3 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's who

Across industries, these three founders found a new way of doing things. Images courtesy

This week's innovators to know truly represent the spirit of innovation. All three looked at a traditional way of doing something, and reimagined it — from design to smart technology.

Andre Norman, founder of Jellifin

Andre Norman founded Jellifin, an options trading platform, flipping the script on the traditional investment process. Courtesy Jellfin

When it comes to investing in stock options, you might go the traditional route and seek out a brokerage that focuses on options trading. There's a major catch, though: most brokerages tack on a fee of anywhere between $7 and $20 per trade, says Andre Norman, founder of Jellifin, an online options trading platform, is disrupting that norm.

The company works with individuals and brokers to provide an options trading platform at a flat monthly fee. This allows investors to trade as frequently or infrequently as they please, and to not factor in the cost of a trade fee when considering what's best for their portfolio.

"A lot of people don't invest because of the high costs associated with trading," Norman said. "We allow them to get into investing without having to pay huge amounts of money."

Lisa Pope Westerman, founder and CEO of LUCID

Lisa Pope Westerman has created LUCID, a network of architects that's flipping the script on how architecture projects go. Courtesy of LUCID

When it comes to the traditional method of design integration, Lisa Pope Westerman saw a disconnect. She created LUCID, a collective of architects and boutique architecture firms, to help connect the dots within the industry. When clients retain LUCID as their designer or architect, they're given access to the firms and individual architects who are best suited for the job.

"People have referred to us as 'the WeWork of architecture,' or 'the Uber of design,'" Pope Westerman says. "We think that in 10 years, this is how the world will just be working."

Marci Corry, owner of SAFE 2 SAVE

Marci Corry had the idea for SAFE 2 SAVE in 2016 when she met with a college student she was mentoring to discuss how to help the student's peers detach from their phones. They agreed that incentives, particularly food, were the key, and not just for college kids. Now, the Houston-based app has blown up to include a fan base of more than 148,000 users, 20 employees, and a partnership with Memorial Hermann.

"They said, 'We want this to stop happening. We don't want these people being pushed through our door on a stretcher and this is epidemic in Houston,'" Corry says.

Lisa Pope Westerman has created LUCID, a network of architects that's flipping the script on how architecture projects go. Courtesy of LUCID

Meet the Houston entrepreneur behind the 'Uber of design'

Featured Innovator

What if retaining one architecture company gave you access to dozens more? That's the idea behind LUCID, an architecture and design collective that Lisa Pope Westerman, formerly of San Francisco-based Gensler and New York City-based rockwell group, launched in Houston this year.

LUCID is a collective of architects and boutique architecture firms that specialize in at least one of the following property types: hospitality, retail, mixed-use developments, high-rise residential, and wellness developments. When clients retain LUCID as their designer or architect, they're given access to the firms and individual architects who are best suited for the job. Currently, LUCID is composed of roughly 40 total architects coming from several architecture and design firms, including Chicago-based PinPoint Collective, Houston-based gin design group, and New York-based Glen & Co. architecture.

"People have referred to us as 'the WeWork of architecture,' or 'the Uber of design,'" Pope Westerman says. "We think that in 10 years, this is how the world will just be working."

Pope Westerman spoke with InnovationMap about launching LUCID, Houston's unique design community and how the architecture industry continues to innovate.

InnovationMap: When did you start planning LUCID?

Lisa Pope Westerman: I really started thinking about it in beginning of 2018, and working on it middle of 2018, and making sure the initial groups we started with are a good fit. It's been nothing but wonderful. Everyone's smarter than me, and brings such a unique perspective to the group for various reasons. Not everyone is an architect or an interior designer – the intent is to be really nimble and flexible. We're bringing a lot of unique specialists. We have branding, graphic design, and a strategy group that is just amazing.

We're looking to, as a group, not just be innovative, but have innovation in all the different types of things [we offer], including our process. We believe that the world of design is going to be much more than visual, and that we really need to be thinking about all the senses, like touch and smell and [hearing]. Just typically, everything's visual, and [the other senses] have been secondary.

IM: How did LUCID find the architects and architecture firms that compose the collective?

LPW: The original of roughly 40 people are people I've worked with over the past 20 years. That's how we got things started. I've basically been involved in every size company imaginable: from a one-man show, to the largest design firm in the world, Gensler. The intent of the model is to create something where there's a parent brand that feels like a very large company, and we're essentially an umbrella, and within us are all the other wonderful boutique specialty brands.

