Strengthening the Texas Startup Scene
The Forrest Four-Cast: August 9, 2017
Current efforts by Lone Star lawmakers to push through discriminatory legislation such as the Bathroom Bill have significantly weakened the Texas brand. If I had a dime for every time someone from has asked me “Did you read that recent Larry Wright story in the New Yorker?,” I’d be buying several rounds of drinks at the bar this weekend.
But amidst these ongoing challenges, there is still lots of good news coming out of this state. We are home to four of the nation’s 11 largest cities (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin). Much of the growth in these four cities is attributable to the numerous job and career opportunities that abound in these urban enclaves, as well as rural areas.
We can increase these job and career opportunities by attracting even more startups to Texas. Which is one of the main reasons that I’m so excited about yesterday’s announcement from Austin’s Capital Factory that they are expanding and unifying entrepreneur-related programming to Dallas, with Houston and San Antonio coming shortly thereafter.
Writes CF Founder and Executive Director Joshua Baer in this post on Medium:
“Texas is one of the only places where we can run a single Accelerator program across multiple cities. Capital Factory isn’t duplicating our program or franchising it — we are running one program and treating all entrepreneurs and mentors the same no matter where they are based. This is one way that Dallas, Houston and San Antonio can benefit from some of the extra attention that Austin sometime receives. Austin stands to benefit a lot from Dallas, Houston and San Antonio as well.”
Startups are one of the nation’s fastest-growing job sectors, so designing more support systems for more Lone Star entrepreneurs is a good thing. Moreover, increasing and enhancing the connections (and developing a more cohesive ecosystem) between founders in the states’s four largest cities re-affirms Texas’ position as a global leader of innovation.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
