Big Techs

The Plano-Westlake corridor is attracting mid-size operators who want Legacy West infrastructure without the price tag.

If you're thinking about office space in the next year or two, the numbers up there are worth understanding before you commit.

Have you looked at space in that corridor recently? What's driving your location decisions?

Quick poll - DFW business owners:

Where do you most often find surprise money leaks?

A) Software nobody uses
B) Auto-renewed vendor contracts
C) Overtime and scheduling drift
D) Marketing with no clear ROI

Drop your letter in the comments.

Signed without reading. Got locked into a two-year contract I thought was month-to-month.

Now my rule: before any commitment over $500/month, two reference calls - not from the vendor's list.

The research never costs as much as skipping it.

What's your pre-commitment checklist look like?

If you can't out-spend the bigger shops on raises, out-invest them on skills.

The Texas Workforce Commission's Skills for Small Business program will fund up to $2,000 in training for a new hire and $1,000 per existing employee. Has to run through a Texas public community college (Dallas College, Tarrant County College, Collin, North Central Texas).

Eligibility: fewer than 100 employees. Almost nobody applies.

Full breakdown at bigtechs.net

The Plano-Frisco corridor has more decision-makers per square mile than most cities three times its size.

Some of my best business conversations have happened on a patio up here - not in a meeting room.

What's your favorite spot in Plano or Frisco to grab a coffee or a drink and actually talk business?

Self-imposed deadlines are where real discipline gets built.

Anyone can hit a deadline with a client on the other end. The test is whether you keep your word to yourself when nobody's watching.

I started requiring myself to write down why before moving any self-set deadline. That small friction changed a lot.

Do you treat your own deadlines the same way you'd treat a client's?

Every quarter, I spend two hours auditing every recurring charge on our accounts.

Last time: $1,400/month in forgotten subscriptions and vendor fees nobody questioned.

It's not glamorous work. But it's the kind of thing that quietly eats your margins if you skip it.

Do you do a regular recurring-charge audit? When did you last run one?

What did you put in the "merit increase" cell on your 2026 budget?

If you're like most DFW owners, somewhere between 4% and 5%. That was the right answer two years ago. It is now about 200 basis points above what the actual labor market is doing here.

The BLS just dropped the number: DFW private wages rose just 1.8% for the year ending March 2026. National rate is 3.4%. Total comp here grew 2.3%, down from 4.4% a year ago.

If you lock in 3% raises this cycle, you'll feel generous AND still pay below the local market.

Full breakdown plus a free wage worksheet in this week's Big Techs. Free at bigtechs.net

Wrapping the week with the question we keep asking DFW operators: what are you saying no to in Q2 so you can say yes to something that actually moves the business? Good leadership in 2026 is mostly the no.