Eight Houston entrepreneurs are among 16 recipients of EOY’s Gulf South Award, which recognizes leaders of high-growth companies in Central Texas, South Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Photo via Getty Images

Eight Houston-area entrepreneurs have been named regional winners in Ernst & Young’s 2024 Entrepreneur Of The Year program.

The eight entrepreneurs are among 16 recipients of EOY’s Gulf South Award, which recognizes leaders of high-growth companies in Central Texas, South Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

A panel of judges chose the winners based on factors such as:

  • Creation of long-term value through entrepreneurship.
  • Commitment to the purpose of their business.
  • Demonstration of growth and “substantial impact.”

“The 2024 Entrepreneur Of The Year Gulf South Award winners are exceptional business leaders fueling innovation within their industries and growth within their companies,” says Anna Horndahl, an EY partner who is co-director of EOY’s Gulf South program.

The Houston area’s Gulf South winners for 2024 are:

  • Hal Brumfield of Tachus Fiber Internet, a provider of fiber-to-the-home internet service based in The Woodlands.
  • Stuart Hinchen and Peter Jenkins of QuVa Pharma, a Sugar Land-based provider of ready-to-administer injectables.
  • Andrew Levy of Avelo Airlines, a low-cost airline based in Houston.
  • Derek Maetzold of Castle Biosciences, a Friendswood-based provider of diagnostic tests.
  • Shannon Payne of Allied Fire Protection, a Pearland-based provider of fire prevention products and services.
  • John Poindexter of JB Poindexter & Co., a Houston-based provider of automotive and manufacturing goods and services.
  • Ting Qiao of Wan Bridge, a Houston-based developer and operator of build-to-rent communities.

“These entrepreneurs are shining examples of how to lead a scaling business and also care for their employees, customers and communities,” says Travis Garms, an EY partner who is co-director of EOY’s Gulf South program.

The regional winners now qualify for consideration in the EOY national awards program. The national awards are scheduled to be presented in November.

Headed to SXSW? Here's what you need to know. Photo courtesy of SXSW

Podcast: The Houston founder's guide to navigating SXSW 2024

houston innovators podcast episode 227

Tens of thousands of people are descending upon Austin for SXSW — many of whom are ambitious startup founders. For Houston entrepreneurs, there's a lot to consider before heading down the street to Austin, and Marc Nathan can help.

The native Houstonian, who works with startups as senior director of market development at Michael Best and is based in Austin, has attended the conference for over 20 years. Every year, he assembles a comprehensive SXSW guide including round up of must-attend events, tips, and more.

He joined the Houston Innovators Podcast this week to provide his thoughts on how Houston founders can make the most of the tech-focused Interactive track — or the unofficial experiences taking place around Austin.

"You do not need a badge to enjoy and get the most out of SXSW," Nathan says, explaining that having a badge is ideal for a first timer experience. "For struggling founders who are typically broke, if you can swing the travel to get to Austin — getting here, staying here, and eating here, which are all not very cheap to start with — if you can swing that, then a badge is not that critical."

He also reminds founders that getting an invite to speak on a panel, pitch in the competition, or volunteering can score you a free or discounted badge.

On the show, Nathan shares more tips — from registering to everything you're even remotely interested in to making sure you have on your comfiest walking shoes and bring your external phone charger — on the podcast, but explains that there's really one big mistake new SXSW attendees should avoid.

"The biggest mistake I see year after year — and it's really an entrepreneur problem — but don't be too sales-y. Listen before you talk," Nathan says. "Everybody at SX is going to get it — they are going to understand the language you're speaking. It's not like explaining what your startup is to your 80-year-old grandmother. But you gotta give them a reason and a way to help you."

Headed out to SXSW? Here are a few Houston-focused events to attend.

March 9 - A $20 Trillion Challenge: Financing the Energy Transition (badge required)

A couple of Houstonians join the panel of a topic that is very prevalent in the energy capital of the world: funding of the energy transition. Juliana Garaizar joins the conversation on Saturday, March 9, at 4 pm.

