Aaryan Patel, an incoming senior at The Village School, has been running his business since he was a freshman. Photo via tidemedia.tech

By the time 17-year-old Aaryan Patel, who will be a senior this fall at The Village School, won first place at The University of Houston Bauer College of Business' annual Think Tank competition this year, he'd already had his business on solid footing for a couple of years. Patel founded Tide Media in 2016, and he's been growing his company ever since.

The business offers consulting and installation for smart home devices, working with customers one-on-one to determine their needs and interests and doing everything from purchasing equipment for buyers all the way to full installation and integration of the technology within a home's existing devices.

"I started in the ninth grade," says Patel. That's when his dad started buying multiple smart home devices to control their lights and thermostat. "I saw how convenient it was, and how it makes for a more connected experience. It feels really futuristic."

Patel's father works in IT, so he understood how to troubleshoot when devices didn't work as planned. That got Patel to thinking how someone with less tech know-how would cope with the same situation.

"Not everyone has the competency [to troubleshoot]," he explains. "Maybe they don't have the time to learn, or they just don't know enough about technology. A lot of people come from fields where there isn't a focus on computers."

Patel, like his father, has an interest in computer technology — in fact, he's doing an internship this summer at Stanford University looking at the business applications of wearable technology for medical students — and he realized there was an opportunity to be had. But he saw it much more as a community service than a business at first. He asked his uncle in Katy to post his services to the Next Door app, and the business took off. Within two months, he'd worked with 14 clients on upgrading their homes with technology.

"I knew I didn't want to do any ads," says Patel. "So, all of my business has been word of mouth."

By July of 2017, he says he posted between $10,000 and $14,000 in profits. He credits the success of the business to his approach to clients. He wants each experience to be not only personal, but personalized. When he meets with a client, he has a questionnaire that gauges what they want to get from their technology. Some might want to properly install a Nest thermostat. Others may want to network Amazon Echo or iHome products to do everything from turning on lights to playing music.

"Or, maybe they want to open the garage door from their cellphones as they are coming in the driveway after work," he says.

Patel says he has worked with clients to tell them what they need and the clients purchase the equipment and products themselves. But he also provides more concierge service, where he will take a client's list of items, purchase them and then install them.

He says he tends to work more in the summers and on school breaks than he does during the school year, since he's studying the challenging International Baccalaureate curriculum at school. He's also trained some of his friends on doing installations, as well as mentoring them about how to talk to clients, how to respond to questions and otherwise provide high level service — things he says he learned over the course of launching his business.

"The biggest thing I've learned is that is you want to do anything, you have to have passion and drive," he says. "And my biggest challenge has been managing my clients along with my school work."

In college, he plans to study the Internet of Things, likely via a computer engineering program. Since his win at Think Tank, he's invested back into his business and plans to expand as much as he can; he's thinking of offering his services citywide, branching out from his Sugar Land and Katy coverage areas.

But even as he's continuing his studies and building a business, he keeps his own priority for Tide Media top of mind: he wants it to be a service for the community to help others be more connected.

"A lot of this is still new technology," he says. "And I want to help people see how technology can help society."

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Innovative Houston chemicals manufacturing platform provider raises $40M series A

money moves

Houston-based Mstack, whose platform helps manufacturers source specialty chemicals, has raised $40 million in a series A funding round.

Lightspeed Venture Partners and Alpha Wave Incubation led the round, which includes a debt facility from HSBC Innovation Banking and money from several angel investors.

In a news release, Mstack says the infusion of cash will enable it to “double down on its mission to disrupt a historically flawed supply chain for specialty chemicals.”

This “doubling down” will include expansion of Mstack’s footprint in the U.S., Middle East, Latin America, and Asia.

“Geopolitical dynamics pose risks for supply chain disruptions in the global specialty chemicals market,” Bejul Somaia, a partner at Lightspeed, says in a news release.

“With demand for these chemicals growing rapidly, there is a need to increase R&D investments and unlock new pockets of supply,” he adds. “As the first institutional investor in Mstack, we believe that the company has tremendous potential to lead this transformation.”

Mstack, founded in 2022, currently serves four business sectors: oil and gas, coatings, water treatment, and home and personal care. The funding will enable it to move into industry segments such as agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.

The Mstack platform gives buyers a one-stop shop for sourcing, testing, shipping, delivering, and tracking specialty chemicals.

“This new funding affirms investor confidence in our vision and technology to transform global markets. It enables us to expand geographically and intensify our R&D efforts,” Mstack founder Shreyans Chopra says.

Here's how Houston ranks on annual list of greenest cities in the US

room for improvement

Bad news, Houston. The Bayou City is the third worst metro when it comes to the country's greenest cities.

