Tellinga creates artistic and personal cards for every occasion. Courtesy of Tellinga

Alex Kurkowski can't count how many times he's gone looking for a greeting card — before some holiday, birthday, or special occasion — and found nothing that suited his recipient. He doesn't remember when he started editing them, either. For a few years now, he's been taking markers and pens to the greeting cards, blacking out words and scribbling new ones to say what he wanted to.

"They're templated. They're frozen, stagnant, fixed in what they are," Kurkowski says. "They suck."

But he can remember a few moments that changed that for him — and for Houston. When he started sending his family cards he'd sketched that depicted scenes from their lives, his classmates in the Rice University MBA program told him that, despite his pharmaceuticals background, this might actually be the right business for him.

Tellinga is hardly just a maker of greeting cards; it's in the business of storytelling, and customers can have personalized artworks delivered right to their mailboxes — a site for reclaiming, Kurkowski says, from the dread of bills and marketing materials.

"I'm trying to tap back into the tangible, physical and real side of life," Kurkowski says.

A year ago, Kurkowski sent his first Tellingas — short for "Telling a Story" — as an official business. He made the initial cards himself, but soon couldn't meet the demand on his own. Today, Tellingas are crafted from a cohort of more than 20 artists who are mostly Houston-based and, as Kurkowski says, make his work look like garbage.

Customers can select a few purchase options for customers, ranging from a one-panel story to 12 scenes. They upload a photo of the people they want drawn and submit their idea for the artwork on the website — they can create renderings of real-life events they want to remember or they might tell a wacky, fantasy story. For Kurkowski, the most important part is receiving the art over time — for example, the 12-panel pieces are sent over a one-month period.

Currently, Tellinga's only full-time staff is Kurkowski, but he's looking to hire a CTO to manage the growing demands of the website, where orders are placed. He also wants Tellinga to grow into the Airbnb model, with artists posting their works on his site and setting the price of their commissions themselves. Kurkoswki will be raising funds in the next investment round.

Until then, he's hoping to grow Tellinga's ability to turn stories into keepsakes — by offering ways to frame and preserve them, and by introducing a subscription model, so that customers can select days from of an entire calendar year to send their personalized artworks—constantly tapping back into that physical side of life like Kurkowsi wants.

"It's just cool because it's different," Kurkowski says. "It's getting away from the digital media world."

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Rice leads Texas colleges on LinkedIn's first-ever career success ranking

honor roll

Houston’s Rice University leads the Texas schools in LinkedIn’s first-ever ranking of the 50 best U.S. colleges for long-term career success.

Rice appears at No. 31 in the ranking. Southern Methodist University, located in the Dallas suburb of University Park, lands at No. 37 and the University of Texas at Austin shows up at No. 46.

LinkedIn, a career networking site, says the ranking is based on exclusive data about alumni, such as job placement rates, advancement into senior-level jobs, post-graduate formation of startups, and pre-graduation internships.

“A four-year bachelor’s degree is a significant investment of time and money, especially as tuition costs rise and the job market shifts,” the LinkedIn report says. “For millions of Americans, the return on investment is worth it. Those who earn the degree can see an enduring impact on their earning potential and overall career trajectory.”

Where someone earns a degree can have an even bigger impact, according to LinkedIn, as graduates of top programs often land jobs more rapidly, build strong professional networks, and rise to leadership roles more quickly.

“Long-term success isn’t just about landing a great first job; it’s about sustained career growth and opportunity years after graduation,” Andrew Seaman, senior editor-at-large for jobs and career development at LinkedIn News, told Fortune. “For this list, that means looking at how well a school sets alumni up for the long haul.”

Here’s a breakdown of some of the data about the three Texas schools on the LinkedIn list:

Rice University

  • Top industries of graduates: Technology, business consulting, higher education
  • Top post-graduation destinations: Houston, San Francisco Bay Area, New York City
  • Notable skills: MATLAB programming language, engineering design, data science

Southern Methodist University

  • Top industries of graduates: Financial services, business consulting
  • Top post-graduation destinations: Dallas, New York City, Los Angeles
  • Most notable skills: AMPL programming language, Avid iNews content creation system, data science

University of Texas at Austin

  • Top industries of graduates: Technology, medical practices, advertising
  • Top post-graduation destinations: Austin, Dallas, Houston
  • Most notable skills: SOLIDWORKS computer-aided design software, architecture, Avid Media Composer video editing software

TMC lands $3M grant to launch cancer device accelerator

cancer funding

A new business accelerator at Houston’s Texas Medical Center has received a nearly $3 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

The CPRIT grant, awarded to the Texas Medical Center Foundation, will help launch the Accelerator for Cancer Medical Devices. The accelerator will support emerging innovators in developing prototypes for cancer-related medical devices and advancing them from prototype to clinical trials.

“The translation of new cancer-focused precision medical devices, often the width of a human hair, creates the opportunity to develop novel treatments for cancer patients,” the accelerator posted on the CPRIT website.

Scientist, consultant, and entrepreneur Jason Sakamoto, associate director of the TMC Center for Device Innovation, will oversee the accelerator. TMC officials say the accelerator builds on the success of TMC Innovation’s Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics.

Each participant in the Accelerator for Cancer Medical Devices program will graduate with a device prototype, a business plan, and a “solid foundation” in preclinical and clinical strategies, TMC says. Participants will benefit from “robust support” provided by the TMC ecosystem, according to the medical center, and “will foster innovation into impactful and life-changing cancer patient solutions in Texas and beyond.”

In all, CPRIT recently awarded $27 million in grants for cancer research. That includes $18 million to attract top cancer researchers to Texas. Houston institutions received $4 million for recruitment:

  • $2 million to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to recruit Rodrigo Romero from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City
  • $2 million to MD Anderson to recruit Eric Gardner from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City

A $1 million grant also went to Baylor College of Medicine researcher Dr. Akiva Diamond. He is an assistant professor at the medical college and is affiliated with Baylor’s Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.