March 10 - How NASA Supports Startups and Individuals to Collaborate on its Mission (badge required)

Last month, a Houston tech company launched a lunar lander in collaboration with NASA — and that's just one of countless examples of NASA's work with tech and startup companies. Join NASA for a panel discussing innovative partnerships on Sunday, March 10, at 4 pm.

March 11 - Houston House @ SXSW 2024 (badge required)

On Monday, March 11, at the LINE Hotel, the Greater Houston Partnership is hosting four panels and a happy hour. More info on the full-day event, which features over a dozen Houston-based experts, startup founders, and more, is available online.

March 12 - Women in VC Breakfast (registration required)

Houston Women in VC and Austin Women in VC are teaming up to host a breakfast with partners JP Morgan Chase and Born Global Ventures for all the female investors headed to SXSW on Tuesday, March 12, at 9 am. Request your registration online.

Learn from the mistakes of a successful Houston entrepreneur — from teamwork tips to reasons why you should network with other startups. Emilija Manevska/Getty Images

6 things this Houston entrepreneur wishes he’d known before starting his company

Guest column

Recently, I was asked what it took to build a startup in Houston. It has taken me three attempts to create a successful startup, and there were a few things that I wish I'd known right out of the gate.

Whether your goal is to exit through a sale, an IPO, or turn your team of pirates into something that looks like a company, your business model will determine how you earn revenue and profits, and you want it to be repeatable and scalable to survive. With that in mind, here are the things I've learned along the way and what I wish I had known before I started my career as an entrepreneur.

Location does matter 

Houston is great for food, sports, and massive rainfall, but it's difficult to find a large pool of talented full-stack software engineers who speak cloud. I recruited some of the best, but it was incredibly difficult to find them compared to markets like Austin, Denver, and San Francisco.

I've seen successful companies build two separate offices, one for a headquarters, and another for development, but for us, we didn't need to build a massive team, so we remained close to customers in Houston and hired a remote team in California. If you need to build a large engineering team, consider a different city or go remote.

Startups have well-defined phases 

Your startup is not a snowflake. There have been thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs that have succeeded and failed, and a few people have studied them to understand their histories and roadmaps. I wish I learned from them before I began, instead of spending every waking hour building a product, and competing with development time for research.

Looking back, we followed the same trail taken by many other B2B startups, like: Product-market fit, sales optimization, customer success, marketing focus, and eventually scale. It's important to know which phase you are in, who you need to hire in each phase, and most importantly, how your role changes in each one.

Partner roles need to be well understood 

One of largest factors on your probability of success is your team. When choosing your partners, I would suggest using an odd number of people to break stalemates, and to always have a CEO. One person needs to be in charge of execution, I can tell you first hand that committees do not scale well when you need a high velocity of decision making.

When choosing your team, make note of Cal Newport's research on career capital, which is the rare and valuable skills that one can leverage help your startup succeed. If your friend knows how to code or understands databases, ask yourself if he/she is the best in their class, because these are skills that you can hire for or contract out. The traits that accelerated our success were a unique blend of domain expertise, petroleum-specific software knowledge, deep business development expertise, and strong sense of diligence and commitment, which is what became our culture.

Finally, you and your partners need to know what needs to be done, and how you can individually contribute. Your contributions will change in each phase, and each of you need to understand how your roles will change, and be prepared to adapt quickly. If one of your partners writes the first line of code, doesn't mean they'll be the CTO when you have 150 people, the person that makes the first sale may not be the CRO when you have a 30 person salesforce. For those with a large ego, it's one of the hardest things to accept, but must be acknowledged in order for a team to succeed.

Your idea is probably wrong, but that is okay 

We used agile and lean philosophies to build our organization, and our approach was centered around what Steve Blank calls "customer discovery," the understanding of how to find a product-market fit. These methods subscribe to the hypothesis that successful startups are defined by their team's execution, and not the idea alone. We ditched our first idea after two weeks and pivoted to a new one, and we learned from our customers very quickly and created over 115 prototypes in 10 months before making the first sale. Each group of customers saw a different prototype, and each beta-tester used a different design, a different stack, a different user experience. We had to learn quickly. Agile and lean processes helped us iterate quickly and discover what our customers needed, but a highly skilled team was needed to figure out how to use the processes correctly.

