Houston Startup Challenges

Academic Paper
Title	Houston Startup Challenges
Author	Ed Egan
RAs	Diana Carranza
Status	In development
© edegan.com, 2016

Summary

Recommendations for Houston emerging ecosystem.

Innovation District

• Maps (Baseline & How it should look) – (Maps by Abhi)
• Startups location – (Ed Table)
• Fund & Accelerator/Incubator locations – (Houston Pipeline)
• Patent Map (Oliver)
• Publicly traded firm data – R&D expenditure (Hira)

Pipeline

• Houston Innovation Assets – Tables (What IT companies’ do we have. Patent, publicly traded firms)
• Community Building: Networking organizations, entrepreneurship clubs, etc.
• VC Firms in Houston – (Vc, exits, startups Adrian)
• VC deals
• Annual average VC investment
• Exits
• Companies that receive VC Funding
• Total funding of current startups
• University students (Hira)
• NSF grants, NIH grants, clinical trials, (Hira)
• SBIR grants/ companies (Abhi)

Core Focus

• Data: Financial/ Impact on the following industries. City level data the econ activity on these industries. (Diana, Dallas Federal Reserve, City of Houston State of Texas)
• Basic framing stats of the city
• Oil & Gas
• Med Center
• Space

Opening the city up for testing technology

• Current example by a different city.
• Examples of technologies, tried elsewhere (Sweden, Volvo and their trucks)

Branding Strategy for Houston startup scene

• Branding budget & strategy for the city
• Current activities