Innovate Fort Worth

Fort Worth Native, Sarah Castillo, is a serial entrepreneur who has built an empire across North Texas. It all started with making breakfast tacos for golfers at Marine Creek Golf Course, which led into literally having a dream that she owned a food truck. How wild is that!?! After gaining restaurant experience working at Eddie V’s(shout out) - she ventured out (with her mama) selling delicious tacos out of a trailer in the West 7th area of Fort Worth. Over the last decade, her trailer evolved into a food truck 'Taco Heads', and she gained enough notoriety to expand the brand through brick and mortar locations in both Fort Worth and in Dallas.

There’s nothing Sarah can’t do - in fact, back in 2018, she underwent major renovations of a historical building in the Near Southside and opened an upscale Mexican restaurant and bar called Tinie’s Mexican Cuisine, named after her mother, Christina. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate, Sarah contracted with 87W to open Sidesaddle Saloon in 2021 - a renovated 108-year-old complex of course and mule stables in the Stockyards National Historic District.

Tune in to hear how travel has inspired her menu, building relationships golfing gave her an advantage, and owning who she is.

A big thanks to everyone who helps make this podcast happen!

Producer: Rob Upchurch, RobMakesPods Productions

Founding Sponsors: First Financial Bank and M-PAK

Studio: BLANC Cowork + Studio

Our Media Partners: Madeworthy Media & Tanglewood Moms

The memories made at a football game or a concert are special. And Cameron Fowler is finding ways to personalize the experience to the audience. Cameron is CEO of Digital Seat Media, a tech startup putting QR codes in stadiums and venues to enhance the fan experience by customizing features specific to each seat. Whether it is ordering food or merchandise, accessing exclusive behind the scenes content, or playing interactive games, Digital Seat Media is enhancing the live entertainment experience.

Learn more about Digital Seat Media: https://www.digitalseat.com

Follow Innovate Fort Worth on social media: @hscinnovates

In the pursuit to find a healthier, but still tasty snack, Quentin Crawford is making jerky out of fish. The Good Jerky is providing meat lovers a chewy, smoky fish-based jerky that tastes like more traditional beef jerky. Stemming from Quentin’s interest of eating more health-conscious snacks, The Good Jerky has now opened new doors for Quentin in the startup space. Recently, The Good Jerky was accepted into MassChallenge, a global, zero-equity startup accelerator. Before that, The Good Jerky participated in Impact Ventures’ Local Entrepreneur Accelerator Program in April 2022.

What started as a family business with Austin Laramore and his grandfather has grown into an innovative mechanism to help rodeo roping cowboys in the arena. The ChuteHelp Fully Automatic Chute uses solar power and gravity to manage cattle in chutes and make animal management much more efficient. Austin shares how one startup led to another through his creation of BotBros, an automated robotic welding service company, to help him fill orders for ChuteHelp. 

When it comes to understanding the CDFI program in Fort Worth, Christina Brooks is the person to know. She discusses how investing patient and accessible funding into unrepresented communities can create a positive impact for Fort Worth. This can be capital to start a business, loans to help buy a house, or investments in development projects. And CDFI Friendly Fort Worth has already left a huge impact on the community. 

To learn more, visit www.cdfifriendlyfortworth.org.

Follow us on social media at @hscinnovates

He’s a serial entrepreneur, TCU’s Entrepreneur in Residence, and one of the most seasoned innovators in DFW. Michael Sherrod talks about his career in media, how a car accident changed his life, getting acquired by America Online and selling the internet’s first digital ad. From starting a lifestyle magazine in West Texas to navigating the dot com boom, this local entrepreneur has done it all.

When it comes to healthcare startups, Josh Robertson does it all. From a young age, he saw some of the biggest problems in healthcare, and he wanted to do something about them. His passion for helping people led to building startups by infusing empathy into the patient’s healthcare experience. This philosophy grew into several healthcare startup companies, an investment group, and even a nonprofit.

In search of a better shave, this local entrepreneur designed a cutting-edge version of a classic product. Meet Patrick Coddou, the aerospace engineer turned entrepreneur who started a new, single blade razor company called Supply. Patrick discusses how he created an alternative to the multi-blade razors that have become prevalent in the personal care industry. Patrick took Supply to Shark Tank in 2019 and did a deal with one of the sharks. Hear how Supply has gone viral on TikTok and how he attracts new customers through digital advertising.