Why I Wanted to Acquire Houston Exponential

When you stretch a mega-metropolis mashup of multi-culturalism over a sprawl of land area the size of Massachusetts, you may struggle to neatly encapsulate the collective identity of that group into a single tagline, slogan, or motto. The complexity of Houston can’t be summed up tidily. Houston sobriquets come and go, some internally inspired, some offered by outsiders, but we haven’t yet found our “Sin City,” “City of Brotherly Love,” or “Windy City.”

And we never really will. And that’s ok.?

Though I do think it’s easy and digestible for outsiders to point at Houston and say, “that’s Hot-Big-Oilpatch-Cowboy-Town,” they don’t get it. Understanding Houston from afar is like trying to fall in love by reading the heart chapter of a biology textbook.

It’s impossible to conjure up some singular word or a succinctly packaged phrase for such a beautiful mosaic of different people, beliefs, cultures, and ideas. And that’s what makes Houston so awesome.

But one time I heard someone get pretty darn close, and it stuck with me.

On a long uber ride home one night, my Nigerian driver and I started talking about where he came from and his time living in Houston. He had become a lover of both our city and country music, so the conversation rolled easily, and we became fast friends. Along the way, we picked up some Mexican food. And there was a moment when this Nigerian immigrant, with a George Strait song in the background and a mouth full of Mexican food, said excitedly about his experience in Houston in a thick accent, “yes, yes, Houston is for everyone!”

Houston is for everyone!

And maybe because the moment itself was SO Houston, maybe because it was so wonderfully Jane Jacobian, maybe because, like our city itself perhaps, it was so straight up, no flashy or frills…but it sounded perfect.

A few years later, however, I found myself finishing up my undergraduate degree in 2013 here in Houston and thinking that the community to which I felt I mainly belonged – entrepreneurs and creatives – wasn’t here.

It felt like, at least to me, at least in that moment, that Houston wasn’t really a place where you could easily find an engaged community of other entrepreneurs working alongside each other.

And of course, entrepreneurship is such a team sport. Such a lifestyle in need of comradery. And over the next few years working for a global venture capital fund, I witnessed these kinds of entrepreneurial communities clustered together in cities all over the world, and in doing so, grew increasingly frustrated that Houston had fallen behind.

Then came 2016 and with it, an amazing city-wide push to catch up and get it right. Eager to be a part of the movement, I quit my job to start The Cannon and work alongside all the other efforts to evolve Houston’s startup scene and build its innovation economy.?

At the beginning, with all the ‘who is going to lead what and where will it be,’ it felt like we were driving our car full speed toward a brick wall, and everyone was arguing about where we were all going to sit. But we gradually started making progress, getting wins, and evolving our approach from theory to practice.

During this time, Houston Exponential was formed to be both the megaphone to celebrate the wins externally and the connective tissue of the ecosystem internally. Here’s the montage of what happened over the next few years:

- We are told by ‘the experts’ that “Houston risks being shut out of America’s future innovation economy.”

- Houston Exponential declares a goal of attracting $2B of venture funding into Houston businesses in 2022 at a time when our city was currently attracting less than $100M per year.

- The ‘experts’ deem this goal “not feasible.”

- The sleeping giant of Houston was officially awakened…. over the course of 1,000 days, there was a city-wide explosion of new startups, accelerators, incubators, venture funds, angel investors, media attention, events, and programs to support entrepreneurs and their businesses.

- Houston achieves the $2B goal a year early. BOOM!

When John de Menil moved to Houston and wanted to start a museum, his friend from New York City tried to discourage the notion, saying that Houston was a cultural desert. Menil replied: “It’s in the desert that miracles happen.”

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I acquired Houston Exponential for the same reason I started The Cannon and have spent the majority of my working life on this singular challenge: I love Houston and I want it to be a vibrant destination for innovators and creatives. I am convinced that Houston Exponential plays a unique and crucial role in The City’s innovation ecosystem and want to help enable it to continue its great work. And I believe the collection of Gow businesses, many of which include media and events capabilities, can be leveraged to amplify Houston Exponential’s impact on Houston’s startup economy.

And by the way – the work is not nearly done and will always be an unfinished project. But what I can promise is that our group is deeply passionate about Houston Exponential and its mission, and that its guiding light will always singularly and fiercely be that which is in the best interest of Houston’s entrepreneurs.

Our city is such a galaxy of cool complexity, such a multi-colored patchwork of people, and I’m honored to get to participate in some of all the amazing efforts and activities that are transforming our city into a place that is for everyone. ?