24 Profitable Business Ideas To Start In Texas

Growing up, in Fort Worth, Texas, I have always had a passion for business, sales and fashion.

I loved getting the latest pair of shoes and making sure my outfit was top notch going to school. I also loved the idea of selling my ideas and trying to negotiate deals with my parents or friends. My childhood buddies would agree that I was a sweet talker, hard worker, highly competitive and a very disciplined person in life, athletics and work.

No one is really prepared to own a business. I had a marketing degree with work experience in the field of business and marketing. I was even a teacher of the subject matter. Those things helped me get started, but the day-to-day experiences and the process of trial and error has really been the true tale of our success.

Two years ago I was working a 9-5 and while I loved it, with limited PTO I couldn't jetset around the world.

In order to cure my wanderlust I would look for places close to home that I could visit. I would go sand surfing at Monahans, go on a safari in Glen Rose, try cuisines from around the world in Houston, and visit the wine country in Fredericksburg. I would post pictures on my social media for fun. I had also worked as a semi-professional photographer so I did have photography experience.

In 2012 I was a junior in college studying Nutrition at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I was also in the ROTC program there so I knew that upon graduating college I would be commissioning into the US Army as an officer.

My friends and I were your typical broke college students and we loved weight training. Because we couldn’t continue to buy our own pre-workout supplements due to personal funds, or lack thereof, we decided to all go in together and purchase bulk ingredients to make our own pre-workout supplements.

Many of these college students, and friends of mine, took out this $25K loan to buy new cars, take vacations, get engaged and married, but I decided that this would be my funding to launch my company.

I had the idea with a lifelong friend of mine (co-founder Brad Schultz) to make a party version of boxed wine.

We saw how popular boxed wine, typically Franzia was in college, at tailgates, kickball games, beach trips, etc. But no one was buying it because they loved the taste of the wine. They loved the affordability, convenience and taking the bag out of the box to slap the bag! We also saw the explosion of flavored malt beverages like Four Loko, Lime-a-Rita and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. So we asked ourselves why had no one made a fun flavored version of boxed wine for the millennial consumer?

Don’t just assume your idea is great. Even if your family and friends say so. Get a prototype out into the market. Get people outside of your network to tell you it’s a good idea.

Married two weeks after my 19th birthday, I had six children by the age of 28. I hold no degree and have completed no formalized training. I don't even know how to sew! My journey started selling hair accessories on Etsy as a side project to keep me busy and provide some greatly needed financial relief after my husband had graduated from school.

A product without a person is just a product. If you can manage to connect with people on a personal level, you will have a fan for life. And a fan is a thousand times more valuable than simply another customer.

Upon his graduation, we were in a mountain of debt and forced to do a Short Sale on our Arizona home as we moved to Michigan for his work. I taught preschool out of our home until Bailey's Blossoms grew to the size that I could make it a more full-time endeavor. I started making tutus and other higher-value items to increase my dollar per hour earnings.

Since I was a kid I have always had a sense of wonder about the world and the mechanisms behind it. Whether it be a jet engine or a windshield wiper-I have thought about the creative process behind these things since I was 10 years old.

I drew houses as a kid. My dad grew up in a home designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, it was a solar home and it had an odd features. One example is, the entire back wall that was about 100 feet long and 15 feet high comprised of windows that all opened. In front, there were functioning levers that had fans which would draw airflow in and out.

Growing up I thought I wanted to be a pilot. I was described in high school by a classmate as “poetic” which I found offensive. I tried a hand in many things; managing a farm and pre-school, which were two businesses I inherited. This type of work wasn’t for me.

I have always had a fascination with art and style. I've also always loved creating things in many different formats. The idea for Braxley Bands started because of a personal desire for a more comfortable Watch band option and the need to come up with a project idea for my marketing class. My band at the time was the original band Apple included which is made from cheap-feeling plastic. Furthermore, the only options out there at the time were very plain solid colored designs. I wanted to jazz it up.

I had absolutely no background in anything related to business when I got started aside from me being a Junior marketing major. While I did learn some foundational stuff in business school, most everything eCommerce related was learned either from podcasts, books, people on social media, or mentors.

We didn’t have a big budget at all when we were getting started because we didn’t want to take an investor. That way we could play by our own rules. Also, who would ever give us money? So we had to learn everything ourselves. Everything from accounting to photoshop to supply chain management.

I played in the NFL for 6 years. I would watch a player like Cam Newton dance and jam out with his headphones on during warm-ups and I was just dying to know what he was listening to.

I wanted to feed off Cam’s energy, and then I thought to myself, “How cool would it be if everyone could hear what he was listening to at that very moment?”

Don’t be afraid to try new, bold ideas. You won’t know until you try. Your final product will not look like your initial product. Iteration is key.

Have you ever looked at you’re vacation pictures and wondered if you could get rid of the bags or luggage photobombing the otherwise perfect vacation photograph? That’s our eureka moment! As a mom of five-year-old, I'm constantly clicking pictures of my son to keep up with him growing up so fast. After one of our vacations, I was trying to find the perfect picture to design for a keepsake. It didn’t exist.

