Startup gift guide: Shop local from these Houston companies

startup santa

Support Houston startups by shopping local this holiday season. Photos courtesy

'Tis the season for giving — and what if you could check off your holiday to-do list and simultaneously support some local startups? This year's Houston startup gift guide includes comfortable-yet-stylish heels, culinary treats, and more.

Need some more ideas? Browse last year's roundup of Houston startup-created gift ideas and check out the 2020 and 2019 startup gift guides as well for even more options.

For the family fashionista: All-day comfort shoes

Steffie Tomson founded a company to prioritize comfort — without sacrificing style — for women on the go. Photo via getawaysticks.com

Before starting her business, Houstonian Steffie Tomson ordered $2,000 worth of shoes and sliced them all in half with a bandsaw just to see what was inside. Tomson, a neuroscientist by trade and the founder and CEO of footwear startup Getaway Sticks, had an idea for a different kind of shoe — one that was redesigned to prioritize women’s comfort.

Earlier this year, Tomson shared the Getaway Sticks origin story with InnovationMap. The heels are available online for around $200 per pair.

For the resident chef: Fresh fish delivered

Sugar Land-based Fish Fixe floated their seafood delivery service on Shark Tank last year. Photo via Shark Tank

Houstonians Melissa Harrington and Emily Castro saw how beneficial incorporating fish into your diet can be — so they decided to launch an easier way to do it. They launched Fish Fixe in 2017 to deliver seafood with easy-to-access instructions on storage and thawing — plus cooking recipes that take around 20 minutes.

The duo appeared on the 13th season of Shark Tank last year. In 2020, as InnovationMap reported, the company saw a 400-percent increase in sales. They pitched asking for $200,000 in investment. Lori Greiner, the "queen of QVC," took the bait — and 25 percent equity.

Shoppers can stock up on various boxes from $109 to $219, or opt for a gift card for their loved one.

For the health nut: Sustainably-sourced nutrients

A Houston-based fund has deployed capital into a local nutritional supplement business. Photo via Instagram

Houston--based iwi creates nutritional supplements for the brain and the heart — and they are doing it in a sustainable setting: algae farms. These football field-sized farms operate on desert land using just salt water and sand and produce algae sustainably — all while absorbing CO2. Miguel Calatayud, CEO of the company, tells InnovationMap that the farms even area able to reuse 98 percent of the water involved in the process. Earlier this year, iwi received an investment from a local group in an $8 million deal.

The company has almost a dozen options online for around $30 per canister of supplements.

For your aging loved ones: Afterlife planning and memory keeping

The Postage — a Houston-based company that's streamlining afterlife planning — has rolled out a new app. Photo courtesy of The Postage

There's a lot that goes into legacy and afterlife planning, and a Houston startup has emerged to make the process a whole lot easier. The Postage helps its users generate their wills and organize information to leave behind, the company's founder, Emily Cisek, shares with InnovationMap. The platform also every user to leave messages, photos, and memories in a digital vault that will stand the test of time.

Giving the gift of legacy planning can be an option for anyone in your family — from the grandparents to the newlyweds.

For someone seeking luscious locks: Hair growth tracking kit

This startup is making sure every follicle of hair on your head is counted. Photo via myhaircounts.com

While it might seem odd to gift someone a hair loss tracking kit, this product from a Houston company has helped many men and women suffering from hair density challenges. MyHairCounts created a hair density imaging kit and app based on proprietary and patent-pending software. The kit includes a variety of items such as scalp imaging guides, a comb, and gel to help individuals photograph their hair follicles at specified angles. Users then upload these photographs into the app for analyses which are delivered within 48 hours. These analyses inform the user whether or not their hair regrowth treatment is effective.

The kit itself is just $40 and available online. Users can work with the company on a longer hair growth plan, too.

Bonus: What to bring to the table

Support Houston startups by bringing these goodies to your next festive shindig. Photos courtesy

Sometimes your presence is the present, and if you're headed to some holiday dinner parties, here are some innovative ideas for the potluck.

  • Houston-based Dream Harvest Farming Co., a vertical indoor farming company producing leafy greens and herbs and delivering them locally to grocery stores in Texas and nearby states. Pick up Dream Harvest products at a Whole Foods location, and read more about the company.
  • This year has been a big one for the growing Bread Man Baking Co., as the company expanded from its 5,000-square-foot kitchen and moved its operations into a new 40,000-square-foot facility on the northeast side of Houston. Pick up some of the company's products at Whole Foods or HEB. Read more about the company.
  • A new, “hyperpure” oxygen-enriched water brand has rolled out in Houston in single-serve and subscription options. Dubbed HOW — Hyperpure Oxygenated Water — the award-winning super-filtered water (via a 14-level filtration process that removes impurities down to the nano-level .0001 microns) is now available at 35 specialty retailers around town. Read more about the company.

