Houston suburb ranks No. 10 for holiday spending

shop 'til you drop

The Woodlands is the U.S. city with the No. 10 biggest holiday spending budget in 2023, and a few other Texas neighborhoods rank highly as well. The Woodlands Mall/Facebook

Santa and his elves get busier with every passing year, but sometimes even Kris Kringle has to use his black card to get the job done. And according to a new study by Wallethub, Santa's gonna be working overtime to fulfill the orders for residents of The Woodlands this holiday season.

The personal finance experts have determined The Woodlands is the U.S. city with the No. 10 biggest holiday spending budget in 2023. Shoppers in the affluent Houston suburb are expected to spend $3,316 this festive season.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, The Woodlands' estimated population of 114,436 had a median household income of $130,011.

This is The Woodlands' first time in the holiday shopping spotlight. The Houston suburb ranked a much lower – No. 71 – in last year's report with an average spending budget of $1,733. Way to step it up.

The nearby city of Sugar Land is a returnee, and moved up one place from No. 15 last year into No. 14 this year. The average holiday budget for a Sugar Land household is $3,210.

Houston fell into No. 209 this year with an average household holiday budget of $1,296. Houston skyrocketed away from its previous rank as No. 366 in 2022 with an average spending budget of $890.

Six other East Texas cities landed in this year's report on the heftiest holiday budgets:

  • No. 31 – Pearland ($2,566)
  • No. 34 – Missouri City ($2,517)
  • No. 234 – Beaumont ($1,244)
  • No. 238 – Pasadena ($1,237)
  • No. 407 – Conroe ($935)
  • No. 438 – Baytown ($872)

Each year, WalletHub calculates the maximum holiday budget for over 550 U.S. cities "to help consumers avoid post-holiday regret," the website says. The study factors in income, age of the population, and other financial indicators such as debt-to-income ratio, monthly-income-to monthly-expenses ratio, and savings-to-monthly-expenses ratio.

Shoppers will have to keep a closer eye on their bank accounts this year while they search for the best gifts for their loved ones. Many consumers are running out of savings accumulated during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Yao Jin, an associate professor of supply chain management at Miami University.

To combat overspending, Jin suggests setting hard budgets based on personal financial circumstances and develop a list of "must haves" rather than "nice to haves."

"Holiday times are festive, and retailers know that festivities can boost mood and lead to a propensity to overspend," he said in the Wallethub report. "In fact, that is also why retailers tend to have more generous return policies to both alleviate concerns of unwanted gifts and buyer’s remorse. The key to avoiding holiday overspending is for consumers to take the emotions out of the decision, to the extent possible."

Other Texas cities that made it in the top 100 include:
  • No. 3 – Frisco ($3,546)
  • No. 5 – Flower Mound ($3,485)
  • No. 22 – Allen ($2,964)
  • No. 30 – Plano ($2,566)
  • No. 44 – Cedar Park ($2,354)
  • No. 56 – McKinney ($2,165)
  • No. 67 – Carrollton ($1,928)
  • No. 71 – Austin ($1,877)
  • No. 77 – Richardson ($1,809)
  • No. 95 – League City ($1,733)
  • No. 99 – North Richland Hills ($1,706)

The report and its methodology can be found on wallethub.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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The Owls are soaring again. Photo via Rice University

Rice University continues winning streak in new list of 2024's best Texas colleges

another one

College students looking for an Ivy League-level education in Texas can still apply to Houston's consistently No. 1-ranking university before its early decision deadline on November 1.

Perfect timing, as Rice University has earned the top spot in WalletHub's 2024 ranking of the best colleges and universities in Texas.

The personal finance experts analyzed more than 800 colleges and universities in the United States using 30 metrics to determine their rankings.

Rice earned first place in the categories for the best admission rates (7.9 percent), student-to-faculty ratio (6 undergraduates per faculty member), gender and racial diversity, graduation rates, and post-attendance median salary. In the categories for net cost and on-campus crime, the private institution earned No. 41 and No. 39, respectively.

According to U.S. News and World Report, Rice's tuition and fees cost $58,128.

