University of Houston: Tips for building an innovative team

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You've heard the adage that "teamwork makes the dream work," but how do you make that dream team a reality? Graphic by Miguel Tovar/University of Houston

"Teamwork makes the dreams work". The well-known phrase has been overused as a company motto. Yet, it remains true and always will.

Haven't heard it? Maybe you've heard, "If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself," a quote by Henry Ford. Or maybe, "differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open," which was said by Albus Dumbledore in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling.

Regardless of who said them, all these quotes emphasize the importance of teamwork and working towards a common goal. Several business owners in academia have also attested to this fact.

The co-founders of Advanced Codex Solutions offer some advice to help faculty entrepreneurs build an innovation team.

The key to success

Tarun Wadhawan, Ph.D., a University of Houston alum, team lead at Schlumberger and co-founder of Advance Codex Solutions, said that the key to success is to build the right "tribe" around you. He mentioned that, in prior business endeavors, he failed to make a team that could see his vision, which made that vision hard to accomplish.

"My last company included a couple of extremely talented students who were able to develop business plans and win national competitions. However, the company failed because other members had different aspirations and priorities," said George Zouridakis, Ph.D., the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Technology at UH and co-founder of Advanced Codex Solutions.

Even if a majority of the team is talented and dedicated to the vision, the company only succeeds if the entire innovation team is on the same page.

A strong innovation team is the first step to a startup's success. In his "9 Traits The Most Successful Innovation Teams Have In Common" blog, JC Grubbs, founder of Tandem, said, "an innovation team's primary objective is to pioneer something new at a company—a product, a process, a pivot, etc. The team assembles and examines existing products and/or systems, and by leveraging their diverse knowledge and skillsets, ideates and executes improvements."

It takes a village

Not only does it take your immediate team for a company to be successful, it also takes resources outside of the company. Resources like: education, training and support from valuable programs. Let's call this the "extended team."

Your extended innovation team also needs to share your values and understand your vision in order to help the company move forward. The wrong resource won't help you and will waste your time.

Courtney Queen, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Texas Tech University in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and co-founder of Advanced Codex Solutions, referred to the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps as one valuable program.

"Other agencies have similar programs, but the exact idea is to provide faculty with the knowledge and skills to truly accomplish that final translational research piece to benefit society.," Queen said. "The I-Corps programs are definitely beneficial and helped to move Advanced Codex Solutions forward with the business aspects of our development. I would say, though, the very valuable stages of Ideation are critical for success as well, and shouldn't be overlooked as a part of the process."

Zouridakis thanks the UH Office of Technology Transfer and Innovation for their help. "They are incredibly knowledgeable and helped us clear up several issues related to technology commercialization and intellectual property", he said.

According to Wadhawan, one of the biggest obstacles to starting a business is getting in front of the right people and getting beneficial feedback.

Become a partner

If starting a company from scratch seems like a daunting task, there are other options. Zouridakis says to know your strengths, weaknesses and your limitations because at the end of the day, being a university professor, you don't have a lot of time outside of the classroom. Also, according to Zouridakis, your access to resources may be limited and you may not even have the knowledge to know how to go about achieving your idea.

"So, if an external investor wants to license your IP, develop it further, and commercialize it with you as a partner, please let go of your 'baby' — yes, you could develop your idea better and make it match your vision exactly, but you need to make sure you can commit the time, the resources, and the effort needed all within a short period of time. Wishful thinking does not count," Zouridakis said.

He also notes that "patience is a virtue; be persistent, be ready for rejection, and embrace failure; but never lose sight of the goal."

What's the big idea?

Teamwork really does make the dream work.

If you're a faculty member in academia and you're thinking about starting your own company, make sure you build a great innovation team that shares your values, understands your vision and wants to see the company succeed. Even with a strong team behind you, it may be beneficial to seek outside resources to help push your business forward. Also, if being a professor is already enough work for you, consider an external investor that can license your IP.

No matter what you do, as long as you have a good team to support you, you'll be okay.