Imagine my horror when I went back in time and still couldn’t find a picture without luggage. They were mostly ruined by either the stroller lurking around or the luggage staring back at us. Our sentiments were shared by our friends and we decided to do something about it. It got us thinking about how it could be changed. It then dawned on us that we had to lug around all our luggage because of the unavailability of lockers to store them when we didn’t need them.

Digging more into it, we soon realized that, lugging due to lack of convenient storage lockers were a huge problem and resonated with vacation rental guests, hotel guests, long layover air passengers, event attendees, etc,.This meant there’s definitely a need for a luggage storage solution. It must be simple, convenient and also affordable. Cubby was designed to keep these key factors and most importantly the safety of the bags.

We are Jackie and Evan Streusand - a married couple, living in Austin, Texas. (When not robe-ing) Jackie works as an interior designer for SLIC Design. Evan has owned and operated a sustainable women’s shoe brand called Fortress of Inca since 2010. Highway Robery was the inevitable outcome of our combined powers - Jackie (design + production) and Evan (business development + marketing).

Early in the summer of 2016 we took a road trip out to west Texas and spent a few days taking scenic drives and lounging around. There were a pair of colorful robes in the place that we were staying and naturally, we put them on. For the better part of the next few days they didn't really come off. We ate in them, we drank in them, we yada yada'd in them, and we slept in them. We had a great time and eventually we came back home to Austin.

That first $7,000 is all we have ever put into the business. We have grown it organically since then. As they say, slow and steady wins the race.

I come from the publishing business starting 20 years ago.

I started publishing homeowner association newsletters in the 1990s. From there I discovered a franchise called “Coffee News”. Coffee News is a restaurant distributed newsletter printed on tan colored paper in black print. It is distributed weekly to restaurants.

If you believe in your idea and yourself, go for it. Figure out how to make it work. Start as a side hustle and grow your idea. It has never been a better time to start your own business or build a billion dollar brand.

I was born in Houma, Louisiana - a small town about an hour Southwest of New Orleans. I grew up wrestling alligators, fishing and hunting, drinking beer in sugarcane fields, and of course speaking with a funny Cajun accent.

“I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to be when I grew up after graduation. However, I did know I wanted to be an entrepreneur. That was clear.”

Houma is the hub of offshore oil and gas, the key to the Gulf of Mexico with its ports and access to the coast. Because of this, oilfield service companies and related businesses define this Louisiana community. Both my mom and dad worked in the oilfield.

I never thought I would have my own business, much less a tourism business. It was born of necessity, a bit of luck, and good timing.

You can have the best product in the world, but that won’t do you any good if customers don’t know about it.

First, some important context – this is technically my second attempt at entrepreneurship. Back in 2011, when I was living in Dubai, I had the idea of starting an online food delivery business – basically UberEats, for Dubai. At the time there was only one serious competitor, Foodonclick.

Growing up I’ve always had this unique passion for art and all things creative. I was that artsy girl in all the art classes in high school and even took a few art classes in College.

When strangers were noticing my art and asked if I had a website, business card, etc., it really pushed me to start the business.

I never thought I could actually have a “successful career” with art so I majored in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. I worked as an Assistant SLP for 2 years after graduating and worked for a pediatric home health company. I truly enjoyed working with special needs children with language disorders and thought this was my calling. However, after applying to grad school and receiving rejection letters for the grad program, I was completely devastated. I felt like a huge failure and was so discouraged. In response, I started painting again.

My husband and I, along with their friends Mark & Trish Oliphant had a casual backyard barbecue one night after a sail on the Barnegat Bay. Chopping wood for a chiminea fire led to the creation of an impromptu game of throwing the axe to a makeshift bullseye on a stump from a tree that came down during Superstorm Sandy.

The game evolved to a more sophisticated target of 2 x 6′ timbers on a tripod stand in the backyard. Soon, the four of us realized this game had potential and decided to take it indoors, recreating the fun and bonding over food, drinks, and some hatchet throwing. We wanted our business to provide more than just a place to play a game. Stumpy’s “social throwdown” allows friends to get together to create memories by doing something slightly out of their comfort zone in a beautiful, rustic environment.

Starting a business was something that the four of us often talked about when spending time together for our “next career”. Mark, a retired union carpenter, was raring to go. His wife Trish had been working for Ralph Lauren in the men’s wholesale division, while I was 3 years from retiring from the school system as an elementary school principal. My husband, Stuart, was also eager to have a successful side business, but at the time none of us had thought this business idea would evolve into a major recreation industry. After the business was up and running for several months, Trish, Stu, and I were able to join Mark in retirement from our “day jobs”. The four of us used our diversified backgrounds set out to go “all in” with our goal to be the #1 name in indoor recreation for adults.

As a runner I was experiencing a need for a more secure, more convenient option for my valuables and gear at road races. Scratching my own itch, I launched the service with a focus solely on running events in New England.

Utilizing my connections with other runners and syncing up with event organizers, we tested the concept for 8 months with a locker trailer before bringing the trucks on the road and rebranding as The Mobile Locker Co.