Connect with others who have made it

Success is a multi-variate formula that compounds every good and bad decision unequally. If you don't know the answer to a key decision, your team can help, if they don't know, then find another team that has navigated your trail to provide advice.

In Houston, there are not many teams who have been through this, we leaned on help from the Austin network. I'm a big believer in helping the community of entrepreneurs, and I am more than happy to throw down the rope to help others in their ascent.

Money is your oxygen

Lastly, learning to hold your breath isn't a long-term strategy for deep sea dives. You'll need to know how many months of oxygen you have in your bank account at all times. There is no magic number of months for runway, but I can tell you from experience that three months is too little for oil and gas tech startups, especially when OilCo's take three to six months to sign and pay your invoices.

I can't emphasize how difficult starting a company can be. By reflecting on the points I mentioned here, I believe that I would have avoided some pitfalls, and maybe even made it a little farther in the journey.

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James Ruiz is the founder of Houston-based Q Engineering, a data driven solutions company for E&P professionals.

Entrepreneurs' Organization had seven of its members give TED-style talks on April 25. Ammar Selo

Overheard: 9 powerful quotes from TED-style talks by Houston entrepreneurs

Eavesdropping in Houston

Moving the needle on something — whether it's changing the world or growing your business — hearing how others accomplished their own goals can be a beacon of hope and guidance for others.

The local Entrepreneurs' Organization chapter, EO Houston, hosted a series of seven TED Talk-style talks by members of the organization. These seven entrepreneurs discussed everything from being an introvert in a world of extroverts to the biggest security threat to American citizens: obesity. EO Talks took place at a breakfast event on April 25 at Houston Baptist University. If you missed the event, check out these overheard quotes from the day of discussions.

“When you get people involved in your organization, your job (as CEO) is alignment. Keep your team aligned with the strategic objectives of your company.”

— Paul Sarvadi, chairman, CEO and co-founder of Insperity, in his talk, "Take Care of Your People: An Entrepreneur's Journey." Connectivity is key, says Sarvadi.

“Taking care of your people is not rocket science. In fact, rocket science would be easier. It involves math and science — it works the same every day. But as soon as you put people in the mix, what worked yesterday might not work today.”

— Sarvadi continued in his talk about the importance of human resources in the the work place.

“What if everyone in the world knew what they stood for — imagine what that world would look like. We would know how we fit. We would be the best versions of ourselves. And, the world would be the best version of itself.”

— Winnie Hart, founder of TwinEngine in her talk, "What Do You Stand For?" Hart discussed finding one's identity and motivators — both in business and in life.

“Everywhere we look introverts are living in an extroverted world. It’s natural if you’re an introvert, like me, to feel a little insecure or that you feel the need to compete with your extraverted friends.”

— Darlene Gagnon, CEO and co-founder of Kinnect Global Management Services in her talk, "The Introverted Entrepreneur Competing in an Extroverted World." Gagnon says that introverts on track to be the most successful entrepreneurs with their execution skills, detail oriented nature, and ability to tune out the noise.

“It is the men in our lives that need to take action. Gentlemen, stand with us. Help us create a better presence so that we can sustain a future.”

— Shoshi Kaganovsky, CEO and founder of SensoLeak Global, in her talk, "Women Entrepreneurs—To Be..Or..To Be The Best." Kaganovsky compared how people say, "behind every great man is a woman," to how female leaders also need the support from the other gender.

“Entrepreneurship is an endless circle of reinventing yourself, being able to change, and keeping a positive attitude while doing so.”

— Kaganovsky continued in her talk as advice to the room of entrepreneurs.

“We can escape this crushing threat we call obesity. How are you going to make your escape?”

— Dr. Joe Galati, liver disease expert, radio host and author in his talk, "America's #1 National Security Threat." Galati argued that it's not Russia or North Korea that pose a major threat to the United States — it's our own health issues caused by obesity.