Gerardo L. Blanco, an associate professor at Boston College, provided some advice for prospective students aiming to graduate college with minimal debt and significant job prospects in their chosen degree field. He advised that students learn the difference between a university's "sticker price" versus the net price after financial aid. It could be particularly useful for students planning for a post-secondary education at private institutions like Rice University.

"There are public universities, both flagship and regional, that offer great value for money," Blanco said. "Many private non-profit institutions are committed to promoting access and, even with higher sticker prices, offer generous financial aid."

Rice also claimed the top spot in U.S. News' ranking of the best colleges and universities in Texas for 2024, and earned No. 17 overall in the nation. Rice's Jones School of Business earned No. 2 in an earlier U.S. News report of the best graduate business schools in Texas.

In WalletHub's regional category of best universities in the South, Rice earned No. 2, right behind Duke University in North Carolina.

Out of the top 500 universities in the nation, Rice ranked No. 7. Yale University took the No. 1 spot in the country, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (No. 2), Princeton University in New Jersey (No. 3), California Institute of Technology (No. 4), Harvard University in Massachusetts (No. 5), and Duke University (No. 6).

The top 10 colleges and universities in Texas are:

  • No. 1 – Rice University, Houston
  • No. 2 – The University of Texas at Austin
  • No. 3 – Trinity University, San Antonio
  • No. 4 – Texas A&M University-College Station
  • No. 5 – Southwestern University
  • No. 6 – Southern Methodist University
  • No. 7 – University of Dallas
  • No. 8 – Austin College
  • No. 9 – LeTourneau University
  • No. 10 – Texas Christian University
The full report can be found on wallethub.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Looking at bills can be stressful these days. Photo via Getty Images

Houston area hit with 7th highest inflation rate in U.S., new report says

wealth woes

As if living comfortably in Houston wasn’t already hard enough to afford in 2023, now a new report says inflation is rising more quickly in the city than in other parts of the United States. Unfortunately for Houston, the news seems to be a little worse than it was last year.

Financial experts at WalletHub compared 22 of America’s largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with Consumer Price Index data to measure inflation trends in two categories: last March and year-over-year changes.

"Though inflation has started to slow slightly due to factors like the Federal Reserve rate hikes, the year-over-year inflation rate was still a whopping 5 percent (nationally) in March," WalletHub says. "This high inflation is driven by a variety of factors, including the continued presence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and labor shortages."

Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land ranked No. 7 in WalletHub's new list of cities where inflation is rising the most. The Consumer Price Index change in March when compared to two months prior showed a 1.9 percent increase, while inflation increased 5.2 percent last month, since March 2022.

The current inflation woes continue with the knowledge that the region seems to be faring slightly worse than it was last year. The latest ranking is a three-place jump from WalletHub’s last report, when Houston was saddled with the 10th highest inflation rate in the U.S., at 9.5 percent, year-over-year.

Roosevelt University Associate Professor of Finance and Real Estate Dr. Henry I. Silverman says in the report that rising interest rates are the traditional tool that banks use to fight inflation, but aren’t necessarily cost effective for consumers.

“Unfortunately, not only do higher rates make it more expensive for consumers to borrow money and thus afford many of the things we would otherwise purchase, but they also make it more costly for firms to expand and produce more goods and services which might otherwise help lower inflation,” he says.

Houston wasn’t the only Texas metro area to make WalletHub’s top 10. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ranked three places lower at No. 10, with inflation rising 1.3 percent in March from January, but nearly six percent greater year-over-year. Last year’s report put Dallas-Fort Worth at No. 5, with year-over-year inflation for August 2022 at 9.4 percent.

Silverman warns that inflation and true economic growth are “not negatively correlated,” but many economists are predicting a recession this year.

“[H]igher inflation tends to be associated with lower real economic growth in the future,” Silverman says. “Undoubtedly, this is in part due to the higher interest rates that often follow higher inflation rates which inevitably slow economic activity, consumption, investment, etc[etera].”

The top 10 metro areas where inflation is rising the most are:

  • No. 1 – Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington
  • No. 2 – Detroit-Warren-Dearborn
  • No. 3 – Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale
  • No. 4 – Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue
  • No. 5 – Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell
  • No. 6 – Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater
  • No. 7 – Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land
  • No. 8 – San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward
  • No. 9 – Baltimore-Columbia-Towson
  • No. 10 – Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington

The full report can be found on wallethub.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Texans are especially stressed-out at work. Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Frazzled Texans are the 9th most stressed-out people in America, new report says

BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT

From a global pandemic to rising inflation and interest rates, there are plenty of things to be stressed about in 2023. And when they say everything is bigger in Texas, that includes the stress levels.