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This article originally appeared on the University of Houston's The Big Idea. Cory Thaxton, the author of this piece, is the communications coordinator for The Division of Research.

Teamwork can make the dream work, but lack of a solid team can be a startup's downfall. Pexels

Here's what Houston startups need to keep in mind when building their teams

Guest column

The top two reasons for startup failure are no market need and running out of money, respectively. But the third reason for failure is not having the right team in place. Like market need, evaluating the management team is on virtually every venture capitalist's list of what they look for in their target investments and you need to get it right.

It is well known that new technologies have a limited window of opportunity to succeed and there are rarely second chances, whether choosing the right strategy, market, customers, partners, or raising rounds of financing. If a particular window is missed a chance to pivot may be available, but that typically requires a good, experienced and nimble team that is right for the overall opportunity.

Luck and timing are factors largely out of your control in a startup, but good-to-great teams are capable of dealing with fast changing conditions or lessons learned along the way.

There's not one "right team"

It is easy to say you need the right team, but the same team is not the right team for every startup. Any team needs some basic skills, and of course have the ability to deliver a solution to meet its customer's needs.

In addition to a diverse technical team, a startup needs different skill sets, including various business, professional and soft skills. It is obvious that software is different than medical devices, but within "software" there are a wide variety of skills needed from user interface to security and everything in between. Within medical devices, the variety ranges beyond technology from working with the FDA to medical reimbursement.

Similarities between standard business processes like customer billing, collections and capital asset management often do not vary much across some otherwise pretty diverse businesses. On top of that, the needs of the team change over time as startups progress from concept, to prototype development to launch and through growth phases.

Having experience with many different startups, I have had some recurring team members with whom I worked with again in my next venture. I have also experienced significant turnover of individuals and growth within individuals that where ready for a new challenge to keep them motivated. The right team varies from venture to venture.

Know your industry

One lesson is to have a few cornerstone roles in the organization. First learned in my consulting days, a talented team member might serve in a kind of cornerstone role where you know that job is "solved" and you will not have to worry about it. You then complement and build around him, adding more experience in a complementary role if the first individual has raw talent and enthusiasm. You would add young talent with plenty of room for growth around an experienced individual that has the ability to mentor those around them. No one way exists to create a good team, other than the best practice of mixing experience, talent and diversity in creative ways based on who based on availability.

However, patterns should be identified and assessed to complement customers when deep engagement is a key part of your model or with partners, distributors, channels, or other strategic parts of your extended business model. Some customers will accept less experienced staff; others will not. Some markets can be targeted successfully by inexperienced sales or customer service representatives, while others require field experience or at a minimum extensive targeted training.

Finding support

Beyond patterns, consider some other best practices that are appropriate for various markets; for example, the risk incurred by having an inexperienced FDA process lead in an FDA regulated product. Having little real experience with FDIC, SEC or similar relevant federal or state agencies creates a lot of risk in FinTech companies. In any startup, some areas can be easily contracted out while others need to be core internal strengths, even if developed over time.

That last word is key, the "time" component of startups. Early stages of a startup have parallels to my consulting days. It is a project that is managed like any other project, balancing the big three assets: resources, money and time. Any project is a balancing act of acquiring and managing those three assets, at least when you take out administrative details like payroll and the like. The next stage is more operational in nature, whether stabilizing operations or managing for growth, but it is common for a startup to have two or more CEOs between founding and exit as needs change.

Since VIC primarily is focused on university technology startups, the inventor is often a university researcher with decades of experience in the field of the invention. We follow a best practice of bringing in one of our senior team members as CEO, an experienced business savvy entrepreneur who complements the inventor well in those early technology de-risking phases.

We support those key team members with a shared service team to handle finance, accounting, legal, websites and more, outsourcing specific areas of expertise like intellectual property in a given technical area. We then fill out gaps with select hires. Over time, we work ourselves out of a job when the technology has progressed to a point that different skills are needed, such as handing off to a growth-stage CEO.

