Bright Ideas

10 most exciting startups in Dallas turn bright ideas into business

Small business is the new business. At least, that’s the case for Dallas, as more and more startups come into the marketplace. North Texas is quickly becoming the next hub for entrepreneurs, and already there are a few startups that merit closer attention.

What’s exciting about these 10 businesses is the varied nature. There’s a company that wants to change how we use big data, one that’s helping universities create quality online courses, and one bringing light bulbs into our ever-connected world.

No matter where you look, Dallas startups are creating a place that is smarter, faster and more interesting than ever before. Although it’s true not all startups succeed — most, in fact, do not — these 10 deserve to stick around awhile.

Haul
People on YouTube known as haulers review products and reach thousands of eyeballs with each video. Haul is designed to get them paid with a video-based marketplace that will connect haulers with brands and advertisers.

It’s a win-win. The haulers make money from their videos, and all those viewers equal a coveted, non-traditional advertising market. Haul comes from Dallas entrepreneur Alexander Muse and company and currently has more than 1,200 haulers in its network.

iDesignEDU
Traditional colleges are more expensive than ever, and the costs keep rising. To combat that, many universities offer online courses that are cheaper and more flexible than the brick-and-mortar alternative.

iDesignEDU works with faculty and administrators to convert traditional courses into an online format with standardized grading rubrics and curriculum. In the end, the online course is ideally equal in value and education to what one could receive in a classroom or lecture hall.

Ilumi Solutions
Everything in the household — from thermostats to home entertainment centers — is becoming more connected, so it makes sense that your lights should too. Ilumi lights are fully customizable LED bulbs that fit into normal sockets, offering a million colors that can be individually programmed via your phone and Bluetooth to alert you to phone calls, change with the music, or turn on and off on schedule for home safety.

Corey Egan and Swapnil Bora’s patent-pending HyperLux technology ensures the bulbs are brighter and use less energy than similar multicolor LED bulbs.

Need
It’s never been less fashionable to be an unfashionable guy than today. Thanks in part to a revitalization of the sophisticated stylings of the midcentury, men are expected to put some effort into their wardrobes.

Enter Matt Alexander’s Need, a website that curates monthly outfits designed for the urban professional. The clothes are smart and simple but never boring and offer flexibility between the office and a night out. The modern man rarely wears suits anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can’t look good in a pair of dark denim jeans and a classic pea coat.

PureDiscovery
Without data, it’s impossible to learn, but context is equally vital to understanding all those numbers. PureDiscovery wants to change how companies use data to better conduct business.

PureDiscovery’s BrainSpace software enables users to take their search results and cull related data using semantic algorithms. Instead of hunting and pecking through indexed search, BrainSpace creates natural clusters of relevant data for quicker and better understanding.

By contextualizing what you seek, BrainSpace ensures you see the big picture coming out of all that data. The company has already received $10 million in funding as it moves through its beta testing period.

Ravesy
It’s a drag to find out that the jacket you bought is already out of style. So goes the mission of Ravesy, a new shopping site that monitors what people are talking about on social media to bring the most popular and trendy products to your screen.

It’s all done via founder Michael Bielinski’s other company, ToggleShift, which scours the social channels to find what people are talking about. At Ravesy, you can shop for anything — really, it’s a “shop engine” — and find links to the retailers’ sites. Naturally, you can share your finds on social media to keep the cycle going.

RewardStyle
Blogging about your passion can be a worthwhile experience in exploration, but, at the end of the day, it won’t put food on your table if you’re not monetizing the experience. RewardStyle founder Amber Venz knew this firsthand, so she and Baxter Box built a solution to solve her own problem.

RewardStyle connects bloggers — fashion, home, beauty and baby — to more than 2,500 retailers and more than 200,000 brands, who pay commission to the bloggers who help drive purchases. Venz said in a recent interview that RewardStyle was on track to drive $150 million in transactions.

Venz also just launched LiketoKnow.it for Instagram, which allows bloggers to get around the fact that Instagram doesn’t allow for links in photo captions. Users who sign up can get the relevant info about a product delivered via email.

Socrates Health Solutions
More than eight in 10 diabetics must frequently check their glucose levels, and with that comes finger pricking and a plethora of test strips. Socrates Health Solutions’ Companion aims to offer a painless and accurate glucose reading without the need to draw any blood.

The Companion uses a sensor that clips to the ear to check glucose levels, which are then displayed on a small LED monitor. There’s no prick, no blood and no strips. The Companion is in research and development right now, and Socrates is working to get the gadget covered as a reimbursable healthcare expense with insurers.

Sparx Life
Existential angst may not be the sole property of twenty- and thirtysomethings, but there sure is a market for it. Sparx Life hopes to help answer the question “What am I doing with my life?” by examining your strengths, passions, awareness of your impact in the world, and relationships with people you need to find your true calling.

From there, the site gives you guidance with books, online classes and more to go for what really makes you happy. It’s currently in limited beta, but it’s free to sign up.

Tango Tab
Eating out is fun, but do it enough and the wallet starts to feel really light. Tango Tab’s goal is to offer daily incentives for diners in the form of free, limited coupons that range from free appetizers with a meal to $20 off a $40 order.

The site, which is also available in app form, has a philanthropic angle, as each redeemed coupon feeds a person in need. So far, Tango Tab has fed more than 230,000 people.

