3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's Houston innovators to know include Yared Akalou of Alcove Group, Serafina Lalany,of Houston Exponential, and Patrick Lewis of Sustainability Ventures Group. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: This week's group of Houston innovators you need to know might be pretty familiar to you, however each of them have a new endeavor they are excited to launch — from an energy investment group with a new name to new virtual platforms to benefit entrepreneurs.

Yared Akalou, founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group

Yared Akalou founded IAmOther50 to capture the brand of the freelancer along with their personality and experience. Photo courtesy of Alcove

Yared Akalou describes himself as a designer-focused entrepreneur. As founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group, his latest venture, IAmOther50, is a platform for creatives and freelancers to connect to work. This innovation he's focused on is in light of the growth in jobs that are freelance and remote.

"I am really on a mission," Akalou tells InnovationMap. "I have been talking about the future of work for over a decade now. The paradigm will change to viewing work as a service, so it is important to tell a freelancer's story through a more engaging and novel way." Read more.

Serafina Lalany, chief of staff at Houston Exponential

Serafina Lalany joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the HTX TechList, which launches this week. Photo courtesy of Serafina Lalany

Serafina Lalany is pinpoint focused on creating resources for Houston innovators through her work at Houston Exponential. Most recently, that's meant creating and launching the HTX TechList, which went live last week. For her, one of the most important benefits the platform will afford the city is access to data about the ecosystem.

"We needed a centralized datasource classifying startups, investors, startup development organizations, and corporate innovators," she says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "There was not any good resource on the internet that was verified, centralized, and adhered to a data standard." Read more and stream the episode.

Patrick Lewis, managing partner of Sustainability Ventures Group

Houston-based Sustainability Ventures Group is focused on connecting energy companies to innovative, sustainable solutions. Photo courtesy of SVG

As Patrick Lewis started to get a feel for what his network within the energy industry was looking for amid the pandemic, he thought some of the sustainability-focused ventures might be on the back burner.

"We thought we would hear that sustainability in this environment may have slipped down the priority list, but it was the exact opposite," Lewis says. "Pretty consistently across all the operators, sustainability, reducing emissions, and greenhouse gases — those are all even more important today."

This confirmation that the energy industry is committed to innovative sustainability projects led Lewis to rebrand his energy tech investment group from BBL Ventures to Sustainability Ventures Group, or SVG. The investment team focuses on reverse engineering the startup innovation process by sourcing the concerns and goals of the energy companies, then finding solutions from the startup world through reverse pitch competitions and challenges. Read more.

Houston — much like the rest of the world — has a growing freelance economy. A local innovator has created a platform for freelancers to find work. Photo courtesy of Common Desk

Houston entrepreneur creates a new digital platform to help connect freelancers to clients

calling all creatives

By 2027, freelancers will account for the majority of the American workforce — and Houston is already well represented by the freelance space.

According to a recent study, Houston is home to 117,260 skilled freelancers who generated more than $4.1 billion in revenue in 2018. This burgeoning environment for freelancers presents many opportunities for innovations in the tech world, as one Houston entrepreneur has already discovered.

Yared Akalou, founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group and self-described designer-focused entrepreneur, released his third innovation catering to freelancers of the Houston area. His digital solutions platform, IAmOther50, assists freelancers with securing new clients by sharing their personal stories rather than just submitting their professional experience, it uses videos and articles to promote the work of a freelancer and connect them to their next client.

"I am really on a mission," Akalou tells InnovationMap. "I have been talking about the future of work for over a decade now. The paradigm will change to viewing work as a service, so it is important to tell a freelancer's story through a more engaging and novel way."

At first glance, the digital platform seems like a departure for Akalou who in 2017 founded Alcove, a portable laptop case that serves as a private workspace for freelancers to use amid coffee shops or coworking spaces. However, IAmOther50 serves as a distinctly separate yet integral part of his innovation landscape.

"These projects have been a combination of my focus and research," says Akalou. "My new platform works hand in hand with Alcove, supporting the mission to help people stay productive from anywhere."

The digital platform serves to capture the brand of the freelancer along with their personality and experience. It lives at the intersection of popular social media platforms and professional platforms such as LinkedIn, except just for freelancers in the Houston area. Currently, any freelancing professional in the Houston area can join for free by filling out a survey that customizes their goals for their profile.

"IAmOther50 provides information in a contextual way," says Akalou. "We have this guiding principle of delivering value even before the prospective client contacts the freelancer for an interview or potential position. It's about going beyond just a resume of what you've done and showcasing how you add value right now."

Akalou, who is also one of the mentors in The Ion Smart and Resilient Cities Accelerator, is focused on elevating the professional profiles of many freelancers, including those outside the Houston area. He is aiming to grow the platform to a self-service platform that can connect freelancers to clients all over the biggest metropolitan areas soon.