Texas was ranked the ninth most stressed state of 2023, according to the latest report from personal finance website WalletHub. WalletHub compared all 50 states across 41 metrics to determine every state’s worries on certain issues, such as work, money, or family-related stress. The report is timed to April being National Stress Awareness Month, as designated by the National Institutes of Health.

In the overall work-related stress category, the Lone Star State ranked No. 5. Texas employees specifically have the highest stress levels in the nation when it comes to their average hours worked per week. That probably includes Houston, which was named the No. 1 most stressful city to work in. Two fellow Southern states – Mississippi (No. 4) and Louisiana (No. 3) – had higher work-related stress levels, while Wyoming (No. 2), and Alaska (No. 1) earned the top two spots.

Texas also ranked No. 5 in overall family-related stress. The states that have higher family-related stress include North Carolina (No. 4), New York (No. 3), Nevada (No. 2), and New Mexico (No. 1).

In the category of health and safety-related stress, Texas ranked just outside the top 10 at No. 11. Most Texans aren’t quite feeling it when it comes to financial stress, ranking in the middle of the metaphorical stress road at No. 23. However, Houstonites are feeling that financial squeeze if they want to live comfortably in the city.

The good news? Texans aren't quite as stressed as they were in spring of 2021, when the state placed No. 6 in the same study. (At that time, COVID-19 was still raging, and vaccines had just become available.)

Leah C. Hibel, a professor of human development and family studies at the University of California, Davis, says much of the financial stress individuals experience is a result of systemic issues, not because of how an individual lives his or her life.

“[It’s] due to rising housing costs, rising food costs, and stagnant wages,” she explained. “Individuals can try to live in places where the cost of living is lower and wages are higher, or where food, child care, and other expenses are subsidized through state programs. Individuals can take on additional work and cut extra expenses, but sometimes these fixes are beyond what an individual can do.”

The top 10 most stressed states are:

  • No. 1 – Mississippi
  • No. 2 – Louisiana
  • No. 3 – New Mexico
  • No. 4 – West Virginia
  • No. 5 – Nevada
  • No. 6 – Arkansas
  • No. 7 – Alabama
  • No. 8 – Kentucky
  • No. 9 – Texas
  • No. 10 – Oklahoma

The full report can be found on wallethub.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Texas has seen year-over-year improvement on an annual list that ranks states based on their innovation economies. Photo via Getty Images

Report: Texas rises through the ranks of most innovative states

moving on up

The Lone Star State has again taken a step up on an annual report that ranks the most and least innovative states in the country — this time cracking the top 15.

Texas ranked No. 15 in personal finance site WalletHub's 2023’s Most and Least Innovative States ranking. It's a steady improvement for the state, which ranked No. 16 in 2022 and No. 17 in 2021.

The report analyzed the 50 states and the District of Columbia and how each performed across 22 key metrics, including population of STEM professionals, venture capital investment activity, number of technology companies, patents per capita, and more. The data was pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation, National Center for Education Statistics, United States Patent and Trademark Office, and other records.

Here's how Texas performed at a glance:

  • No. 18 for share of STEM professionals
  • No. 16 for projected STEM job demand by 2030
  • No. 25 for eighth grade math and science performance
  • No. 21 – for share of science and engineering graduates aged 25 or older
  • No. 13 – for share of technology companies
  • No. 31 – for R&D spending per capita
  • No. 18 – venture capital funding per capita
For the 11th year, Texas won Site Selection Magazine's Governor's Cup, the governor's office announced earlier this year. The award, which Texas has won 19 times since its inception in 1978, recognizes the nation’s top-performing state for job-creating business relocations and expansions.

"Texas truly is America’s economic engine, and we stand apart as a model for the nation. When choosing where to relocate or expand their businesses, more and more innovative industry leaders find themselves at home in our state," Governor Greg Abbott says in a news release about the award.