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HOW water comes to you via subscription. Photo by Alex Montoya

Houston restaurant veteran pops open award-winning and sustainable new bottled water

how nice

Houstonians who are picky about their bottled water but also environmentally minded now have a refreshing local option — one that even comes to them.

A new, “hyperpure” oxygen-enriched water brand has rolled out in Houston in single-serve and subscription options. Dubbed HOW — Hyperpure Oxygenated Water — the award-winning super-filtered water (via a 14-level filtration process that removes impurities down to the nano-level .0001 microns) is now available at 35 specialty retailers around town.

HOW secured gold medal awards in the coveted category of Best Tasting Purified Drinking Water in 2019 and 2021 at the annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. That contest is widely known in the industry as The Oscars of water tasting competitions.

The new water comes courtesy of local serial entrepreneur Bob Peebler, whose 40-plus year career in business has spawned multiple ventures, including the instantly recognizable health-conscious Ruggles Green restaurants.

Fresh air

Peebler’s water journey started six years ago when he met an inventor in Santa Barbara who was building a perfect water system that not only produced hyperpure water, but also an experimental system that raised the oxygen levels of the water up to five times beyond the oxygen content in tap and bottled water.

“This difference in the inventor’s system was how he used a patented system that injects 98 percent oxygen into a swirling vortex that creates nano bubbles that find their way to embed in the water,” Peebler tells CultureMap. “The bubbles are so small that when the body absorbs the water, it ends up raising the oxygen levels of the body’s tissues. After seeing lab measurements, I was convinced that this was different. The other intrigue is that in-solution oxygen creates a silky texture which makes the water a pleasure to drink.”

After coaxing the inventor to build a system at his home in Ojai, California, Peebler shared the water with his friends, who couldn’t get enough of it. The serial entrepreneur was inspired.

Precious metal

Hardly surprising that the Houstonian responsible for Ruggles Green and its healthy and planet-first approach (reusable containers, biodegradable utensils) would create an eco-friendly new product. Aside from the health benefits offered with HOW, Peebler wanted reusable and recyclable delivery systems. And that meant no plastic bottles, but rather, aluminum.

“No one is certain how microplastics affect our health, but I’m guessing it’s not a good thing, and I know it doesn’t help the taste,” says Peebler. “More importantly, there are 1 million plastic bottles purchased every minute, and roughly 70 percent of that mostly non-recyclable plastic waste ends up in our oceans, lakes, bayous and landfills. In contrast, the aluminum bottles that HOW uses are infinitely recyclable.”

A winning formula

Learning first-hand how wasteful the restaurant industry is, Peebler ensured his Ruggles Green operations recycled grease, composted waste, used diode lighting, and employed other environmentally friendly approaches. With that in mind, he’s ensured that his water tastes good, is good for the planet, and the bottles are reusable or easily recycled.

Currently available for home delivery (subscribe here), HOW can also be found at spots such as Midtown Market, Phoenicia Specialty Foods, Rice Epicurean Market, O Athletik, Total Nutrition, and all four Local Foods locations. Bottled in a specialty plant in Mineral Wells, Texas, HOW is slated to be released to Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio.

It’s all part of Peebler’s ambition to provide a wealth of water that’s good for people and planet.

“If we deliver a superior tasting product that just happens to be better for both your health and our planet,” Peebler adds, “we believe that’s a winning combination that will resonate with consumers.”

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Rice University partners with astronaut foundation to offer new STEM scholarship

space scholars

Rice University has partnered with The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) to offer a new scholarship opportunity for junior or senior STEM majors, beginning this spring.

The prestigious Astronaut Scholarship includes up to $15,000, mentorship, networking and a paid trip to the ASF Innovators Symposium and Gala. The scholarship is funded by the James A. Lovell Jr. Family Endowment, in honor of the late American astronaut and founder of the ASF.

“This scholarship opportunity represents an exciting new avenue for Rice STEM students to synthesize their experiences in courses and research and their commitment to advancing the public good as leaders in their field,” Danika Brown, executive director for the Center for Civic Leadership at Rice, said in a news release. “We are so grateful to the Lovell family and to the foundation for investing in Rice students, and we are confident that the foundation will be impressed with our nominees and that selected students will have a life-changing experience as astronaut scholars.”

The Rice Space Institute and the Center for Civic Learning recently hosted the ASF at the Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science.

At the ASF event, Jeff Lovell—son of James Lovell, who commanded Apollo 13 and flew on Apollo 8—announced the scholarship aimed at Rice STEM students. Charlie Duke, who served as spacecraft communicator for the Apollo 11 Moon landing and as the lunar module pilot for Apollo 16, also spoke at the event.