“We’ve all heard of the term ‘side hustle.' Maybe my dad invented the ‘side hustle.’”

— Chris Hotze, CEO and founder of Crescere Capital, in his talk, "Understanding the Power of Recurring Revenue." Hotze tells the story of how his father created a residential real estate side business out of necessity, and how that entrepreneurialism affected his own business career.

“As entrepreneurs, as long as we see control, we visualize an opportunity far greater than we see the risk.”

— Ali Nasser, CEO of AltruVista in his talk, "The Entrepreneur's Opportunity Cost," Nasser explains how entrepreneurs are hesitant to put money in the stock market, yet dive into ownership and risks for their own businesses.

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9 can't-miss Houston business and innovation events for April

where to be

Two new conferences will launch while another longtime business competition celebrates its 25th anniversary this month in Houston. Plus, there are networking opportunities, family tech events and more.

Here are the Houston business and innovation events you can't miss in April and how to register. Please note: this article might be updated to add more events.

​Ion Block Party: Art Crawl

Network and socialize with other tech enthusiasts and business-minded individuals while taking in the new gallery at Community Artists’ Collective and experiencing the immersive dome at Omnispace360. See work by Joel Zika, who will showcase his digital sculptures through augmented reality screens, and other public art around the Ion while also enjoying food and drink.

This event is Thursday, April 3, from 4-7 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

​CLA Presents: Raising Capital over Happy Hour

Gain a better understanding of the capital-raising process and various funding opportunities at this educational happy hour. Keith Davidson, the market leader for CLA in Dallas and former CFO of ICS, will present.

This event is Thursday, April 10, from 4-6 p.m. at The Cannon. Click here to register.

Rice Business Plan Competition 

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship will host the 25th annual Rice Business Plan Competition this month. Forty-two student-led teams from around the world, including one team from Rice, will present their plans before more than 300 angel, venture capital, and corporate investors to compete for more than $1 million in prizes.

This event is April 10-12. Stream the Elevator Pitch Competition and Final Round here.

RSVF Annual Conference

The Rice Student Venture Fund will host its first-ever Annual Conference to celebrate the university's entrepreneurial spirit and the rising generation of student-led innovation. The conference will include live startup demos, an RSVF fund update, a keynote fireside chat, a builder-investor panel and networking. RSVF welcomes students, alumni, investors, faculty and staff, and innovators and community members of the broader tech scene.

This event is Monday, April 14, from 4-8 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

​TEX-E Conference

TEX-E will host its inaugural conference this month under the theme "Energy & Entrepreneurship: Navigating the Future of Climate Tech." The half-day conference will feature a keynote from Artemis Energy Partners CEO Bobby Tudor as well as panels with other energy and tech leaders from NRG, Microsoft, GE Vernova and TEB Tech.

This event is Tuesday, April 15, from 1-4:30 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

Houston Methodist Leadership Speaker Series 

Hear from Dr. Jonathan Rogg, Chief Quality Officer and Vice President of Operations at Houston Methodist Hospital and a a practicing emergency medicine physician, at the latest Houston Methodist Leadership Speaker Series. Rogg will present "Leadership from the Bedside to the Boardroom."

This event is on Wednesday, April 23, from 4:45-6 p.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

Ion Family STEAM Day– Let's Build a Tripwire Alarm

STEAM on Demand will host a hands-on, family-friendly engineering lesson for young ones on the Ion Forum Stairs. Kids will learn to create and test their own working alarm system. The event is geared toward those ages 7 to 14.

This event is Sunday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ion. Click here to register.

 Greentown Houston Fourth Anniversary Transition On Tap

Climatetech incubator Greentown Labs will celebrate its fourth anniversary with a special edition of its signature networking event, Transition On Tap. Entrepreneurs, investors, students, and friends of climatetech are invited to attend.

This event is Tuesday, April 29, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Greentown Labs. Click here to register.