It's not easy getting green. Getty Images

3 tips for a successful crowdfunding campaign

Know before you hit go

Kickstarter is a widely popular crowdfunding platform that helps people to raise money and awareness for their creative projects. While known for product-focused campaigns, musicians to film producers have also achieved success on the platform. In September of 2017, my Houston-based startup GetAlcove.com launched our first kickstarter campaign. While we exceeded our campaign goal, it was a very intense 45 day campaign. Let's consider the statistics:


Yes, almost 70 percent of projects fail. Don't fret. Understanding how to effectively plan and launch your campaign will increase your chances for meeting your campaign goals.

By March 2017, my co-founder and I received enough customer feedback to warrant the pursuit of developing Alcove Workstation™ further. We were attracted to crowdfunding as it presented a viable option for validating our concept with a wider audience while also raising the initial working capital necessary to mass producing Alcove. After researching the various crowdfunding platforms, we decided on Kickstarter as it is well known for launching product-focused campaigns and has a strong brand that we could leverage during our marketing efforts. While we read countless publications on how to prepare for our crowdfunding campaign, our experience on Kickstarter garnered three key lessons.

1. Spend up to one year prepping before launching your campaign.

I can't stress this enough. After we decided to launch, we spent six months engaging with our target audience and obtaining verbal commitments from friends and family and past colleagues to back our project. We also presented at local events and evangelized our brand via social media marketing. In hindsight, we should have spent additional time finalizing the production ready sample of our product prior to launching.

Once you launch your campaign, the clock starts ticking and you'll need deliver fast. Due to a myriad of issues with remote manufacturing, we inevitably missed our original ship date. Fortunately, the kickstarter community is forgiving and recognizes the inherent challenges with bringing a product to market. Even so, I recommend launching your campaign as close to your final concept as possible to reduce unforeseen delays with manufacturing and shipping logistics.

Once you launch your campaign, the clock starts ticking and you'll need deliver fast.

2. Determine which crowdfunding platform is right for your project.

There are four main types of crowdfunding platforms. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are rewards-based whereas platforms like GoFundMe are donation-based. More recently, equity, and debt based platforms like Houston's NextSeed have garnered attention from campaigners seeking alternative methods to raising funds and deferring payment.

Take the time to read about each type and contact each platform for specifics about how they will support your campaign during and after campaign. Indiegogo does a solid job of highlighting their partnerships with vendors that can assist you during different stages of your campaign; offering marketing promotion, direct links to manufacturing vendors, and additional funding options even after your campaign ends.

The next step to determining the right platform for your project is to search for similar "like" products. If you are launching the most revolutionary ear buds on the planet, then you want to ensure people are backing ear buds or similar product on the platform/s you are considering. A simple search on each site will pull up all ear bud projects to date. Then, you can quickly assess the patterns of the most successful vs. unsuccessful campaigns.

3. Launch the right campaign goal, with the right team, at the right time.

This is both important and hard to determine. Let's break it down.

The right campaign goal
The campaign goal is the total dollar amount you want to raise by the end of your campaign. The goal amount can be adjusted once on Kickstarter but I recommend that you keep it low — $5,000-$10,000 — to ensure you meet your goal within two days — three days max. Keep in mind you are competing with four to five thousand live projects at any given time. If you make your campaign goal, Kickstarter's algorithm pushes your project up the list and you have a good shot of being listed or even featured on the front page of Kickstarter's website. If you make your campaign goal too high and don't meet your goal with those couple days, Kickstarter's algorithm pushes your project down the list. If I recall, our campaign went from approximately 115 to 800 after day two. Each day that passes, your project is pushed even further down the list of over 4000 projects. What this means to your project is that unless you have a serious marketing engine behind you, no one will see your project outside of your immediate contact list or followers on social media. This is where hiring the right team of marketers and PR can be invaluable.

The right team
Think of the development of your crowdfunding campaign as a micro-enterprise site that requires the right mix of talent to build out. Funded startups with established teams and products in market, for instance, are launching on Kickstarter as a way to increase market awareness of their new products. For the boot-strapped startups with small teams, leverage your strengths and hire for gaps in skills to ensure you develop the right communications, pricing strategy, and overall layout of your page. To be clear, a production quality video is an absolute must.

The right time
Finally, consider the timing of your launch to align with complimentary events or holidays. If your product is focused on education/learning, the obvious timeframe would be to launch during back to school. Another way to galvanize your target audience is to identify popular conferences for your industry. For our campaign, we aligned with the Tech Disrupt conference in San Francisco and literally went live on Kickstarter directly from our exhibit booth!

While I can not make any guarantees for your campaign's success, I am confident that if you apply these tips, you will be that much closer to achieving your campaign goals.

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Yared Akalou is the founder of Houston-based Alcove.

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Houston Innovation Awards honor Don Kendall Jr. with posthumous​ Trailblazer Legacy Award

lasting legacy

Every year, the Houston Innovation Awards honor one Houstonian with the Trailblazer Award, whose impact is felt throughout the city's innovation and business ecosystem.

This year, the Trailblazer Legacy Award will be given posthumously to Don Kendall Jr., who died in September while on a trip to the Republic of the Congo with the Jane Goodall Institute, one of the many organizations he was deeply involved with.

