TXST hosts former HUD Secretary for Entrepreneurial Speaker Series

There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur in Texas.

Texas is one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S., according to the University of Houston Hobby Center for Public Policy.

What’s more, the Texas Governor’s Office recently reported several high-profile industries — among them SpaceX, Meta, Google, Samsung, Kroger and Tyson Foods — as either relocating or expanding their locations to Texas.

“Austin [and] San Antonio alone [will] be 9 million people. Dallas will be 13, and Houston will be 13 million in 2050,” said Henry Cisneros, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, mayor of San Antonio, and president/COO of Univision. “Twenty-seven years from now, during the time your careers are going to be unfolding, you’re going to be sitting in a rocket ship.”

As a distinguished guest speaker for TXST’s Entrepreneurial Speaker Series, Cisneros offered his optimistic outlook to an auditorium full of McCoy College of Business students packed inside McCoy Hall 119 on Tuesday.

Cisneros also defined entrepreneurship and its practical functions during Tuesday’s lecture.

“Why do I think entrepreneurship is important in practical terms?” Cisneros said. “Because it gives you the opportunity to own something yourself.”

“Not everybody wants that life,” he said. “But if you want to be [the] master of your destiny, entrepreneurship, small business, there’s a place to do it.”

The Entrepreneurial Speaker Series is hosted by the McCoy College of Business every Fall and Spring semester and invites accomplished entrepreneurs and business leaders to speak with students enrolled in the Studies in Entrepreneurship (MGT 3360) course at TXST.

The Studies in Entrepreneurship program was developed in 1999 by Dr. Jim Bell, a former faculty member with the Department of Management, and La Quinta founder Dr. Sam Barshop, according to Dr. Josh Daspit, an associate professor who teaches MGT 3360 at TXST.

Daspit said many speakers McCoy College of Business has hosted  “are very open about failure.”

“As a class, we’ve talked about how failure is not a bad thing, right?” Daspit said. “If you’re not failing, [perhaps] you’re not trying hard enough.”

The purpose of the lecture series, according to Daspit, is to expose students to what he refers to as “the entrepreneurial mindset.”

“An entrepreneurial mindset goes far beyond being able to start a new business,” Daspit explained. “We argue that mindset allows an individual to recognize opportunity, [and to] make decisions with limited information, changing context.”

Recognizing opportunity also means finding ways around socioeconomic barriers, which Cisneros suggested in his advice for young, aspiring entrepreneurs.

First, he said, you should probe for the right ideas and make sure it’s something that can work.

Then, think of scaling and raising capital.

“There’s a lot of sources that are not family that are looking for good ideas and private equity types,” Cisneros said. “[For example,] chambers of commerce have networks that provide capital for starting businesses.”

“But I don’t think not having family money to start with is an impediment,” Cisneros added. “We have too many examples of people who have started from scratch and built something substantial. But it’s a lifetime of work.”