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James Y. Lancaster is the Texas branch manager for Arkansas-based VIC Technology Venture Development. Lancaster, who lives in College Station, oversees business there, in Dallas, and in Houston.

There's no "I" in team, but getting your coworkers on the same "we" perspective can be tough. Here's why it's important, according to Rice University's research. Pexels

Rice University research shows what your company can learn from gamers about teamwork

Houston Voices

You just got a promotion — along with a brand-new work team whose members barely speak to one another. But first-rate cooperation is essential if you're going to deliver for your client. So you decide to spend a month getting to know each of your workers.

One is competent but bitter, frustrated by years of small mistakes by a colleague, mistakes that add to her own workload. Another, the one making the mistakes, seems so distracted he may as well be working at another company. Others have their own quirks. And to make matters worse, another department is set to merge its employees with your creaky, cranky team in a few months. How are you going to understand all these individuals, much less get them into shape as a unit?

For many managers, training and reading can help provide guidance. Others may hire an outside consultant and resort to team-building activities. But where does that outside expertise — not to mention training and reading — come from? It's based on academic research.

Rice Business professor Utpal Dholakia and colleagues René Algesheimer of the University of Zurich and Richard P. Bagozzi of the University of Michigan are among the scholars updating what we know about the dynamics of group decisions. Starting with classic group behavior theory, the scholars developed a series of sociologically-based models for analyzing small teams.

To better understand the existing shared intentions and attachment between teammates, Dholakia and his colleagues used a novel set of questions to survey 277 teams of computer gamers, each comprised of three people. They ran the survey responses through variations of a classic model called the Key Informant, which depends on the observations of group members about the social relationships inside a group.

Next, the researchers applied a sociological theory called Plural Subject Theory, focused on what's known as "we-attitude." That's exactly what it sounds like: verbally and actively treating an endeavor as a group project.

The core of this theory, the notion that successful teams frequently use collective pronouns when they discuss themselves and cognitively conceive of themselves as "we," has been heavily studied. Groups whose members think in terms of "we" act more cohesively and are measurably more committed to collectively reaching their goal.

To enhance the way these attitudes are measured, Dholakia created multiple variations of a new model. These differ from previous models because they include information not just from a "key informant," but from every member of a group. The researcher asks group members questions about themselves, their impressions of others in the group, their impressions about how others in the group think of each member and impressions about the group as a whole. This longer, more elaborate approach offers fresh insights about a group's shared consciousness — which provides a valuable new research outcome.

The professors found that this revision of classic key informant model generally worked the best of the various group-analysis models they tested — even improving on the original key informant approach. Future researchers, Dholakia notes, should consider the context of the team situation to decide which configuration of members is best to analyze.

So the next time you find yourself nonplussed by a chaotic group dynamic at work, remember you are in time-honored company — and that help is out there. By updating the key informant model, Dholakia and his colleagues have added to the analytical toolbox something that can help whip that team into shape. Whether it's an army of accountants or a network of hospital workers, Dholakia writes, the first step to creating a real team is analyzing which intentions they truly share.

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This article originally appeared on Rice Business Wisdom.

Utpal Dholakia is the George R. Brown Professor of Marketing at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

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Air taxi network to land in 'Texas triangle' of Houston, Austin, DFW next year

taking flight

San Jose, California-based aerospace company Archer Aviation is bringing its air-taxi system to the “Texas triangle” of Houston, Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth.

Currently, the planned zero-emission electric air taxi networks will use Archer’s Midnight air taxi to “turn 60- to 90-minute drives to major airports, business districts and major destinations into 10- to 20-minute flights,” the company said in a news release. Archer plans to begin flights in the Texas triangle next year.

The Midnight air taxi is an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. It can carry four passengers and a pilot and is designed for consecutive flights of about 20 miles.

Archer cites the Texas triangle as one of the busiest and fastest-growing “megaregions” in the country due to its proximity to coastal regions, major airports, and a number of business districts.

