feature story INNOVATION
grow your business
Jeremy Vickers helps run
the Dallas Entrepreneur
Center, a project that
connects business
owners with mentors and
networks to grow their
company.
“There was a
need for people
all over the
country to be
made aware
of the thriving
ecosystem in
Dallas.”
potentially help people from having to go on dialysis.
4G Biometrics, a medical device company, is another success story that was acquired by a much larger
company, ActiveCare. Others on the brink of success,
Boudreaux says, include Encore Vision, a company
working on an eye drop that will treat presbyopia and
possibly reverse the need for reading glasses, and Vodik Labs, the first company in the U.S. to have the Department of Transportation approve the movement of
their hydrogen cells on the road.
“You are creating companies,” Jasper Welch of the
NBIA notes when asked about North Texas entrepreneurial success. “Before a job is created, an entrepreneur, a business owner, or a company founder creates
or buys a company. Men and women are risking their
capital, putting forth tremendous effort and are creating companies that grow.”
On the Unending Horizon
Gabriella Draney, co-founder of Tech Wildcatters, a
business-to-business DFW accelerator program, sees
North Texas as a magnet for technology innovation
that puts the area squarely in the midst of the key players in the U.S., though it’s often only the savviest who
understand that both the money and the know-how
exist in these wide open spaces.
“We are not good about promoting ourselves – part
of that is our culture,” Draney said. “People outside of
the area often don’t fully understand what’s going on
here. Some of the companies in our program have
traveled here to be a part of what we are doing. Some
of them choose to stay. They are very excited that they
don’t have to pay income tax here.”
After a successful launch in the spring of 2010,
North Texas’s own Tech Wildcatters has graduated five
classes of companies, for a total of 37.
Tech Wildcatters chooses to focus on business-to-business companies, is the only B2B-focused
accelerator named to the Forbes Top 10 list of accelerators in the U.S., and has been named to the list in
back-to-back years. Key Ring and Proxomo are two of
the accelerator’s many success stories.
The 85 mentors in the Tech Wildcatters program
come from a variety of business backgrounds and disciplines, all offering advice and introductions to the
full-time business owners who benefit from being involved in Tech Wildcatters.
The 12-week program requires them to be full-timers and demands both an open-minded nature and a
willingness to commit to the process.
Planting Seeds for Success
Jeremy Vickers, managing director of innovation for
the Dallas Entrepreneur Center, a project of the Dallas Regional Chamber, agrees that the ability to help
others grow their companies can be a strong pull on
already-successful business owners in North Texas.
“I felt the need to serve the community in DFW.
Using my own background as a serial entrepreneur to
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serve other entrepreneurs while giving back to Dallas
was important,” Vickers said.
Vickers dreamed of the creation of the Dallas Entrepreneur Center, along with co-founder and CEO Trey
Bowles, as a way to help early stage companies startup,
build and grow.
“There was a need for people all over the country
to be made aware of the thriving ecosystem in Dallas,”
Vickers continued.
The Dallas Entrepreneur Center provides capital,
resources, training and space as it helps connect business owners with mentors and networks that can help
them grow their companies, with the objective of helping these companies progress through milestones and
ending in cash of some kind.
Launched in 2013, the Dallas Entrepreneur Center is currently working with more than 30 companies,
with hundreds of applications in the pipeline.
Bowles attributes the success to the mentality of
those in the North Texas region.
“Overall, the North Texas community is coming
together to provide resources all along the life cycle of
the start-up with a give-before-you-take mentality that
helps not only one start-up, but all of the companies in
the entire ecosystem.”
That’s a breed of innovation for which North Texas
is becoming known.