"I congratulate the exceptional economic development teams at the local, regional, and state level who have worked so diligently to attract and retain these growing businesses and the jobs they create in diverse communities across this great state," he continues.

The most innovative states included the District of Columbia, which ranked at No. 1, followed by Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, and California, respectively. The least innovative state was identified as Mississippi, followed by Louisiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Arkansas, respectively.

Source: WalletHub

Access to quality education is a significant contributor to each state's innovation economy, the experts say in the report.

"Investing in education, particularly K-12 but also at the University level, it is no accident that innovative ecosystems develop in states with strong education systems and research universities," says David L. Deeds, professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. "These institutions build strong capable modern workforces that attract capital, and jobs and create innovations. The benefits do not happen overnight, in fact, they take years if not decades, but consider what The UC’s or the University of Texas at Austin have meant for the development of premier innovative ecosystems."

Texas, once again, has been named a top city for starting a business. Photo via Getty Images

Texas ranks among best states to start a business

We're no. 3

For years, Texas has been lauded for its business climate being welcoming for new businesses and startups. This year's study shows that the Lone Star State has yet again made the list.

Texas ranked as the third best state to start a business in personal finance website WalletHub's recent list, 2023's Best & Worst States to Start a Business, with a score of 56.85 points. Texas ranked behind Utah, No. 1, and Florida, No. 2, and just ahead of Colorado. Idaho, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, and California make up the rest of the top 10, respectively.

The study looked at 27 key indicators of startup success across all 50 states. Texas was recognized for these factors in particular:

  • No. 10 – average growth in number of small businesses
  • No. 30 – labor costs
  • No. 10 – availability of human capital
  • No. 4 – average length of work week (in hours)
  • No. 14 – cost of living
  • No. 13 – industry variety
  • No. 31 – percentage of residents who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19
Source: WalletHub


Richard Ryffel, professor of finance practice at Washington University in St. Louis, noted the importance of policy in making a state a good place to start a business..

"Established businesses looking to expand might expand or relocate entirely based on the relative favorability of the local business climate," Ryffel says. "Recently, Texas, for example, has been the beneficiary of some significant business relocations based on its business-friendly policies."

The methodology of the study focused on three key dimensions — business environment, access to resources, and business costs — and 27 relevant metrics. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, and then each state’s average across all metrics was used to calculate its overall score.

In 2021, Texas ranked in the top position of WalletHub's study. Last year, the personal finance website looked at which cities were ideal spots for business launching. The report found that Georgetown as the best small city in Texas for starting a business.

Houston suburbs didn't manage to crack the top 200, but four were recognized amongst the rest of the best small business towns, according to the study:

  • Texas City , No. 202
  • Baytown, No. 267
  • Deer Park, No. 362
  • Conroe, No. 369
When it came to big cities, Houston ranked as No. 35.
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Houston software company raises $50M series A, plans to scale

fresh funding

Just nine months after its seed round, a Houston startup with a software platform for the aesthetic and wellness industry has secured $40 million in venture capital and $10 million in debt facility.

RepeatMD, a SaaS platform, announced today that it's secured $50 million, which includes a $10 million debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank. The round was co-led by Centana Growth Partners and Full In Partners with participation from PROOF and Mercury Fund, which also contributed to the seed round earlier this year.

The mobile ecommerce platform, launched in October 2021 by Phil Sitter, targets practices within the med spa and aesthetics industry. In the United States, the med spa market is slated to hit $19 billion in 2023, according to the company's press release, while the global aesthetics market is forecasted to reach to nearly $332 billion by 2030.

“Even though the aesthetics and wellness industry has continued to innovate a growing range of life-changing treatments, practices continue to face challenges selling treatments and services that are new and unfamiliar to patients,” Sitter, CEO of RepeatMD, says in the release. “Our goal at RepeatMD is to give these practice owners the technology to elevate their patients’ experience. Our platform serves as a med-commerce engine equipped with the same firepower as large retailers to convert sales inside and outside of practice operating hours.”

The fast-growing company, which has over 100 employees and is looking to hire 20 more according to InnovationMap data, has a client base of 2,500 med spas, dermatologists, OBGYNs, and more across all 50 states. The startup won in the Digital Solutions category at the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards, which took place earlier this month.

