Entrepreneurship news

Texas ranks No. 8 on new list of best states for Black entrepreneurs

Texas is known as an entrepreneur-friendly state.

Photo by Christina Morillo Pexels

Black businesses continue to see success all over Texas. So says a new report that ranks the state among America's top 10 for Black entrepreneurs.

In Merchant Maverick’s latest annual report on the best states for Black businesses, Texas lands in the No. 8 spot. While the state maintains a position in the top 10, it has dropped from its No. 3 ranking last year.

The report factored a number of metrics, including Black-owned businesses per million residents; percentage of the state’s workforce employed by Black-owned businesses; average annual payroll of Black-owned businesses; average annual income of Black business owners; and more.

The report also noted that Texas is:

No. 9 for highest average annual income.
Home to 360 Black-owned businesses per capita.
No. 15 highest in the nation for percentage of the workforce working for Black businesses.

Texas continues to be known as an entrepreneur-friendly state.

The largest Black tech conference in the country, the 2023 AfroTech Conference, recently returned to Austin for the second straight year. The five-day conference united over 300 companies – including Amazon, Meta, and Google – to expand the representation of Black Americans in STEM fields.

In 2022, a ranking by Black employees at Apartment List put Houston at No. 4 among the best cities for Black professionals. The Apartment List employees judged 82 cities in four categories.

Growth also was reflected post-pandemic for Black-owned startups in Houston, according to study by economists at Rice University, Boston University, Columbia University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The study found that from 2019 to 2020, the startup rate rose 32 percent in four largely Black areas of Houston.

The statewide startup rate during that period was 10 just at percent.

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Continue reading this story on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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Coworking News

New coworking space to open in Dallas' Oak Lawn neighborhood

Office Evolution

A coworking space is opening in Dallas in a central location: Office Evolution, a Louisville-based coworking chain, will open what a release says is a "state-of-the-art coworking space" at 3500 Oak Lawn Ave. #360 in Dallas at the southeast corner of Lemmon Avenue.

No details on what makes it state-of-the-art, but construction is ongoing and an opening is anticipated in mid-October.

Office Evolution was founded in 2003 as a shared workspace-coworking environment, cultivated on the principles of "Ohana," the Hawaiian tradition that references family working toward a common goal. (The founder was from Hawaii.)

The company started out in Boulder, Colorado, then relocated its headquarters to Louisville. It's an affiliated brand of United Franchise Group, and is part of The Vast Coworking Group, which specializes in franchising within the coworking industry. All of their locations are franchised.

The Dallas location is owned by franchisee Michael Pickering, a Dallas native who runs a family-owned indoor soccer facility in Dallas. (There are two other Office Evolution locations in the DFW area in McKinney and Southlake, owned by different franchisees.)

They're describing the Dallas location at 3500 Oak Lawn Ave. as "Turtle Creek," although its location at Oak Lawn and Lemmon really puts it at the epicenter of Oak Lawn. (To further complicate matters, the building previously and incorrectly described its address as "Uptown.")

It's a seven-story building in which the majority of tenants are doctor and medical offices.

Office Evolution rates include a coworking day pass for $25, plus "flex" office options starting at $200 a month for 20 hours, up to $550 a month for 80 hours.

Amenities of the building that are also accessible to Office Evolution customers include a front desk; a 1,000-square-foot fitness center; covered parking; and on-site security six days a week.

According to a spokesperson, Pickering and his team put $1.2 million into the renovation to transform the space, which occupies most of the fourth floor where it will span 9,240 square feet of space with 41 total offices — one of which is earmarked as an "on-demand office" for the professional on the go.

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