Kendall's obituary puts it simply: "Don’s truest passions were conservation and his family." Many saw those passions play out in his career, particularly in the role he played in shaping Houston's clean energy sector.

Kendall served as general partner of New Climate Ventures, a Houston-based early-stage venture capital firm that invests in next-gen energy, materials and fuel technologies and startups. The firm's portfolio includes Houston-based clean energy companies like Solidec, Syzygy Plasmonics and Rheom Materials.

Kendall was also founding managing director and CEO of Kenmont Capital LP. He ran a $500 million distressed debt and credit-based hedge fund focused on the energy, power and transportation sectors and one of the top-performing private equity funds under the Kenmont umbrella.

He served on the board of Talos Energy, American Midstream Partners, Syzygy Plasmonics, Tangent Energy, Stream Energy and others. Notably, he served as Chair of the Special Committee of the SolarCity board during its acquisition by Tesla in 2016. According to his obituary, Kendall negotiated with "Elon Musk in the middle of the night on a rickety pier in Indonesia after eluding a poisonous snake."

Outside of the clean energy space, Kendall also served on the boards of the Jane Goodall Institute, Earthwatch International and Ecological Defense Group. He also served as vice chair of the Houston Zoo Inc. and chair of its Conservation Committee.

Kendall was selected by our esteemed panel of judges to receive the 2026 Trailblazer Legacy Award. The panel includes carbon removal entrepreneur and CEO of Houston-based Mars Materials Aaron Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald shares the profound impact Kendall had on his career and those of many others.

"Honoring Don with the Trailblazer Legacy Award is a fitting tribute to a leader whose impact spanned civic work with the Houston Zoo, wildlife conservation, and the growth of our startup ecosystem," Fitzgerald says. "He paired a keen eye for potential with the relentless drive to unlock it. For Mars Materials, his early backing carried us through a critical valley when we needed belief the most, and his presence as a personal mentor is profoundly missed."

Don was an avid traveler, cyclist and collector. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Diane S. Kendall. A celebration of life will be held early in 2027.

2 Houston suburbs rank among 5 best cities to retire, says U.S. News

Slowing Down

Houston and nine of its suburbs are earning new acclaim on U.S. News and World Report's just-released list of the best U.S. cities for retirees in 2027. Two northern suburbs, The Woodlands and Spring, are resting easy among the top five nationwide.

The 2027 Best Places to Retire list evaluated over 850 U.S. cities based on six livability metrics that best serve American retirees: quality of life, affordability, health care, retiree taxes, job market, and population and migration. The top 250 finalist cities were then ranked nationally and by city size.

Midland, Michigan topped the list for the second consecutive year and is followed by Homosassa Springs, Florida (No. 2) and Weirton, West Virginia (No. 3).

The Woodlands and Spring respectively maintained their standings as the No. 4 and No. 5 best cities for retirees for the second year in a row. The Woodlands topped the separate list of the best midsized U.S. cities to retire, while Spring landed 5th among the smallest U.S. cities.

Houston proper was declared the No. 2 best big city for retirees, and it ranked 89th overall. Elsewhere in the metro, Pearland (No. 13) and Conroe (No. 14) ranked just outside the overall top 10 but ranked 4th and 5th among the best midsized cities for retirees.

U.S. News said affordability is the "most considered factor" when it comes to picking the best place to live a low-stress retirement life, and that's what Houston and its neighbors deliver. Affordable cities also give retirees "a sense of security and comfort as they live out their golden years," according to Megan Wood, U.S. News assistant managing editor of home services and real estate.

"It’s no secret that affordability is top of mind for Americans this year, which is why U.S. News updated its weighting criteria to better align with what retirees prioritize," Wood said. "The 2027 rankings reflect key metrics used to highlight the places that
best suit retiree needs."

Sugar Land was declared the 10th best place to live in the U.S. in a separate U.S. News report earlier this year, but it doesn't quite meet the expectations for retirees. This particular suburb ranked as the 45th best overall city to retire, but it fared better in the city size ranking and landed 13th among the biggest U.S. cities.

Pasadena also surprised as the 85th best place to retire nationwide in this report, despite being hailed as the No. 3 best city to retire in Texas by RetirementLiving.com.

Three more Houston neighbors ranked among the top 100 overall best places to retire for 2027: League City (No. 25), Missouri City (No. 49), and Baytown (No. 88).

These are the top 10 best U.S. cities to retire for 2027:

  • No. 1 – Midland, Michigan
  • No. 2 – Homosassa Springs, Florida
  • No. 3 – Weirton, West Virginia
  • No. 4 – The Woodlands
  • No. 5 – Spring, Texas
  • No. 6 – Rio Rancho, New Mexico
  • No. 7 – Altoona, Pennsylvania
  • No. 8 – Paducah, Kentucky
  • No. 9 – Lynchburg, Virginia
  • No. 10 – Palm Coast, Florida
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This article first appeared on CultureMap.com.

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.

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