“Just 9 months ago Mercury provided RepeatMD’s Seed financing round. We have quickly doubled down in its Series A because of the company's massive traction, customer adoption and Phil’s leadership,” Aziz Gilani, managing director of Mercury Fund, says in the release.

In the past year, RepeatMD reports a 2,519 percent increase in Gross Merchandise Value revenue and a 130 percent increase in SaaS revenue.

“As investors in growth-stage vertical SaaS companies, we’ve closely followed the rise of platforms that not only help practitioners run their businesses, but also drive a higher ROI go-to-market motion,” Jacob Cole, principal at Full In Partners, adds. “RepeatMD stood out both for helping clinics access higher-margin, recurring revenue, and for their customer-centric mindset.”

RepeatMD will use the funding to grow its "network of strategic partners, provide further product enhancements, and integrate AI to further amplify the patient shopping experience while scaling its Inbound Revenue Platform," per the release.

4 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to four local innovators across industries — from aviation to biotech — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.


Andrew Chang, managing director of United Airlines Ventures

Andrew Chang, managing director of United Airlines Ventures, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo via LinkedIn

When it comes to the future of aviation — namely, making it more sustainable, a rising tide lifts all boats. Or, in this case, planes.

Andrew Chang, managing director of United Airlines Ventures, explains that working together is the key for advancing sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. That's why United Airlines started the Sustainable Flight Fund, a $200 million initiative with support from industry leaders, including Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase, Honeywell, Aramco Ventures, Bank of America, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Ventures, and several others.

"We all recognize that we may compete in our core business, but with the importance of sustainable aviation fuel and given that it's an industry that doesn't exist — you can't compete for something that doesn't exist — let's collaborate and work together to explore technologies that can directly or indirectly support the commercialization and production of sustainable aviation fuel," he says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. Read more.

Omair Tariq, founder and CEO of Cart.com

Omair Tariq's Cart.com is coming home. Photo via Cart.com

While originally founded in Houston in 2020, Cart.com has called Austin home for the past two years. Now, the scaling software company is coming home.

Cart.com, a tech company providing commerce and logistical solutions for businesses, announced today that its corporate headquarters has returned to Houston amid its rapid growth.

“I couldn’t be happier to bring Cart.com back home to Houston as we continue to revolutionize how merchants sell and fulfill products to meet customers anywhere they are,” Cart.com Founder and CEO Omair Tariq says in a news release. “The idea for Cart.com was born in Houston and we’ve always maintained a strong local presence with the majority of our executive team and board based here. As our customer mix increasingly moves upmarket and our own needs evolve, I’m confident Houston has what we need as we look towards the next stage of Cart.com’s growth story.” Read more.

Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt, co-founders of Solugen

Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt were originally named regional winners in this year's competition this summer along with nine other Houston entrepreneurs. Photos via solugen.com

Houston’s Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt, the founders of the transformative chemical manufacturing company Solugen, have been named EY’s US National Award winners for Entrepreneur of the Year.

Solugen, also recently named a finalist in the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards, is an environmentally friendly approach that relies on smaller chemical refineries that helps in reducing costs and transportation-related emissions. Some of their noted accomplishments includes innovations like the proprietary reactor, dubbed the Bioforge, which is a carbon-negative molecule factory and manufacturing process produces zero wastewater or emissions compared with traditional petrochemical refineries.The Bioforge uses a chemienzymatic process in converting plant-sourced substances into essential materials that can be used instead of fossil fuels.

Chakrabarti and Hunt were originally named regional winners in this year's competition this summer along with nine other Houston entrepreneurs. Read more.

Houston startup develops tech to equip businesses with the social media skills they need to thrive

like, comment, share

Just look at any smartphone on the market and it becomes evident just how pervasive mobile apps have become, especially social media apps.

As the social networking sphere has revolutionized communication, technology has spawned multitudinous variants in the most organic way. That kind of technological momentum lends itself to why platforms like Guide App have a chance to be the next big thing in the space.

The company's CEO and co-founder, Tim Salau, tells InnovationMap that Guide is a social learning and development platform that aims to revolutionize learning experiences for creators, leaders, and organizations.