IM: What kinds of architecture firms does LUCID work with?

LPW: Most of the firms affiliated with us are around a dozen people. We find that's the right size of people that are highly specialized, super talented, and able to maintain the [high] quality level.

IM: Tell me a bit about LUCID's business model.

LPW: So, we facilitate everything, and that's how [LUCID] is compensated. So, we essentially facilitate in bringing the companies to the client, which is the business development aspect of things. We collaborate on the client management side, so we're still very involved with the clients and the projects. We carry everybody. We help manage all of it, and all of the companies' [projects]. It's a true collaboration.

People truly believe that by being associated with LUCID, they're going to be able to elevate what they've been doing even more. It's important that the companies that want to be affiliated with LUCID are really interested in that.

IM: Can the architecture firms that are a part of LUCID still do work outside of the LUCID collective?

LPW: All the firms connected to LUCID still do their own business. They haven't folded into LUCID and then given up their brand. The intent is that we're celebrating the brands. We like the diversity.

IM: LUCID is currently working on its first project. What information can you share?

LPW: It's in the hospitality industry, and it is a restaurant, bar, event space, and it's for a private club outside of Houston. We started at the beginning of [2019], and we'll be done at the end of the year.

IM: Did LUCID launch with a fund raise? Are you planning a fund raise?

LPW: The front end is really just a shared passion among the companies and individuals that are connected. Longer term, we are interested in even partnering with investors in creating new and different kinds of projects. There are some other firms out there, but not many, that are starting to do that sort of thing … where [the design firm] collaborates with investors and projects, rather than just being hired on as the designer for a project.

IM: How is the Houston design scene different from design scenes around the world?

LPW: Well, I think it's an exciting time for Houston. Especially in our world of lifestyle design, it's the overarching [theme]. We do everything for lifestyle. In Houston, we're really starting to be at the height of this renaissance of bringing just a higher level of appreciation for design. From a lifestyle standpoint, things have been percolating for a while now.

IM: What's a foundational project you've worked on that taught you an essential lesson about design?

LPW: In terms of my Houston project base, certainly the ExxonMobil project was really impactful, because of the scale of the project and all the different participants in it. We collaborated with several other design firms, both in Houston and out of Houston, and not only design firms, but also globally acclaimed artisans. Just at a worldwide level, the caliber of the clients was amazing. It was an incredible experience because of the scale and the success of it. … It was building a city.

------

Portions of this interview have been edited.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Houston medtech startup clears FDA approval for new surgical tool

precision surgery

Houston-based Prana Surgical will soon bring a new electrosurgical tool to operating rooms around the country. The Prana System officially cleared U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval earlier this month.

"Receiving FDA clearance for the Prana System represents a defining milestone for our company," Joanna Nathan, CEO and co-founder of Prana Surgical, said in a news release. "Surgeons today are increasingly focused on achieving precise outcomes while minimizing disruption to healthy tissue. The Prana System was designed to support that shift by integrating targeting and excision into a single, streamlined tool."

Prana Surgical began as Prana Thoracic in 2022. Back then, the company primarily focused on developing screening tools for lung cancer diagnosis. It raised $6 million in series A funding rounds in 2023 and 2024 before transitioning to broader surgical needs in 2025.

The Prana System is a minimally invasive, image-guided, single-use tissue extraction tool designed to retrieve samples without damaging healthy tissue. The tool is still designed with the respiratory system in mind, helping Prana in the fight against lung cancer and other thoracic diseases.

Reducing the impact of tissue extraction via electrosurgery and enhanced image scanning can significantly reduce complications. The Prana System combines localization and tissue-cutting capabilities in one, which keeps surgeons from having to swap out components during a procedure, making for a smoother process. It can core, cut and feel blood vessels on the way toward the intended target, giving surgeons greater control over tissue preservation.

"Electrosurgery is foundational to modern surgery, but there is still opportunity to improve how energy-based tools are applied in minimally invasive settings," Nathan added. "Our goal is to introduce a new class of image-guided surgical tools that enable more precise intervention across a range of procedures."

The company projects sales of $7.5 billion from the Prana System in the United States, estimating that 2.5 million surgical modules will be able to use the new tool. While starting out focused on biopsies, the company plans to evolve the system into other procedures, such as ablation, in the future. It is also planning for a controlled U.S. clinical rollout as it moves toward commercialization

Texas still ranks as No. 1 in U.S. for inbound moves, but growth dips

by the numbers

Texas continues to be the country’s No. 1 magnet for newcomers from other states, giving a boost to the state’s economy. However, Texas’ appeal weakened in 2024 compared with the previous year, due in large part to spiking home prices.