Archer Chief Commercial Officer Nikhil Goel described the air taxi experience to CW Houston as “100 times quieter than a helicopter for the price of an Uber Black.” He added that the air taxis are a combination of a helicopter, a small airplane and a drone.

In Houston, Archer’s air taxi network will aim to connect George Bush Intercontinental, William P. Hobby and Sugar Land Regional Airport with downtown destinations, including the Thompson Hotel helipad, and Galveston.

In Austin, it plans to link the city's Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Austin Executive Airport with the F1 Circuit Helipad at the Circuit of the Americas. Archer debuted its Midnight aircraft at the F1 Prix in the Fan Zone and the F1 Paddock at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas. The Dallas-Fort Worth network is slated to include Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Dallas Love Field, Addison Airport, Arlington Municipal Airport, Fort Worth Meacham International Airport and Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport, plus major business hubs like Frisco Station.

“Texas is setting the bar for America’s leadership in the next generation of aviation,” Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer Aviation, said in the release. “Our planned networks will make the benefits of electric air taxis real for Texans — trading hours in traffic for minutes in the air, while connecting the biggest airports, business districts and sporting hubs in ways that America’s largest megaregion needs to grow.”

Archer is working with state and local partners to develop charging infrastructure and plans to pursue Texas operations through the White House’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, according to the release. It recently completed its "No Roads" flight tour, which included multiple flights over the San Francisco Bay, and flew to seven cities over three days.

5 Houston deep tech startups pushing the boundaries of their industries

meet the finalists

Houston has long been at the forefront of innovation, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center to its startup ecosystem using technology to disrupt industries.

As part of the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, our Deep Tech Business category will honor an innovative startup providing technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges, including those in the AI, robotics and space sectors.

Five deep tech companies have been named finalists for the 2026 award.

Read more about these businesses, their founders and their breakthrough technologies below. The 2026 winners will be announced on InnovationMap.com in mid-November.

Casimir

Battery tech startup Casimir develops semiconductor chips that produce continuous electrical power straight from the quantum vacuum, without the need for a battery, cord or external charge source. The company is targeting commercialization for its first-generation MicroSparc chip by 2028.

Harold “Sonny” White founded Casimir in 2023 after nearly two decades at NASA. The company emerged from stealth with a $12 million seed round in 2026. It was also awarded an STTR Phase I contract from the U.S. Space Force's SpaceWERX to support the development of the company's solid-state generator for potential use by the Department of the Air Force earlier this year.

FocisAI

Artificial intelligence startup FocisAI helps refinery owner-operators unlock actionable insights from 3D scans and images.

FocisAI was founded by CEO Tyler Wooten, COO Colin Snell and CTO Kyle Snell in 2026. It is a member of Greentown Labs and launched a seed round in September, which is expected to close by the end of the year, according to the company's application. It has rolled out 10 pilot programs and is looking to move into recurring, facility-scale deployments and scale its team in Houston this year.

Machine Saver Inc.

Industrial tech startup Machine Saver Inc. builds wireless and wired vibration and proximity sensors to tell heavy industry when a machine is about to fail. The company's technology runs on an 8-plus-year battery life and helps operators reduce downtime, improve maintenance and extend equipment life.

Machine Saver was founded by CEO Colton Bach and Quentin Bach in 2013. Its customers and partners include Houston Methodist, Blue Bell, Genemco, as well as energy and heavy industry, food and beverage, and cold chain companies, according to its application. The company is raising a Series A.

Square Robot

Energytech startup Square Robot develops and operates submersible inspection robotics that inspect aboveground storage tanks while they remain in service. The robots reduce downtime and costs, improve worker safety and limit hydrocarbon emissions.

Square Robot launched its Houston office in 2019 and closed a Series B in 2025. It plans to complete its first U.S. Navy demonstrator tank in November and is also developing real-time inspection software.

Venus Aerospace

Spacetech company Venus Aerospace is developing a high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) that replaces the subsonic combustion used in conventional rocket engines. The RDRE is a compact, simpler engine that can deliver up to 15 percent greater efficiency for defense and space applications. It completed its first U.S. flight test of the engine last summer.

