It can be hard to keep up with North Texas’ growing software industry. Greg Head, who has worked in the software space for 30 years, has taken it on himself to maintain his own list of software companies called Gregslist DFW. 

With 345 software companies already on the list, Head expects Gregslist DFW to have at least 500 by January 2020. Head, who formerly worked as software company Infusionsoft’s chief marketing officer, updates Greglist DFW monthly and welcomes any suggested updates or additions to his list.

Among Gregslist DFW’s top five North Texas cities with the most commercial software companies are:

• Dallas—156
• Plano—40
• Irving—28
• Richardson—27
• Addison—21

Within the 345 companies currently on Gregslist DFW are an estimated 27,950 employees—and that’s without accounting for non-software startups, software development services companies, and non-software companies that have software developers. Some 24 of these companies are led by female CEOs, according to Head, which accounts for 7 percent of the overall list. 

Head is hopeful for the future of North Texas’ software industry.

“I clearly see a ‘software corridor’ that stretches from downtown Dallas, through Uptown and North Dallas to Frisco, Plano, Richardson, and Lewisville,” Head told Dallas Innovates. “There are many talented entrepreneurs and technologists here, too. Dallas is a very active business town.”

How Gregslist came to be

Although Gregslist only launched in North Texas in August, this isn’t the first time Head has been involved with the software industry. He has grown business after business into successful companies for years.

“I participated in growing three companies from startups to global enterprises,” Head says. “My third successful software company, Infusionsoft in Phoenix where I was the chief marketing officer, we grew from $15 million to over $100 million in revenue in five years.” 

After leaving Infusionsoft in 2015, Head started mentoring other founders and CEOs. He learned along the way that there wasn’t much confidence in Phoenix’s software industry.

“Investors and executive talent and tech experts I knew were asking me where all the Arizona software companies were, so I would send them my Evernote list of software companies in Phoenix to help connect people,” Head says. “My list of software companies kept growing, but nobody believed there were over 100 software companies in Phoenix. So I decided to publish the list with up-to-date company details on my website for free. It was my community volunteer project, which is why I called it Gregslist.”

Over 450 software companies are now on Gregslist Arizona with over 50,000 people using the site in the past three years, he says.

“When the list hit 300 software companies in Phoenix, people stopped saying, ‘Phoenix isn’t a software town,'” Head says.

Last July, Head and his wife Felicia moved back where the couple had originally met—North Texas.

“I started connecting with local tech founders and tech leaders here. People told me the same thing: ‘Dallas really isn’t a software town, there’s not much going on here like there is in Austin.’ I was curious, so I started making a list of commercial software companies here. Right away I found over 300 software companies in Dallas-Fort Worth. I launched Gregslist DFW in August and now people all over DFW are using it—founders, job seekers, investors, and tech leaders—just like they do in Phoenix,” Head says.

Along with managing Greglist DFW, Head is also the CEO of Southlake-based Scaling Point, a company that helps startups and early-stage software companies find the leverage point in their businesses to drive growth.

If you know of a software company in DFW that hasn’t yet made its way onto Gregslist DFW or needs an update, feel free to suggest it here.

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