Ilumi's Bluetooth-enabled LED lights feature more than a million colors and a full suite of customizable features.

Ilumi Facebook

Ilumi's Bluetooth-enabled LED lights feature more than a million colors and a full suite of customizable features.

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Eco Warrior News

Dallas restaurants doing amazing little things for the environment

Southwest Airlines

Cute bamboo cup from Southwest Airlines

One unfortunate legacy left by the pandemic has been a huge increase in the use of plastics — setting back progress that was being made pre-pandemic.

Plastics are bad. They harm everything they touch: the environment, health, food security, and economies. But they're convenient, subsidized, and in some cases necessary.

Before the pandemic, a growing awareness had started to snowball regarding the negative impact of plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic containers — and it was significant enough to make the plastics industry very nervous.

"In the two years leading up to the pandemic, the public backlash against plastic was a major concern for industry leaders," says a story about plastics and the pandemic in The Guardian. "As a corporate executive remarked during an industry event early in 2019: 'We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind. Otherwise, we could lose our social license to operate.'"

But then the pandemic came along, igniting mass hysteria about contagion, and suddenly, bans on single-use plastics that had been in the works were reversed in countries around the world: North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“Overnight, plastics went from public enemy No. 1 to consumers asking for everything to have as much packaging as possible and to be single use," said one gleeful analyst for Shell Oil, who are a major plastics player.

The urgency of the plastics situation remains invisible to most people, lined up at the drive-thru for their coffee or Chick-Fil-A, piling up nearly 250 pounds of plastic waste every year. (That's what the average American amasses — more than any other country.)

But there are brave, pro-environment efforts being made by Dallas companies and organizations, big and small.

La Casita Bakeshop cup Revolutionary compostable cup at La Casita Bakeshop.Facebook

Dallas efforts
The Dallas restaurants and organizations listed below have taken steps to fight waste, even though it costs them money.

Plastic Free Lunch Day is November 22
Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services will participate in Plastic Free Lunch Day on November 22, to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic in school cafeterias.

Plastic Free Lunch Day was started by middle school students in Brooklyn. The initiative was such a success that it was adopted by all New York City public schools in 2022. The concept has since spread to public schools across the country — including Dallas ISD, which was the first in Texas to participate, when it joined up in 2022.

It creates an opportunity to educate students and the community on ways to positively impact the environment, including skipping plastic. Dallas school cafeterias will replace the plastic items they regularly use during lunch with biodegradable alternatives. (Plastic cutlery, cups, and straws will be available upon request for the crybabies.)

Southwest Airlines bamboo cup
Southwest Airlines Co., the Dallas-based airline, has introduced a new bamboo cup for inflight cold beverages, and a wood stir stick in place of a plastic stick. The airline expects the new items to reduce its inflight single-use plastics by more than 1.5 million pounds annually.

In July 2024, Southwest transitioned to a paper overwrap for its napkins made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials — fully eliminating plastic from this service item. The airline is making an effort to eliminate single-use plastics from inflight service by 2030.

La Casita Bakeshop compostable cups
La Casita Bakeshop, the award-winning bakery and cafe operation, recently debuted fabulous new cups that are 100 percent compostable, soil- and marine-biodegradable, breaking down naturally after 90 days, and made from natural materials.

"We are always trying to find ways to be more environmentally friendly and this is a big way we can," they said in their post announcing the new cups. "We just want to be proud of our paper trail and being a restaurant it's hard to do that."

Smoothie King biodegradable cups
Smoothie King, the Dallas-based smoothie chain, previously used styrofoam cups, but began testing a biodegradable cup in 2019. They now offer it as the default choice. They're using Vio Foam, specially made cups that biodegrade 92 percent in four years. They'll still accommodate whiny selfish customers who insist on getting a plastic cup instead, but their Vio foam cup not only helps the environment, it also keeps their smoothies cold a little longer.

Kate Weiser Recycle Box Program
Kate Weiser, the Dallas chocolatier, sells its gorgeous eye-catching bon-bons in a variety of boxes, from 4 pieces all the way up to 35 pieces. (OK, they'll sell them individually, too, but who goes to a chocolate shop and buys a single chocolate?) They have a program where you can bring your empty box to the store and get a refill and get 5 percent off. (Weiser amusingly calls it a "secret hack.")

Dude Sweet Chocolate freezer packaging
Dude Sweet Chocolate, the Oak Cliff chocolatier, has a next-level campaign in which they will accept cold-ship packaging you've received in the mail and re-use it. Say, for example, that you ordered an 8-pack of ice cream pints from Double Rainbow in San Francisco, and it arrived in a box with freezer packs and a foil liner. You can drop that packaging off at Dude Sweet's factory location at 1340 Inwood Rd., and they'll re-use it in one way or another when they're doing shipments of their chocolate. They'll take not only the freezer packs but the boxes, too.

Restaurant Beatrice repurposing programs
Restaurant Beatrice, the Cajun restaurant in Oak Cliff, has an entire suite of programs that address climate and environmental issues. Including: Composting, Re-Purposing of Oil (They have continuously recycled their fryer oil to be re-used as bio-diesel), and Repurposing of Single-Use Items by encouraging guests to return their mason jars and bring their own re-usable to-go boxes to limit single-use containers.

Note: Whether you're putting it in the blue bin or the gray bin, your plastic is not being recycled. The best course when it comes to plastic, especially single-use plastic, is to not use it at all.

sustainability