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- 🔥 What’s hot in Houston’s innovation scene this week?
Happy Memorial Day Weekend friends!
Quick one before you fire up the grill.
Anthropic just dropped a founder's playbook for building an AI-native startup... and it's actually good. None of the usual "AI changes everything" fluff. Just real frameworks for each stage of the journey.
They map the whole thing across four stages: Idea, MVP, Launch, Scale. For each one you get the goals, the ways founders blow it, and the exercises to dodge that fate.
My favorite part? A framework for telling genuine product-market fit apart from early hype. Because we've all watched a "rocketship" turn out to be a sparkler.
There are founder war stories from companies actually doing this, plus a cheat sheet for when to reach for chat versus the coding tools.
If you've got 20 minutes this long weekend, give it a read.
DON’T FORGET TO CHECK THE ”MONEY ON THE TABLE” SECTION!!!
One more before you log off...
Houston founder Dr. Sonny White just closed a $12M oversubscribed seed round for Casimir. Scout Ventures led it, with Tim Draper and Capital Factory along for the ride.
The pitch? Pull persistent power straight out of the quantum vacuum. Yes... really.
His first device is a 5mm chip called MicroSparc, built for the places where swapping a battery is a nightmare. Embedded sensors. Wearables. Tire pressure monitors. First commercial units targeted for 2028.
Going from theoretical physics to a manufacturable semiconductor is absurdly hard. Which is exactly why this one's worth watching.
Godspeed, Casimir.
👉 Read Sonny's note
- oleg 👊
P.S. Know a Texas company doing something insane? hit reply.
Got a founder friend who needs to hear this? forward them this email. let's raise Houston's tech game together.
At Rocket Network, we do the dirty work for you, curating Houston's tech scene so you spend less time scrolling and more time building. Want to be featured or sponsor? Hit reply.
LET'S ROCKET NETWORK!
We are using emojis to guide subscribers in our event list 📅📍
🚀 - must attend
🔥🌶️ - something hot
🤓💻 - good for developers and other technical folks
🦄💰- venture capital and investing-related
⚡- energy-related
♻️- renewable energy and sustainability-related
🏥 - health care related
🎖️🪖 - veteran or military related
🏅 - sports tech related
₿ - web3 related
HERE ARE OUR PICKS FOR HTX THIS WEEK
Monday, May 25
Tuesday, May 26
🔥Houston AITX Meetup: Building a Second Brain with Obsidian — POST Houston
Houston chapter of the AITX Community. Speaker Josh Medeski walks through building a “second brain” in Obsidian through an AI lens — capture, organize, and connect your thinking. Networking, opening remarks, then a hands-on workshop + interactive demo at POST Houston (401 Franklin St).
Greater Houston Business Procurement Breakfast — Ion, 4201 Main St (8:00–11:00 AM)
Stop by the B2G Victory Team table at the Greater Houston Business Procurement Forum. Breakfast runs 8–9 AM; the forum connects Houston’s small and minority businesses to contracts, financing, and technical assistance.
🚀Founder Institute Houston 2026 Graduation + Demo Day — The Cannon West Houston (6:30 PM)
Five Founder Institute graduates pitch live, then open tables for a casual Demo Day. Alumni, mentors, and ecosystem folks are welcome to come celebrate. (Start time per FI program schedule — confirm on Luma.)
₿Houston Crypto Meetup #32
Houston's Bitcoin, crypto, and Web3 crowd is getting together.
This isn't another boring meetup... it's real talk for HODLers, traders, builders, and the crypto-curious. No hype, no pressure. Just honest conversations, a few laughs, and drinks with people who actually get it.
Wednesday, May 27
Space City Bootstrappers Monthly Hang
An unstructured cowork-and-hang for local founders, early-stage employees, and investors. Bring headphones if you want heads-down time. (Recurring 4th-Wednesday event — the link may display the prior month’s instance.)
Thursday, May 28
NASA Stories at the Ion: A Conversation with Branelle Rodriguez (8:30–10:00 AM | The Ion)
NASA’s Artemis II Orion Vehicle Manager on what it took to ready the spacecraft, its high-speed reentry, and what’s next for Orion. Complimentary breakfast and networking beforehand. Free.
Drop-in coworking day at Industrious inside the Ion — coffee, refreshments, and a focused space to get work done. Open to the community.
Citywide coalition networking night tied to Houston’s big global moment — 100+ organizations across business, civic, cultural, and consular communities. Broad business/civic crowd (founders welcome), more networking than tech programming. VIP at 5:30 PM, doors 6:00 PM.
Laid-back AI + tech networking mixer hosted by the Houston AI & Tech Meetup. Come hang out, make connections, talk shop.
🚀Houston Education Innovation Ecosystem May Meet-Up — The Cannon West Houston (6:00–8:00 PM)
InnovatED brings together educators, EdTech founders, and leaders shaping the future of learning. Featured speakers: Christopher Mayes and Jon Lambert.
Friday, May 29
🚀Ion Networking with Cup of Joey (8:30–10:30 AM | The Ion)
The weekly Friday-morning ritual — coffee-shop-open networking to meet new people, talk tech, and build community. Always worth the early start.
Free 1:1 mentoring from SCORE’s volunteer business mentors — useful for early founders working through strategy, ops, or growth questions.
Founder roundtable for Greater Houston startups — recurring topics include traction, funding-stage identification, ICP, and bootstrapping runway.
⚠️Hosting a tech meetup or startup event? Submit it via the RocketNetwork Event Submission Form to boost your visibility!
FEATURED EVENTS
FEATURED JOBS
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That’s a wrap for now, RocketNetworkers,
Stay tuned, and keep grinding!
Disclaimer: The content in this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by any sponsors. All opinions and information are those of the author and not of the sponsors or affiliated organizations.
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