Megha Tolia Keynotes DFW Startup Week at SMU Cox

North Texas’ innovation economy is on display at Southern Methodist University this week.

DFW Startup Week opened Monday, Aug. 3, at the Cox School of Business and runs through Thursday, Aug. 6. The event draws founders, investors, corporate innovation leaders and students. Dallas-based The DEC Network organizes the free annual event, sponsored by Capital One. It spans more than 40 sessions built around four summits and eight industry tracks. Programming runs the gamut, including venture capital, retail, healthcare, artificial intelligence, skilled trades, legal and accounting, and go-to-market strategy.

The week opened with two concurrent tracks, one on marketing and branding and one on founder wellness. That was followed by the first keynote of the week, a keynote conversation with Megha Tolia.

A career built on being the outsider

Tolia is the former president and COO of Shondaland, producer Shonda Rhimes’ media company. Today, she serves as global ambassador for the William S. Spears Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership at SMU Cox. She and her husband, Nextdoor founder and CEO Nirav Tolia, became co-founding directors of the institute in 2023.

Tolia has, of course, had tremendous success. But her keynote, titled “From Outsider to Industry Leader,” focused on those moments in her career when she was something of an unknown quantity.

“That feeling of being uncomfortable in wearing shoes that are just a little bit too big has been sort of the way I started my career from the start,” Tolia told moderator Kyle Waldrep, co-host of the Intersections Podcast and founder of Dallas-based Dottid.

That outsider feeling started early in her career. Tolia was just 21 when she landed a spot in a Johnson & Johnson marketing leadership program that accepted six people nationally in 2002. Every colleague in the program had a graduate degree.

“It gave me the opportunity to be in rooms and sit at tables that I probably hadn’t earned the right to do so yet,” she said. “And I was a sponge.”

That experience helped shape Tolia as a systems thinker. The Johnson & Johnson program made sure every participant learned finance, operations and supply chain alongside marketing. That equipped her to look at any part of a business without treating departments in isolation, she said.

Years later, when her friend, agent Chris Silverman, introduced her to Rhimes and they began talking about Tolia joining the established production company as its president, she was an outsider once again.

“Does she not see the big index card on my head that says I had never worked in entertainment before?” she said she thought when Rhimes offered her the job. “I just want to remind you, I have not worked in this industry.”

That outsider frame became a strength, Tolia said, allowing her to bring her business lens to the creative work flowing throughout Shondaland. She shared a house-construction metaphor that she said she used often in the role.

“I’m here to build the plumbing, the infrastructure, so that the creativity, the innovation has a place to flow through and to excel,” she said. Without that scaffolding, she said, ideas eventually hit a ceiling. But early-stage founders face the opposite risk. “You don’t want to over-process. You don’t want to overplumb.”

Saying yes before you’re ready

Pressed on how founders should decide whether they are prepared for a leap, Tolia was blunt.

“If you feel ready, you’re late,” she said. Every opportunity she has taken, she said, has been one she felt uncomfortable stepping into. “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is say yes,” she said.

Her method for managing what follows is a single question: What has to be true? Then, she said, she uses lists, written questions and 30-, 60- and 90-day plans as the structure around otherwise unstructured decisions. She also uses an aviation metaphor she said she repeated often at Shondaland: the team is flying the plane while still building it.

More insights, advice throughout Startup Week

Tolia’s talk kicked off the Disrupt Dallas Summit portion of Startup Week, sponsored by Charles Schwab Bank. The Corporate Startup Innovation Summit, sponsored by Capital One, was Tuesday, Aug. 4. It included a keynote on connected cars from John Ellis of Codethink. It was scheduled to conclude with pitch finals and awards for the Capital One Mobility Accelerator.

Wednesday, Aug. 5, brings a Venture Capital Track sponsored by the McKinney Innovation Exchange. Kevin Vela of Dallas-based Vela Wood and Sammy Abdoulah of Blossom Street Ventures discuss Texas venture trends at 11 a.m. Later, Troy Billett of the McKinney Economic Development Corp. presents the McKinney Innovation Fund, which offers up to $500,000 in nondilutive funding, at 1 p.m.

The afternoon shifts to the CPG and Retail Summit, sponsored by Target, with buyers and founders from H-E-B, Mooala, Fort Worth-based Eosera and Ego Tequila. Daniel Lubetzky, founder of KIND Snacks and a “Shark Tank” investor, delivers the closing keynote at 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, Aug. 6, splits between a healthcare track led by Dallas-based Health Wildcatters and the AI & Tech Summit, sponsored by Justworks. The AI programming includes a panel on enterprise implementation with Leon Capital Group, the PGA of America and AT&T, plus a session on women shaping the field featuring executives from WEX, AT&T and Toyota.

Ben Lamm, co-founder and CEO of Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences, closes the week at 5:05 p.m. Thursday with a keynote on innovation at the intersection of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. Trey Bowles of 1845 Ventures moderates.

Registration is free. The full schedule is available at thedec.co/schedule.