CTO of WP Engine

And finally, an Australian Unicorn has set up its headquarter in Austin and raised $220 million in funding.

Read: Building a Global Software Company From Australia: Bigcommerce Co-Founder Mitch Harper

Of the bootstrapped lot, here are a few spread throughout the state:

How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Grapevine)

Comment-Selling on Facebook: Smocked Auctions Founders Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer (Dallas)

Building an American E-commerce Company that Now Sells into China: Peter Mann, CEO of Oransi (Austin)

Student Entrepreneurs Bootstrapping a Zero-Logistics E-Commerce Company to $19 Million: Wrist-Band.com CEO Azim Makanojiya (Houston)

Bootstrapping a $7 Million Company in Houston: Gaurav Khandelwal, CEO of ChaiOne

The cutting edge technologies are all well-represented in Texas, especially Artificial Intelligence:

Building an Artificial Intelligence Software Company from Dallas: Dave Copps, CEO of Brainspace

Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: John Price, CEO of Vast