According to WalletHub's recently released Greenest Cities in America report, Houston is No. 98 out of 100 of the largest cities that were ranked in the study, which was based on information from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, The Trust for Public Land, U.S. Department of Energy - The Alternative Fuels Data Center, and more.

“There are plenty of things that individuals can do to adopt a green lifestyle, from recycling to sharing rides to installing solar panels on their homes. However, living in one of the greenest cities can make it even easier to care for the environment, due to sustainable laws and policies, access to locally-grown produce and infrastructure that allows residents to use vehicles less often," says Chip Lupo, WalletHub Analyst. "The greenest cities also are better for your health due to superior air and water quality.”

Houston scored 36.88 points out of 100, and comes in dead last on the environment ranking. Here's how the city performs when it comes to the other metrics:

  • No. 87 for transportation
  • No. 52 for energy sources
  • No. 61 for lifestyle and policy
  • No. 91 for greenhouse-gas emissions per capita
  • No. 30 for percent of green space
  • No. 86 for median air quality index
  • No. 97 for annual excess fuel consumption
  • No. 56 for percent of commuters who drive
  • No. 39 for walk score
  • No. 33 for farmers markets per capita

The big winners on the report are mostly on the West Coast. Of the top 10, six cities are from California. These are the greenest cities, per the report:

  1. San Diego, California
  2. Washington, D.C.
  3. Honolulu, Hawaii
  4. San Francisco, California
  5. San Jose, California
  6. Seattle, Washington
  7. Oakland, California
  8. Portland, Oregon
  9. Fremont, California
  10. Irvine, California
Texas isn't seen on the list until Austin, which ranked No. 26. The rest of the major Lone Star State major metros include San Antonio at No. 44, Fort Worth at No. 76, and Dallas at No. 81.While this report is pretty damning, there's not a general consensus that all hope is lost for Houston when it comes to being green. Last year, the city was ranked as having the lowest carbon footprint, based on a report from Park Sleep Fly.

However, WalletHub's report has pretty consistently ranked Houston low on the list. Last year, Houston was slightly higher up at No. 95. In 2022 and 2021, the city claimed the No. 93 spot.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: Every week, I introduce you to a handful of Houston innovators to know recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. This week's batch includes an alternative materials founder, a Houston ecosystem builder, and the city's richest billionaire.

Zimri T. Hinshaw, founder and CEO of Rheom Materials

Zimri T. Hinshaw, founder and CEO of Rheom Materials, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Rheom

At first, Zimri T. Hinshaw just wanted to design a sustainable, vegan jacket inspired by bikers he saw in Tokyo. Now, he's running a bio-based materials company with two product lines and is ready to disrupt the fashion and automotive industries.

Hinshaw founded Rheom Materials (née Bucha Bio) in 2020, but a lot has changed since then. He moved the company from New York to Houston, built out a facility in Houston's East End Maker Hub, and rebranded to reflect the company's newest phase and extended product lines, deriving from dozens of different ingredients, including algae, seaweed, corn, other fruits and vegetables, and more.

"As a company, we pivoted our technology from growing kombucha sheets to grinding up bacteria nanocellulose from kombucha into our products and then we moved away from that entirely," Hinshaw says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "Today, we're designing different materials that are more sustainable, and the inputs are varied." Read more.

Joey Sanchez, founder of Cup of Joey

Joey Sanchez's Cup of Joey has expanded across Houston to help make valuable connections to Houston entrepreneurs. Photo via LinkedIn

What is your purpose in life? One Houstonian is asking that question of his fellow entrepreneurs all across town.

Joey Sanchez founded Cup of Joey, a weekly meetup opportunity for innovators, business leaders, and the whole Houston community. The events are a place not only to share a cup of coffee but also their very own mission in life.

It all started in 2021 at the Houston Tech Rodeo, an initiative from Houston Exponential, where Sanchez worked as a director of corporate engagement. Texas had just opened social distancing in public events since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Sanchez was finding ways to reconnect the Houston community.

‘We thought what better way than over a cup of coffee?” Since then, Sanchez has connected thousands of people based on purpose every Friday for the past three and a half years. Read more.

Tilman Fertitta, chairman, CEO, and owner of Landry's Inc.

Tilman Fertitta's net worth is estimated at over $10 billion. Photo by J. Thomas Ford

A dozen of Houston's illustrious billionaires have made the cut on the new Forbes 400, a list of the 400 richest people in the United States for 2024.

Houston hospitality king and Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta is the 12th richest Texan and the 99th richest person in the United States, according to the new Forbes 400list, released October 1.

Forbes estimates Fertitta's net worth in 2024 as $10.1 billion, which has steadily climbed from his 2023 net worth of $8.1 billion. Fertitta, 67, purchased the Houston Rockets in October 2017 for $2.2 billion. The billionaire also owns Texas-based hospitality and entertainment corporation Landry's. In 2019, Fertitta embarked on a new venture as an author. Read more.