The initial launch with the locker trailer was self-funded from my personal savings. This allowed us to test our systems with minimal overhead and also gather real world feedback on the concept. Luckily, it was well received and we were able to secure funding to get our first two trucks on the road from personal connections through my two initial sweat-equity partners.

Golf is something I only got into 8 or so years ago and have been obsessed with it since! Around that time I invested and operated an indoor virtual golf center in Melbourne, and after 5 years developed a concept similar to 24 hour gyms, but for golf - called 24/7 Golf. Members could sign up and play or practice virtual golf with no staff in an unmanned golf studio.

The business grew a little, and I kept selling golf simulators on the side.

Having partnered with SkyTrak Golf, the sales really took off. I always knew golf simulators would be a hit if the price was right. Originally I was selling them for $30,000 plus, and mostly to commercial ventures (like virtual golf bars) - but they actually didn’t do well at all and most closed down. Retail rents in Australian capital cities are crazy. In our Melbourne location, we were paying $360,000 per annum!

I never set out to start a software agency. Growing up I never thought I would be an entrepreneur, or even get into tech.

But when I got to college I decided to take an intro to Computer Science class. My plan at the time was to teach math in the Peace Corps. I didn’t like math enough to be a math major but figured Computer Science would be interesting and involve a lot of math.

Learn what makes you great and where you need help. It will be worth every penny.

I was inspired to create Bluminary after dinner with friends. I was surrounded by entrepreneurs, and we were talking about how we wish we knew someone who created candles (all of us were continually burning candles in our home). That’s when I realized that the person could and should be me! It also helped I recently found myself between jobs and was looking for a new hobby to take up some time.

I instantly knew I wanted to create a product connected with my travels and portrayed my sense of adventure. The easier (nothing is easy when starting a company) part was knowing I’d use my photography for the labels and stick with more natural scents.

I spent an entire month joining Facebook groups, watching Youtube videos, and taking notes. I have a 5 page Google Document with everything I learned while gathering data. There was a month of testing wax types, wick sizes, selecting my containers, and fragrance oils to ensure they would align with my brand and attract customers. I created a handful of spreadsheets with columns and rows of numbers to craft a budget and gain an understanding of how much would need to be invested at each stage of the process - from gathering supplies to building a website, and shipping materials.

I am a big traveler and a beauty fanatic!

Being an international student, I traveled back and forth a lot between countries and continents. When I came up with the idea of ZIRUI I was 18 and had already traveled to more than 20 countries, so I was very familiar with the pain of traveling and having to pack my things nicely.

I was just getting very fed up with the standard startup rhetoric, and being in the ecosystem, I saw there was a lot of ego in the game. Some people are not working on what they truly believe in but just picking a problem that sounds cool because a “startup” is cool now.

When I started Modern Workspace, I didn’t have any sort of fascination or expertise with office furniture. I spent a lot of time on a blog called eCommerceFuel and the recurring theme there was "niche down".

I settled on office furniture and medical carts because I have a healthcare background and it made it easier to leverage the power of my old network.

In addition, my uncle ran a technology furniture business that specialized in videoconferencing. In the early days he let me dropship some of his products before I discovered World Wide Brands as a source for dropshipping suppliers.

My co-founder Tadd Weese is an operations manager for a long-term medical facility. Part of his job is doing emergency response training for the entire staff of the facility and then proving this training had been done whenever the facility was inspected by state or federal regulators.

A huge part of our journey has been our decision to go slow with a technology product. We could have taken loans, shopped for VC money or even raised “friends and family” funding to go faster but we really didn’t want to be constrained in that way.

This is required by law, but there is no official tool, document, process etc. to execute the training and document. This would be like filing your taxes without the IRS forms.

In the beginning, it was an idea based out of necessity. I couldn’t find the product I wanted so I created my own. At the time, I was not strapped for cash because I was in the Army, but I was only making about 50 grand a year risking my life for a cause I no longer believed in.

You have to find what works for and motivates you to keep going day in and day out for as long as it takes. Are you willing to sacrifice 20 years to dedicate to this dream without pay? If not, then you may not have what it takes, if so, you do, and most likely it won’t take 20 years.

The idea

I graduated from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut with a film degree in 2014. Growing up in a small farm town in Woodstock, CT, my dream was always to make it big and become a famous horror movie director. I had such a strong passion for directing and cinematography, but after one cold morning in Chinatown at 4 am on the set of the HBO show GIRLS, I knew that I wasn’t cracked up for that life.

I then took my first sales job in 2015 at a software company in New York City called Contently to pay off my student loans. It ended up being one of the most important things I ever did as I learned invaluable sales and outreach skills that would help me later land deals for CROSSNET with retailers such as DICK’S, Target, Academy, Walmart, and Scheels.

After a lovely layoff in the spring of 2017, I got offered a gig as Uber’s first-ever external Account Executive in their NY HQ helping launching UberEats in Boston and Providence. Through Uber’s relaxed start-up culture and demanding sales quotas, I learned the value of providing autonomy and trust to my future employees and freelancers. Who cares if you take a 20-minute coffee break and take an extra day off if you are hitting 150% of your quota. I have that same mentality for all of my employees, as long as we are hitting our deadlines, putting out high-quality work, there’s no need to add extra stress in anybody's life.