University of Houston expert on feeling the churn of customers and what to learn from it

Houston voices

Customer churn is inevitable, but it's what you do with the opportunity that matters. Miguel Tovar/University of Houston

Think of customer churn as a robust balloon, ready to touch the sky as soon as you let go. Every day you hold on to that balloon, air molecules will diffuse through the knot. Your balloon will become flabby. This exodus of air is known in business as a churn. Customer churn is the amount of customers that your company loses during a specific time frame. Canceled subscribers, dissatisfied clientele, or customers that just found a better alternative. Keeping track of churn is a vital part of your company's continued growth. Doing so will give you the brutal truth regarding customer retention.

It's difficult to measure the success of your startup without keeping track and analyzing your shortcomings as well. Sure, you want 100 percent customer retention. But even a company that has figured out how to stop the aging process will not have such an unrealistic rate. Losing customers is part of the game. However, you don't have to let it kill your company. You can learn from it.

Measuring customer churn rate

You can measure your churn rate by subtracting lost patronage from the number of customers you had to start a period. So, if you started off the month or quarter with 1,000 customers, and end up with 500 at the end of that period, your churn rate is 50 percent. You lost 50 percent of your customers. Ouch. Unless your company decides to go into selling raincoats in the Sahara, it is doubtful your churn rate will be that high. But you understand how it's calculated now.

So, why is customer churn so important? Well, for starters, the cost of acquiring new customers is 25 times higher than the cost of retaining the ones you already have. Further, research has determined that a mere five percent rise in retention rates can boost profits upwards of 25 percent.

Curb your churn

There are a few ways to curb customer churn.

One way is to concentrate on your most loyal customers. One of the biggest gripes against Comcast is that they offer so many special rates to new customers, and almost nothing for their long-time customers. The same was said about Uber until they recently launched Uber Gold. How many "special deals for first time customers" do you see with phone service companies? Tons. It would be more advantageous to focus your resources on your loyal customers. Give them another reason to stay. After all, as we just covered, it's cheaper for your company to retain them than to get new customers.

Another way to reduce churn rates is to track and analyze it every fiscal quarter. This analysis can help you understand why exactly customers are leaving. You can even detect patterns to show at what point in their patronage they are leaving. All this data can be used to make better decisions about improving your company's services or products.

Listen to fleeing customers

Speaking of making better decisions for your company, the best way to do that is to talk to the customer. When you were in high school, you probably had "intel" on your crushes to see if they liked you back. You probably spent months agonizing over what they meant by this text or that comment. In retrospect, you probably now know it would have been so much easier to just ask. Letting the customer be your compass will steer your company in the right direction. Lapsed customers will almost always be honest with you. What have they got to lose? They will tell you straight up what they didn't like and why they didn't like it. With a large enough sample size, you'll soon have a good idea about what you could be doing better to keep your current customers from fleeing your company like it's Blockbuster. No offense to Blockbuster.

In summary, keeping the customers you have is just as important as winning over new ones. It's harder to put air into an already knotted balloon than it is to just keep the air it already has inside. If you focus on keeping your customers, much like that air-filled balloon, sky's the limit.

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This article originally appeared on the University of Houston's The Big Idea.

Rene Cantu is the writer and editor at UH Division of Research.

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Austin company to bring AI-powered school to The Woodlands

AI education

Austin-based Alpha School, which operates AI-powered private schools, is opening its first Houston-area location in The Woodlands.

The 8,000-square-foot school, scheduled to be ready for the 2026-27 academic year, initially will serve students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Alpha says the school will offer “open workshop spaces and innovative classrooms that support personalized instruction, core academics, leadership development, and real-world life skills.”

Alpha sets aside two hours each school day for the AI-driven, self-paced study of core subjects like math, reading and science. The rest of each school day consists of life-skills workshops focusing on topics such as leadership and financial literacy.

Alpha’s school in The Woodlands has begun accepting applications for the 2026-27 school year. Annual tuition costs $40,000.

“The Woodlands is one of the most dynamic, forward-thinking communities in Texas, and Alpha is proud to bring

an innovative educational model that complements its strong academic foundation,” says Rachel Goodlad, head

of expansion for Alpha.

Founded in 2014, Alpha School combines adaptive technology-driven instruction with immersive life-skills workshops. Its model emphasizes mastery-based learning in core subjects alongside development of communication, critical thinking, financial literacy and leadership skills. It operates more than 15 schools across the country.

Elsewhere in Texas, Alpha operates schools in Austin, Brownsville, Fort Worth and Plano. Alpha also operates 12 Texas Sports Academy campuses in Texas, including locations in Houston, Pearland and Richmond, along with a NextGen Academy esports school in Austin, a school for gifted students in Georgetown, and lower-cost Nova Academy campuses in Austin and Bastrop.

