Every Last Word

Dallas Innovates’ signature series capturing what leaders across North Texas are saying — in their own words — about innovation, impact, and what’s next.

Ben Lamm Hypergiant

The Last Word: Dallas Serial Entrepreneur Ben Lamm Exits Another Company

by | Aug 22, 2023
Dating apps can be a great way to find romance. But increasingly, according to the Wall Street Journal, users are finding something else instead: business come-ons from tech recruiters, networkers, children's book authors, and more.
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The Last Word: How Dating Apps Are Being Used for Business Networking, Not Romance
by | Aug 21, 2023
Dating apps can be a great way to find romance. But increasingly, according to the Wall Street Journal, users are finding something else instead: business come-ons from tech recruiters, networkers, children's book authors, and more.
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The Last Word: Anna Mayor Nate Pike on the Region’s Northward Growth
by | Aug 18, 2023
Dallas-Fort Worth has been growing northward for generations. But momentum kicked up a notch when two big semiconductor wafer fabrication plant projects were slated for Sherman: a $30 billion plan by Texas Instruments to build four "fab" plants, and GlobiTech's planned $5 billion silicon wafer facility. Together, the projects are expected to bring 4,500 jobs to the area.
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The Last Word: Albers Aerospace On Starting a Business with Vision and a ‘Get-Stuff-Done Mentality’
by | Aug 17, 2023
That vision and "get-stuff-done" mindset has fueled McKinney-based Albers Aerospace's growth and innovation for nearly a decade. Founded in 2014 by retired Marine John Albers, the family of defense and space manufacturing companies operates to deliver “top products while improving employees' lives.”
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The Last Word: Farmers Branch Mayor on Why His City Moved to a 4-Day Work Week

by | Aug 15, 2023
Farmers Branch has officially launched a four-day work for city employees. The move followed earlier approval by the city council, and a few months of schedule-testing by various city departments.
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The Last Word: Holy Rollie Pastry’s Kimberly Matthews Has Advice for Founders
by | Aug 14, 2023
Williams is one of four North Texas entrepreneurs we profiled last week who got funding through The DEC Network from the Small Business Administration's Community Navigator Pilot Program. 
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The Last Word: What Californians Say When They See Home Prices in Dallas
The California-to-Texas relocation trend grabbed attention from coast to coast last week when USA Today reported on it in a story titled "'We kept getting outbid': Californians moving to Texas explain why they're changing states."
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The Last Word: Cypress Growth Capital’s Vik Thapar on the Dallas Entrepeneur Difference
Dallas has proven to be an ideal home base for Cypress Growth Capital, Quincy Preston wrote last week in Dallas Innovates. The firm's unique model is defying norms in the funding landscape by fostering rapid growth without diluting entrepreneurial control.
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The Last Word: Jeff Ellerman on Why Dallas’ 50-Mile Loop Will Become One Famous Trail

The Loop Dallas—a 50-mile, $120 million urban bike trail with a goal of uniting neighborhoods around much of the city’s core—is turning what Ellerman calls "a spaghetti map of trails" into one big soaring loop he says will one day be known by all.
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The Last Word: HSC’s Cameron Cushman on Fort Worth’s ‘Guide to Starting a Small Business’ Webpage
by | Aug 4, 2023
"No matter where you are in your startup journey, the City of Fort Worth's "Guide to Starting a Small Business" webpage directs small business owners to local resources—all in an easy-to-understand, step-by-step guide," the post reads.
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The Last Word: Why Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Won the DMA’s International Design Competition
by | Aug 3, 2023
The Madrid-based competition winners describe their winning proposal to reimagine the Dallas Museum of Art "as a reflection of the original building, transforming the relationship between art, landscape, and community into a balance of memory and innovation."
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The Last Word: The Loop Dallas on Nic Nicosia’s ‘The Twins’ on the Katy Trail
by | Aug 2, 2023
Watch out for something curious the next time you walk, run, or bike down Dallas' Katy Trail at the Thomson Overlook. There you'll find the two "alien avatars" created by artist Nic Nicosia after a commission by The Austin Contemporary. 
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The Last Word: Turvo’s Billy Sarracino on How To Become a CEO

In a Q&A with the DBJ's David Moreno, Sarracino said he aims to "plant a flag [in Dallas] permanently" and to build Turvo into "a billion-dollar company through M&As and innovation" in the next four or five years. 
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The Last Word: Hue’s Fahad Khawaja on the Importance of Community-Building in Innovation
During a keynote discussion at MassChallenge's recent MC | Innovate 2023, event at Pegasus Park, Khawaja stressed the importance of trust and community-building in the innovation process.
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The Last Word: DeSoto Mayor Rachel Proctor on Asking Residents To Take Part in City’s Video Campaign
by | Jul 26, 2023
“By taking the time to look at our residents up close, and showing who they are and how they make a difference in the fabric of our city, everyone will be able to see the DeSoto that I see," Mayor Proctor said in a statement. "And they’ll know exactly why there's so much to love about DeSoto.”
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The Last Word: Dale Sheehan on the Newly Opened Meow Wolf Grapevine
Sheehan, who joined the experiential art collective Meow Wolf in 2019 after working at Walt Disney Imagineering for a decade, spoke with ArtNet about the collective's recently opened permanent exhibition at Grapevine Mills mall in Grapevine.
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