The ASF awarded 74 scholarships to students from 51 universities across the U.S. last May.

The ASF awarded its first seven $1,000 scholarships in 1986 to pay tribute to the Mercury 7 astronauts. It has since awarded more than $10 million to more than 850 college students.

So far, only students from Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin have received the scholarship in Texas.

Houston hospital first in U.S. to use new system for minimally invasive surgery

sharper images

Houston’s Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center has introduced an innovative new surgical imaging system that will allow surgeons to increase the number of minimally invasive procedures as well as reposition on the fly during operations.

Minimally invasive surgery has been shown across the board to improve patient outcomes with less chance of infection and shorter recovery times compared to traditional open surgery. However, the human body is not exactly easy to work on through small incisions, necessitating the development of state-of-the-art cameras and imaging technology to guide surgeons.

Enter GE HealthCare’s Allia Moveo, now a part of the Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center operating room. Using cutting-edge technology, it uses the same high-definition imaging usually seen in the catheterization lab at speeds fast enough to respond to shifting surgical conditions. Its cable-free setup allows surgeons to switch positions much faster, and it features advanced 3D imaging that compensates for breathing motion and interference from metal implants.

Its design supports a range of cardiovascular, vascular, non-vascular, interventional and surgical procedures, according to CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit Catholic health network, of which Baylor St. Luke's is a member.

“This innovative platform enhances how our clinicians navigate complex minimally invasive procedures by improving mobility, image clarity, and workflow efficiency. It strengthens our ability to deliver precise, patient-centered care while supporting our teams with technology designed for the evolving demands of modern interventional medicine,” Dr. Brad Lembcke, president of Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, said in a news release from Baylor and the Texas Heart Institute.

Baylor St. Luke’s is the first hospital in the U.S. to use the Allia Moveo technology. The definition and responsiveness of the new system allow surgeons to navigate the body with greater accuracy and smaller incisions, even for very delicate operations.

“Allia Moveo gives us the flexibility and image quality needed to manage increasingly complex minimally invasive procedures with greater confidence,” Dr. Gustavo Oderich, vascular surgeon and professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, added in the release. “The ability to quickly reposition the system, obtain high-quality 3D imaging, and integrate advanced guidance tools directly into the workflow enhances procedural accuracy. This technology supports our mission to push the boundaries of what is possible in endovascular and interventional surgery.”

Houston clocks in as one of the hardest working cities in America

Ranking It

Houston and its residents are proving their tenacity as some of the hardest working Americans in 2026, so says a new study.

WalletHub's annual "Hardest-Working Cities in America (2026)" report ranked Houston the 37th most hardworking city nationwide. H-town last appeared as the 28th most industrious American city in 2025, but it still remains among the top 50.

The personal finance website evaluated 116 U.S. cities based on 11 key indicators across "direct" and "indirect" work factors, such as an individual's average workweek hours, average commute times, employment rates, and more.

The U.S. cities that comprised the top five include Cheyenne, Wyoming (No. 1); Anchorage, Alaska (No. 2); Washington, D.C. (No. 2); Sioux Falls, South Dakota (No. 4); and Irving, Texas (No. 5). Dallas and Austin also earned a spot among the top 10, landing as No. 7 and No. 10, respectively.

Based on the report's findings, Houston has the No. 31-best "direct work factors" ranking in the nation, which analyzed residents' average workweek hours, employment rates, the share of households where no adults work, the share of workers leaving vacation time unused, the share of "engaged" workers, and the rate of "idle youth" (residents aged 16-24 that are not in school nor have a job).

However, Houston lagged behind in the "indirect work factors" ranking, landing at No. 77 out of all 116 cities in the report. "Indirect" work factors that were considered include residents' average commute times, the share of workers with multiple jobs, the share of residents who participate in local groups or organizations, annual volunteer hours, and residents' average leisure time spent per day.

Based on data from The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), WalletHub said the average American employee works hundreds of more hours than workers residing in "several other industrialized nations."

"The typical American puts in 1,796 hours per year – 179 more than in Japan, 284 more than in the U.K., and 465 more than in Germany," the report's author wrote. "In recent years, the rise of remote work has, in some cases, extended work hours even further."

WalletHub also tracked the nation's lowest and highest employment rates based on the largest city in each state from 2009 to 2024.

ranking

Source: WalletHub

Other Texas cities that earned spots on the list include Fort Worth (No. 13), Corpus Christi (No. 14), Arlington (No. 15), Plano (No. 17), Laredo (No. 22), Garland (No. 24), El Paso (No. 43), Lubbock (No. 46), and San Antonio (No. 61).

Data for this study was sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Travel Association, Gallup, Social Science Research Council, and the Corporation for National & Community Service as of January 29, 2026.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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