In Dallas, a budding entrepreneurial hub in the heart of Texas, entrepreneurship is on people’s minds year-round. Following last fall’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, Trey Bowles, cofounder and CEO of the Dallas Entrepreneur Center (DEC), shared his thoughts with us on the Dallas startup scene and why others should be paying attention to the role collaboration is playing in building the ecosystem. The following is part of his application for the GEC Cities Challenge for this spring’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress.
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Dallas has always had a strong history of entrepreneurial activity. Whether it was the wildcatters that supported the oil and gas industry, the telecom corridor that came to dominate in the 1980s, or the launch of Texas Instruments, there has been a vibrant startup ecosystem in Dallas since its inception. Today, Dallas is the fourth largest metro area in the United States with a bustling entrepreneurial community.
More than 40,000 businesses are started in the Dallas region each year, 19,000 of which are started in the City of Dallas proper. With nine accelerator programs and 11 incubators, more than 137 companies are participating in accelerator programs. Texas is third in the country in overall VC investing and the angel investment community has exploded in Dallas over the last year. In fact, there has been more than $323 million invested in 32 startup companies in the first three quarters of 2014. Additionally, the first ever Startup Angels Angel Summit IO conference was held in Dallas, bringing in more than 200 key angel investors from around the world to help encourage traditional investors to consider early stage and angel investing in Dallas.
As the ecosystem in Dallas grows, so does the need for more entrepreneurship research. One initiative to gather more data on the subject was run by the DEC in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation and UT Dallas. A North Texas Startup Survey was sent out to better understand the startup scene and its companies in the first part of 2014. With a goal of 200 responses to the survey, we were overwhelmed to see 475 responses to the survey providing some great insight to the startups in the region.
Dallas was recognized by both Kiplinger's and the US Chambers of Commerce Foundation as the number one city in the country to start a business. With its affordable cost of living, absence of any state income tax, access to great engineering talent (Dallas has more high tech workers than Austin and Houston combined), and the collaborative environment, it is no wonder that so many people are choosing Dallas as their home and the place to launch their entrepreneurial ventures.
One of the keys that make our community so supportive for entrepreneurship is that we have stakeholders from across multiple industries and sectors working together to support the entrepreneur in Dallas. These "feeders" organizations include the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce (DRC) which has made innovation and entrepreneurship one of its core tenets for 2014-2015. The DRC was recently awarded a top chamber for innovation because of their partnership with the Dallas Entrepreneur Center. We are also seeing universities play a key role as "feeders," working to launch new programs, incubators, and accelerators within their different schools showcasing the importance of entrepreneurship to the programming and curriculum to attract students to their campus.
At the DEC, we launched a few programs including our White Board Sessions (mentor office hours) which boast more than 160 mentors that are willing to meet with companies for office hours to offer experience, insight and counsel to fledging entrepreneurial organizations. Another recently launched program is a volunteer network called the DEC Ambassador Program which brings 30 volunteers into a three month training program that teaches these "ambassadors" (college age to 50+) about the startup ecosystem, introduces them to the organizations that support the ecosystem and then deploys them into the community as volunteers to support and serve these "feeders" that are helping the startup ecosystem. Communities around the globe have been attempting to emulate this extremely successful and impactful organization in their own communities as a way to engage volunteers and servant leaders into their local ecosystems. The entire region is seeing an explosion of entrepreneurial activity and everyone is trying to find their role in the community to support, encourage, and equip entrepreneurship in Dallas.
One of the key differentiators for our community is that fact that there is not just one rock star that makes up our community, but there are rock stars from across sectors, ensuring successful collaboration within the ecosystem. From an entrepreneurial perspective, we have some amazing entrepreneurs in Dallas. Mark Cuban is not only one of the most well-known entrepreneurs in Dallas, but he is arguably one of the most well know entrepreneurs in the country and maybe the world. He sold broadcast.com for $5.7 billion to Yahoo and now as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and star of the ABC show Shark Tank.
There are also great rock stars within entrepreneurial support organizations. A fantastic example of this is Gabriella Draney, cofounder of Dallas’ first accelerator, Tech Wildcatters (ranked Top 10 accelerator by Forbes for three years straight). Draney cofounded the accelerator and started bringing money into a fund focused on early-stage business. In its fifth year, it has spawned additional programs such as a new accelerator, Health Wildcatters, and an international program called GlobeStart built to bring international startups from other accelerators to Dallas. Tech Wildcatters created a starting point or central focus for startups in Dallas, and has encouraged the creation of several other community organizations, accelerators and incubators since its inception in 2009.
Key policymakers are also coming together to support the startup ecosystem in Dallas. Considering that seven out of 10 jobs come from startups or small businesses, it is important for policymakers, economic development groups and other city officials to recognize the importance of supporting the startup ecosystem. More and more economic development departments are now working to find a solution to support both sides of the economic development coin. The City of Dallas has a public private partnership with the Dallas Entrepreneur Center and the Mayor's office has spent a good amount of time attending local startup events, highlighting the activity in his speeches and key talking points, as well as making the entrepreneurial scene an important part of the his international business city tour. The Town of Addison has launched its own initiative where the city council voted unanimously to launch the Addison TreeHouse as an entrepreneur center to support the central Dallas region for entrepreneurship. The Chambers of Commerce also works with corporations and policymakers to find ways that can encourage support and empower entrepreneurs to grow the communities. This can be seen at a local, regional, and state level.
Every year, the State Of Entrepreneurship Address held during Global Entrepreneurship Week brings together stakeholders from all of the major entrepreneurial support organizations, investors, media, accelerators/incubators, universities, corporations and municipalities, to highlight the wins, successes and collaboration that occurred over the last 12 months. This is a great way to bring the community together to celebrate not only the wins of their own organizations but of the entire community. This annual event is one of the ways Dallas demonstrates the strength of its startup ecosystem. Everyone in it is working separately but also together, to provide the most comprehensive set of programs, events, support systems necessary for all startup to succeed.
Dallas’ rock star community continues to expand and grow because, when building a collaborative startup ecosystem, the goal is to constantly bring in new leaders, new organizations and new programs that serve a bigger audience. Dallas is a place where people want to see others succeed and many of our rock stars, both current and past are working together to support and grow the broader ecosystem for startups.