Most Exciting Startups

The 7 most exciting startups in Dallas right now

Owning a small business is as American as apple pie, and in Dallas, entrepreneurship is a way of life. With innovation leaders who nurture the startup spirit and do their part to stoke the fire, Big D is one of the best places for small businesses to thrive.

And this entrepreneurial drive isn’t limited to only a handful of industries. The local startup scene’s unbelievable diversity — and our willingness to embrace just about any good new idea — means we have a lot of budding businesses to make us proud.

Here’s a sampling of the most exciting startups in Dallas right now:

Block Party Suites
Spend any time around SMU and you’ll run into Block Party Suites. The company is responsible for the pop-up village where SMU fans gathered before home games last fall, and its popularity has quickly spread throughout the state. Offering portable hospitality suites — think swanky stadium suites but on-the-go — Block Party Suites has made appearances at the Dallas Untapped Festival and the Cotton Bowl for the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

Satellite television, reserved spots that put guests right at the heart of the best tailgating action, premium sound, comfortable furniture, and the ability to customize each suite make the pop-up model a quick favorite. This year, founders Adam Ward and Steve Gilman look forward to providing a VIP lounge for the Red Bull and Tissot Watches racing teams at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, and even more block parties at SMU and TCU for the 2016 season.

CataBoom
Companies are more interested than ever in developing relationships with customers, and gamification is a natural result of that desire to connect with users on a more entertaining and personal level. CEO Todd McGee explains that CataBoom is a behavioral marketing engagement platform based on Pavlov’s theories that a rewarded behavior is more likely to be repeated.

Companies hire CataBoom to create games that reward behavior and bring consumers back again and again. From surveys for fashion companies to skill games for major motion picture promotions or ticket sales organizations, CataBoom is behind some of the coolest new games that companies use to reward their customers.

Circle Seven Five
Billed as a private social club for women, Circle Seven Five is a new way to meet like-minded ladies about town. The organization founded by Dallasite Cassidy Fischer sponsors activities that put women in touch with their future coworkers, collaborators, mentors, and best friends by curating more than 15 events each month.

From adventures like rock climbing and movie-viewing parties to educational seminars, career development workshops, and exclusive previews at local shops, Circle Seven Five helps young women do the things they always talk about doing, by helping them live better lives.

iuzeit
Keep an eye out for iuzeit, a new “catchall” website for product ratings and reviews. Launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco last fall, iuzeit, pronouced “I use it,” is currently in beta testing, but founder Yogi Patel says the platform will launch to the public this spring. Once launched, users will be able to access product reviews from multiple sources all in one place, making shopping online easier than ever before.

Patel came up with the idea when he was attempting to make a purchase online. Jumping from site to site and sifting through dozens of product reviews was incredibly frustrating. So he created iuzeit, which promises to take the hassle out of online shopping. The service will allow users to compare information about each product across retailers so they can find the best prices available.

Leaseful
Think of Leaseful as Airbnb for college sublets. Boasting ease of use and security, the Dallas-based company connects college students who need someone to cover their rent or sublease a room with other students who need a place to crash.

The site verifies that guests are who they say they are, and it offers full transparency to its users. College students simply post an open room or apartment on Leaseful, other students book and pay for the room via a secure platform, and voila! It almost makes you want to be a college student again.

Founders Chad Kehoe and Alexander Prince launched a private beta in May 2015 at SMU and FSU, and within three weeks they secured investments from Motive, Dallas’ own real estate accelerator. Leaseful officially launched in Austin and Dallas this February, and the service will soon be available in Houston.

Make Your Life Sweeter
A few years ago, SMU grad Yasmeen Tadia left corporate America and started a business that took the sweet snack world by storm. Fluffpop cotton candy and HotPoppin gourmet popcorn quickly gained attention from companies and celebs across the nation, and their parent company, Make Your Life Sweeter, continues to grow.

Based in Dallas, Make Your Life Sweeter has recently launched two new lines: Sugaire, an organic, gluten-free, vegan, handspun gourmet cotton candy, and ModChocolate, an artisanal collection of fine chocolates in chic packaging.

The brands have wowed diners from Facebook corporate to the White House Correspondence Dinner, but Tadia and team are in talks with some local favorites — hello, Hotel ZaZa! — to feature exclusive cotton candy-infused menu items this year. Be on the lookout for these delectable treats in select Dallas-Fort Worth retailers in the coming months.

Visage Payroll
North Texas is such a hub for small businesses that entrepreneurs are founding startups specifically to support mom-and-pop companies. Visage Payroll is one such startup concentrated on helping small companies grow and thrive, by offering free payroll services to companies of 50 or fewer employees.

Before Visage, these small companies spent hundreds of dollars each year on payroll and accounting. Visage blends the appeal of social media with the ease of modern banking platforms to provide small companies with free payroll services.

Local partners and investors in the real estate business, insurance, banking, and others industries have lined up to help Visage Payroll provide these services. Dallas founder Craig Lewis sees his passion for free payroll for small businesses as an integral part of fueling the economy and encouraging growth and expansion.

Circle Seven Five helps Dallas-area ladies get out of their comfort zone and form lasting relationships.

Photo courtesy of Circle Seven Five

Circle Seven Five helps Dallas-area ladies get out of their comfort zone and form lasting relationships.

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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.

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