Alpha has fans and critics. While supporters tout students’ high achievement rates, detractors complain about the high tuition and the AI-influenced depersonalization of education.

“Students and our country need to be in relationship with other human beings,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers union, tells The New York Times. “When you have a school that is strictly AI, it is violating that core precept of the human endeavor and of education.”

Alpha co-founder MacKenzie Price, a podcaster and social media influencer, doesn’t share Weingarten’s views.

“Parents and teachers: We need to embrace this change,” Price wrote after President Trump signed an executive order promoting AI in schools.

The Times notes that Alpha doesn’t employ AI as a tutor or a supplement. Rather, the newspaper says, AI is “the school’s primary educational driver to move students through academic content.”

Houston space tech co. lands $175M and more innovation news to know

Trending News

Editor's note: The top Houston innovation news for the month includes major fundraising rounds for two Houston scaleups and local inductees into the National Academy of Inventors. Here are the five most-read InnovationMap headlines from March 1-15, 2026:

1. Intuitive Machines secures $175M equity investment to fuel growth

Intuitive Machines has landed a $175 million investment as it looks secure satellite deals and develop space-based data centers. Photo courtesy Intuitive Machines.

Houston-based space infrastructure and services company Intuitive Machines has secured a $175 million equity investment from unidentified institutional investors. The investors received shares of Class A stock in exchange for their funding. Publicly held Intuitive Machines (Nasdaq: LUNR) says it plans to use the capital to help build revenue and invest in technology, including communications and data-processing networks. Continue reading.

2. Houston e-commerce giant Cart.com raises $180M, surpasses $1B in funding

Cart.com has raised $180 million to scale its logistics network, expand AI capabilities and develop workflow automation tools. Photo courtesy of Cart.com

Houston-based commerce and logistics platform Cart.com has raised $180 million in growth capital from private equity firm Springcoast Partners, pushing the startup past the $1 billion funding mark since its founding in 2020. Cart.com says it will use the capital to scale its logistics network, expand AI capabilities and develop workflow automation tools. Continue reading.

3. Houston leads Texas with 7 new National Academy of Inventors senior members

The University of Houston has more faculty named to this year’s senior member class of the National Academy of Inventors than any other Texas institution. Photos courtesy UH.

The University of Houston is now home to seven new senior members of the National Academy of Inventors. According to UH, its seven new members represent the largest group from any single Texas institution this year, bringing the university's total senior member count to 46. Continue reading.

4. Booming Houston suburb launches innovation grant to attract startups

The City of Sugar Land is putting money on the table to support startups that relocate jobs to southwest Houston. Photo via Getty Images.

Think you’ve got a burgeoning startup? Consider moving it to southwest Houston. The City of Sugar Land announced the Sugar Land Starts Innovation Fund to support companies that move jobs to the area. Continue reading.

5. 6+ can't-miss Houston business and innovation events in March

From CERAWeek to H-Town Roundup, here's what not to miss this month and how to register. Photo courtesy of CERAWeek

March brings the return of some of Houston’s signature innovation events, plus insightful talks and celebrations in honor of Women's History Month. Here’s what not to miss and how to register. Continue reading.

Houston researcher secures $1.7M to develop drug for aggressive form of breast cancer

cancer research

A University of Houston researcher has joined a $3.2 million effort to develop a new drug designed to attack a cancer-driving protein commonly found in triple-negative breast cancer.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is one of the most difficult-to-treat forms of cancer and accounts for 10 percent to 15 percent of all breast cancer cases. The disease gets its name because tumors associated with it test negative for estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and excess HER2 protein, making it difficult to target. Due to this, TNBC is often treated with general chemotherapy, which can come with negative side effects and drug resistance, according to UH.

UH College of Pharmacy research associate professor Wei Wang is developing a drug that can target the disease more specifically. The drug will target MDM2, a protein often overproduced in TNBC that also contributes to faster tumor growth.

Wang is working on a team led by Wei Li, director of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Pharmacy’s Drug Discovery Center. She has received $1.7 million to support the research.

Wang and UH professor of pharmacology and toxicology Ruiwen Zhang have discovered a compound that can break down MDM2. In early laboratory models, the compound has shown the ability to shrink tumors.

Wang and Zhang will focus on understanding how the treatment works and monitoring its effectiveness in models that closely mirror human disease.

“We will study how the drug targets MDM2 and evaluate the most promising drug candidates to determine effective dosing, understand how the drug behaves in the body, compare it with existing treatments and assess early safety,” Wang said in a news release.

Li’s team at the University of Tennessee will be working on the chemistry and drug design end of the project.

“This work could lead to an entirely new class of therapies for triple-negative breast cancer,” Li added in the release. “We’re hopeful that by directly removing the MDM2 protein from cancer cells, we can help more patients respond to treatment regardless of their tumor type.”

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