“Guide is a social learning platform for creators who are freelancers and work in the entertainment and media industry,” says Salau, Houston native and University of Texas graduate. “And they can use Guide to create and learn production skills. We pivoted in late 2019 as the pandemic hit, and we realized that Guide could be used as a B2B platform and solution for businesses to onboard and train their remote workers.

“So that's really what makes us money, and we really decided to build it because we saw that there was a huge gap in the business space of a bite-sized training platform and solution, and to do what TikTok and Reels was doing in the consumer space, but for professionals with security and privacy in mind for organizations,” he says.

With the pivot, businesses can now use Guide as a platform to onboard and train new hires for their respective companies.

“Ideally, it would be pretty much anyone within the marketing department, the product management division, or even engineers within their organizations who are creators in the sense of migrating to creative work in their own different disciplines,” says Salau. “And they could use Guide to potentially maybe create a video that's 90 seconds or less on everything a new hire needs to know within the first 90 days in the product management role or in the marketing role.”

Tapping into trends

Salau explains how he's got his ear to the ground when it comes to trends within media.

“With the way that things are moving in the entertainment and media industry and what's been happening with these strikes, I see the short-form content becoming even more important because people are not necessarily attending movie theaters at a high engagement rate,” says Salau. “Then there are multiple streaming platforms have so many gates and paywalls up, a lot of people aren't necessarily using all of these streaming platforms and seeing all of the long-form content out."

“I'm starting to see that in the next three to five years, macro content will become more important, and instead of the streaming era that we've seen in the last few years or in the last decade or so led by Netflix, I'm going to use our mock theory, we're going to start seeing a beaming era in which we're going to start seeing content being pushed to creators and consumers, that is literally tailored to what they want.”

According to Salau, platforms such as Instagram and TikTok push content based on their respective algorithms that followers don’t necessarily want to see, and that takes time away from the content they need, when they need it.

“Looking forward, it’s clear that in the sense of taking away all of the distractions that we see on these platforms, at Guide, we want to push content as it comes from the creators,” says Salau. “And for us, that focus will be on microcontent, which is content that’s 90 seconds or less.”

Data shows that the best micro content is video content that clocks in around 15 seconds.

“Content that goes up to 30 seconds is probably even cutting it a little bit too long, but the content that really goes a lot, and goes really viral on those platforms is 15 seconds,” says Salau. “And now that TikTok is becoming a more long-form entertainment platform, you're starting to see them kind of strip away from what really got them popular and buzzworthy.”

Monitoring monetization

Popularity aside, one of the major tenets of content creation is monetization.

“Getting to the point where creators will be able to monetize their content is our goal at Guide,” says Salau. “We have to build up towards that goal, but that’s the intent. We intend on having them be able to create profiles where they can actually list their merch. They can post about merch in their videos, and more importantly, get to a point where people can actually buy the entertaining content that they have.”

Once Guide reaches monetization, creators will be able to list content at the price they want it and have associated merchandise of their brand. This is a huge difference from how TikTok and Instagram and other consumer video platforms get creators paid.

“We see that it's better to actually go the other route and actually allow creators to monetize their own brand, which is what every creator often really wants,” says Salau. “That’s ideal because when a creator brings consumer brands into the picture, they have to play to what they want from an advertisement and dollars type of standpoint. So, we don't want to actually get into that world. We want to really keep everything creator oriented.”

Curating a culture of creators

At this point, Guide has about 150 creators, because they’ve been very selective with their icon program.

“We don’t believe that everyone’s a creator,” says Salau. “Because if everyone is a creator, then no one is a creator.

“And we kind of see this with a lot of the creator platforms out there. Just because anyone can create content with a smartphone doesn't mean it's content that's edifying or beneficial that people are actually enriching and learning from. So, we're really big on learning, because we see ourselves in that space.”

As Salau and team look forward with Guide, they plan on continuing to address the learning and talent development gap for remote and mobile teams. They’ll also remain focused on being the kind of platform where creators can talk about the behind-the-scenes and the process of how to make music or how to approach acting, or how to think about set production when on a set.

“With Instagram and TikTok, it’s really much more about fun and virality, and doing something that gets a reaction, versus helping people learn,” says Salau. “So, with us, the feedback we've received is, ‘I get it,’ and ‘I'm interested.’ And I want to continue learning and growing with y'all. Thank you.”

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