An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by self-storage platform StorageCafe shows Texas saw net interstate migration of 76,000 people in 2024. Texas’ net interstate migration dropped nearly 50 percent from 2023, according to the analysis. Net migration refers to the number of incoming residents minus the number of outgoing residents.

California remained the top source of newcomers for Texas, sending nearly 77,000 residents to the Lone Star State in 2024, the analysis says. Florida ranked second, followed by New York, Colorado and Illinois.

“These trends reveal Texas’ continued pull from both high-cost coastal markets and other large Sun Belt states, resulting in a mix of affordability-driven and job-driven relocation,” StorageCafe says.

Putting a damper on the influx of new residents: a roughly 124 percent surge in Texas home prices over the past decade, according to StorageCafe.

“While the state remains significantly more affordable than California, its top feeder state, the once-wide pricing gap has narrowed,” says StorageCafe. “For many movers, Texas is still a relative bargain, but no longer an undisputed one.”

Nonetheless, Texas keeps attracting young, highly educated people, which bodes well for the state’s long-term economic outlook, StorageCafe says. More than half of new arrivals to Texas in 2024 held at least a bachelor’s degree, and the age of newcomers averaged 32.

Where are most of these young, highly educated newcomers settling?

Lloyd Potter, former Texas state demographer, tells StorageCafe that population growth in Texas is happening most rapidly in suburban “ring counties” at the expense of slowing growth in urban cores. Ring counties are on the outskirts of major metro areas.

“Many people are moving from urban cores to suburban rings seeking lower costs, newer housing, better schools, and more space,” Potter says. “Typically, a move to a suburban county will be within commuting or hybrid‑commuting distance of major metro economies.”

Artemis II makes historic call to space station with help from Houston Mission Control

History in the making

Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made more history Tuesday, April 7: calling their friends aboard the International Space Station hundreds of thousands of miles away as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA's Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

"We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called out.

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.

Koch told her “astro-sister” that she'd hoped to meet up with her again in space “but I never thought it would be like this — it's amazing.”

“I'm so happy that we are back in space together,” Meir replied, “even if we are a few miles apart.”

Houston's Mission Control arranged the cosmic chitchat between the four lunar travelers and the space station's three NASA and one French residents.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

By late Tuesday afternoon, the Artemis II astronauts had beamed back more than 50 gigabytes' worth of pictures and other data from the previous day's lunar rendezvous, which set a new distance record for humanity. The highlight: an Earthset photo reminiscent of Apollo 8's Earthrise shot from 1968.

"While they are inspirational and, I think, allow all of us to really feel a little bit of what they were feeling, there's also a lot of science hidden inside of those images," said Mission Control's lead lunar scientist Kelsey Young. “The conversations and the science lessons learned are just beginning."

During a debriefing with Young, the astronauts recounted how they spotted a cascade of pinpricks of light on the lunar surface from impacting cosmic debris. The flashes lasted mere milliseconds and coincided by chance with Monday evening's total solar eclipse.

Young said it was too soon to know whether the crew witnessed an actual meteor shower or more random, run-of-the-mill micrometeoroid hits. Either way, there were “audible screams of delight” in the science operations center, she said.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

The first lunar explorers since Apollo 17 in 1972, Wiseman and his crew are aiming for a splashdown off the San Diego coast on Friday to wrap up the nearly 10-day test flight. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha left port Tuesday for the target zone.

It sets the stage for next year's Artemis III, a lunar lander docking demo in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will follow in 2028 with two astronauts attempting to land near the lunar south pole.

As for the Orion capsule’s pesky potty, Mission Control assured the astronauts that no maintenance was required Tuesday. The toilet has been on-and-off limits to the crew ever since last week’s launch, prompting them to rely on a backup bag-and-funnel system for urinating.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the crew following the lunar flyby Monday night: “We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing” ahead of the next Artemis mission. Engineers suspect a clogged filter in the overboard flushing system.

Aside from the toilet and other relatively minor matters, the mission has gone well, Isaacman noted at a news conference Tuesday, “but I'll breathe easier when we get through reentry and everybody's under chutes and in the water.”

View All Listings

INNOVATIONMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME