Welcome to this issue of Austin Business Review, a weekly roundup of great local events and insights for Austin business owners (plus some other cool stuff for your life outside of work).

My name’s Ethan and I’m the one writing this (holler at me here!).

Well, I’m not at Starbase like I hoped. Turns out the launch date for Starship’s next test flight is still tentative. But this week I stumbled across Starbase Brewing, which will actually send you mission patches if you watch launch livestreams while sipping their suds, so all is not lost.

Bunch of stuff in the email today, including:

Did someone forward this to you? If you like it, you can sign up here!

-Ethan

PS. Friday morning, I’m hosting the very first “We Should Get Coffee,” Coffee – a chance to catch up with founder friends you’ve been meaning to see, while meeting some other cool people in the Austin business community.

Bunch of great people on the list so far, so join us for a drink up at St. Elmo Springdale, and feel free to invite a friend ☕

Upcoming Events

Running a business is tough. Here are a few great places to meet cool people going through the same sh*t you are.

🗓️ Founder Walk & Talk: Hampton members meet at Mañana Dos at 7AM, to walk and talk ahead of the weekend. Other founders welcome! Ping Chad Sakonchick for more.

🗓️ Tomorrow: Lean Coffee: William Baxter and Duri Chitayat, veterans of Lean Coffee NYC, have brought the format to ATX

🗓️ May 27: Facilitation Lab: Every month, Douglas Ferguson and Erin Warner host this hands-on meetup where leaders hone their group facilitation skills

🗓️ May 27: Plug & Play Showcase: This accelerator in Cedar Park is showing off startups in their advanced manufacturing and semiconductor verticals

🗓️ May 27: Business After Dark: For those of you out west, tired of going downtown for events, Ray Freer and the West Austin Chamber are hosting a cookout/happy hour

🗓️ May 27: Impact Dinner: Julian Guderley is hosting a dinner discussion for founders and investors focused on impact and sustainability

🗓️ May 28: Austin Connections: If you’re newer in town, check out this weekly happy hour by Devon Ambron, Drew vonEhrenkrook, and Weston Woodward at Lazarus

🗓️ May 28: Schnitzel & Champagne: The latest installment of Ayal Levin’s Leave a Mark’s Storytelling Night, focused on the business impact of great storytelling

🗓️ May 28: Pat & Umar’s VC/PE Happy Hour: Pat Moody and Umar Brimah are back with their epic meetup for 150+ founders, VCs, and operators in ATX

🗓️ May 28: Austin AI Alliance: Monthly meeting of AAIA, which brings together founders, leaders, and students in the AI space

🗓️ May 28: Brewer Series at Red Fridge: Mark Phillippe, founder of Hi Sign Brewing, is hosting a tasting and telling his story down at The Red Fridge Society

🗓️ May 29: Business & Birdies: My buddy Tomer Soran is back with his Thursday morning meetup Butler Pitch + Putt to chat business and play 9 holes

🗓️ May 29: Superagency (Online): Jay Boisseau of the Austin Forum on Technology & Society is hosting a digital discussion of Reid Hoffman’s latest book

🗓️ May 29: Speak Your Truth: Colleen Schell is the founder of FABx, which teaches storytelling to leaders. This event combines talks, training exercises, and open mic

🗓️ May 29: Nerd Nite Austin: Like a mini TED, for nerds, by nerds, this month’s topic is “Rebuilding after life knocks you down.”

🗓️ May 30: TWIB Coffee Connect: Texas Women in Business is hosting a coffee hour at Sierra Bailey’s co-working space, Maeve House, down south.

🗓️ May 30: Pickup Basketball for Founders: Every month, Nick Schenck hosts a pickup game for founders at Ramsey Neighborhood Park starting at 5PM. Drop in, or email him here to get on the list for future dates

🗓️ May 30: Beyond Human: Meet Brian Sanders, founder of the Sapien Center, along with other biohackers for clean BBQ and specialty wine, cocktails, and mocktails

One last thing… We’ve got a date for the next installment of A Moveable Feast, the monthly dinner series on money and creativity I’m hosting with my buddy, Zac Solomon, of the ATX Writing Club.

Last time, published authors, founders, investors, and even a fire dancer (with a background in institutional finance) shared a table, and wine, and stories from the trenches. You can see their reviews here.

On June 21st, we’re doing it again. The topic of the night will be “How To Raise Prices and Get Paid More for Your Creative Work.” It’ll be very tactical, with 6- to 7-figure operators already on the list. So if you make your living doing something you consider “creative work,” join us.

Fun Stuff Coming Up

If you’ve got kids, the LBJ Wildflower Center has these life-size animatronic dinosaurs on-site through August 17. Created by 'Dino' Don Lessem, advisor on Jurassic Park, they’re said to be, “the most scientifically accurate robotic dinosaurs ever made.”

Elsewhere, we have…

Insights

Thought-provoking ideas and stories published by founders in ATX

1. AI Isn’t Your Moat: I enjoyed this conversation between local billionaire, Joe Lonsdale, and Sam Lessin, his co-founder at Merit First. Sam was early at Facebook, and shared some fascinating thoughts on the missing “identity” layer of the internet, the rise of private group chats, and the current state of VC. Great chat.

2. Wholesale for DTC Founders: Data from Sam Hill’s 2025 P&L Benchmark Report shows a clear trend – DTC founders should be exploring wholesale. One way to do that is Faire, and Caroline Grace just published this great piece on turning one-time Faire orders into loyal retail accounts

3. STR Owners: Ben Wolff runs an eight-figure hospitality portfolio and just updated his playbook on how they find high-ROI influencers. This is a huge part of their strategy, and was the key factor in driving 80% occupancy and 76% IRR in their first year

4. Screenless Computing: I was literally thirty-eight seconds into this fascinating video, shared by local VC Fred Oliveira, when I decided it needed to go in here. Bret Victor is developing a new form of computing that not only doesn’t require screens, but the whole thing – right down to the OS – is coded without using screens. He shows how it works, and what a high-tech world without screens might look like.

5. Two For The Weekend: After writing this piece on the importance of focus, I’ve been trying to read longer, more difficult things recently. Two pieces I’ve got my eye on this weekend are:

That’s all for this week!

Email me here if you want to share any feedback, or let me know about an event you’re hosting.

Until next week,

-Ethan