Venus Aerospace was founded in 2020 by CEO Cassie Duggleby and CTO Andrew Duggleby. It raised a $20 million Series A in 2022 and $42 million Series A2 in 2025. It closed a $91 million Series B earlier this year and expanded its leadership team. The company is working toward longer-duration and higher-thrust testing and advancing its flight program.

Houston leads U.S. with the biggest surge in millionaire renters

Rent Report

The number of millionaire renters and homeowners in the U.S. has surged over the last five years, and Houston has soared ahead of the rest with the largest growth rate among these affluent renter households.

Houston leads the nation with the No. 1 increase in millionaire renters from 2020 to 2024, a new RentCafe study found. The number of these wealthy households increased from 18 to 232 over the last five years, representing a 1,189 percent growth rate.

"The pandemic accelerated the shift as remote work pushed the wealthy to relocate to lower-tax metros like Houston, where millionaire renters grew 13-fold, versus 3.9-fold for owners," the report said. "Granted, 232 households is still a tiny fraction of the Houston metro’s roughly 2.7 million households, but the growth rate far outpaces any other major metro."

Nationwide, the number of millionaire renter households grew 229 percent from 2020 to 2024, outpacing the 193 percent growth rate among millionaire homeowners.

Dallas was the only other Texas metro to crack the top 10. The number of millionaire renter households in North Texas has more than quintupled, from just 30 in 2020 to 165 in 2024. That represents a growth rate of 450 percent, which — surprisingly — is only the eighth highest nationwide.

But when it comes to the largest populations of millionaire renters, New York City and San Francisco still lead the way. New York claimed the No. 1 spot with nearly 7,300 millionaire renters living in the city in 2024. Houston ranked 12th on that list.

Elsewhere in Texas, Austin and Dallas ranked as the 16th and 17th, respectively, for the largest population of millionaire renters. There were 206 millionaire renters living in Austin in 2024, and 165 in Dallas.

This is who the typical millionaire renter is
The report also revealed a surprising statistic about the typical millionaire renter in the U.S. — a lot of them are millennials working in "white-collar, high-earning fields."

"Nearly half (49 percent) of millionaire renters are Millennials, and the number of affluent Millennial renter households surged 392 percent during the five-year period," the report said. "Gen X follows with 33 percent of millionaire Gen X households renting after increasing by 147 percent."

The report continued, "Although Gen Z still represents a small share of millionaire renters (just 2 percent of the total), no generation has expanded faster: Gen Z millionaire renter households leaped from fewer than a dozen to more than 400 — a tiny cohort today, but one that was virtually nonexistent five years ago."

The top three most common professions for millionaire renters are chief executives, software developers, and managers, the report additionally found. In Houston, the surge of wealthy newcomers are mostly executives, professional athletes, and entertainers.

"These roles tend to generate steady, substantial income without necessarily tying workers to one location, making renting a practical fit, rather than a financial necessity," the report said.

Hotspots for millionaire homeowners
In RentCafe's separate list comparing the top 10 most popular U.S. metros for millionaire homeowners, Houston ranked 12th nationally with 4,374 millioniare homeowners living in the metro as of 2024. These wealthy Houstonians are most likely working as chief executives, physicians, managers, and lawyers and judges.

Houston has already proven to be a hotspot for millennial homebuyers, and the latest RentCafe data says millennials make up 19 percent of all millionaire homeowners in the U.S. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers still maintain the largest shares of millionaire homeowners nationwide, at 45 and 33 percent, respectively.

Dallas (No. 10) and Austin (No. 20) also appeared among the hottest metros for millionaire homeowners.

Only one Texas city appeared among RentCafe's list of the 20 fastest-growing metros for millionaire homeowners: College Station ranked 13th nationwide with a growth rate of 1,329 percent. From 2020-2024, the number of millionaire homeowners residing in College Station grew from 14 to 200.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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