Integrate Space Technology Into Your Small Biz

The SBA Houston District Office and the UH Technology Bridge will host a collaborative event designed to help small businesses leverage space technology for prototype development. Attendees will also hear from industry experts on resources and gain access free technical engineering assistance to help accelerate their businesses.

This event is Wednesday, April 30, from 9:30-11:30 a.m. at UH Technology Bridge Innovation Center. Click here to reserve your spot.

Texas university's innovative 'WaterHub' will dramatically reduce usage by 40%

Sustainable Move

A major advancement in sustainability is coming to one Texas university. A new UT WaterHub at the University of Texas at Austin will be the largest facility of its kind in the U.S. and will transform how the university manages its water resources.

It's designed to work with natural processes instead of against them for water savings of an estimated 40 percent. It's slated for completion in late 2027.

The university has had an active water recovery program since the 1980s. Still, water is becoming an increasing concern in Austin. According to Texas Living Waters, a coalition of conservation groups, Texas loses enough water annually to fill Lady Bird Lake roughly 89 times over.

As Austin continues to expand and face water shortages, the region's water supply faces increased pressure. The UT WaterHub plans to address this challenge by recycling water for campus energy operations, helping preserve water resources for both the university and local communities.

The 9,600-square-foot water treatment facility will use an innovative filtration approach. To reduce reliance on expensive machinery and chemicals, the system uses plants to naturally filter water and gravity to pull it in the direction it needs to go. Used water will be gathered from a new collection point near the Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium and transported to the WaterHub, located in the heart of the engineering district. The facility's design includes a greenhouse viewable to the public, serving as an interactive learning space.

Beyond water conservation, the facility is designed to protect the university against extreme weather events like winter storms. This new initiative will create a reliable backup water supply while decreasing university water usage, and will even reduce wastewater sent to the city by up to 70 percent.

H2O Innovation, UT’s collaborator in this project, specializes in water solutions, helping organizations manage their water efficiently.

"By combining cutting-edge technology with our innovative financing approach, we’re making it easier for organizations to adopt sustainable water practices that benefit both their bottom line and the environment, paving a step forward in water positivity,” said H2O Innovation president and CEO Frédéric Dugré in a press release.

The university expects significant cost savings with this project, since it won't have to spend as much on buying water from the city or paying fees to dispose of used water. Over the next several years, this could add up to millions of dollars.

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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap Austin.

Texas female-founded companies raised more than $1 billion in 2024, VC data shows

by the numbers

Female-founded companies in Dallas-Fort Worth may rack up more funding deals and more money than those in Houston. However, Bayou City beats DFW in one key category — but just barely.

Data from PitchBook shows that in the past 16 years, female-founded companies in DFW collected $2.7 billion across 488 deals. By comparison, female-founded companies in the Houston area picked up $1.9 billion in VC through 343 deals.

Yet if you do a little math, you find that Houston ekes out an edge over DFW in per-deal values. During the period covered by the PitchBook data, the value of each of the DFW deals averaged $5.53 million. But at $5,54 million, Houston was just $6,572 ahead of DFW for average deal value.

Not surprisingly, the Austin area clobbered Houston and DFW.

During the period covered by the PitchBook data, female-founded companies in the Austin area hauled in $7.5 billion across 1,114 deals. The average value of an Austin deal: more than $6.7 million.

Historically, funding for female-established companies has lagged behind funding for male-established companies. In 2024, female-founded companies accounted for about one-fourth of all VC deals in the U.S., according to PitchBook.

PitchBook noted that in 2024, female-founded companies raised $38.8 billion, up 27 percent from the previous year, but deal count dropped 13.1 percent, meaning more VC for fewer startups. In Texas, female-founded companies brought in $1.3 billion last year via 151 deals. The total raised is the same as 2023, when Texas female founders got $1.3 billion in capital across 190 deals.

“The VC industry is still trying to find solid footing after its peak in 2021. While some progress was made for female founders in 2024, particularly in exit activity, female founders and investors still face an uphill climb,” says Annemarie Donegan, senior research analyst at PitchBook.