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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).
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My name’s Ethan and I’m the one writing this (holler at me here!).
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The craziness of SXSW is winding down, just in time for the craziness of St. Patrick’s Day to begin. This week, we’re looking at:
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🗓️ Founder Events
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🤖 The First-Ever Austin AI Film Fest
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💰 Two Fundraising Opportunities
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⛳ Bill Murray’s Coming To Town
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🍻 New Releases from Local Brewers & Distillers
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And more…
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Did someone forward this to you? If you like it, you can sign up here!
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-Ethan
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PS. You read this newsletter to meet cool other founders around town. This week, I want to introduce you to Ashley Raymond, co-founder and CEO of Safely. They’re a pepper spray company that’s:
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🏃♀️ Designed by women for women (rare in the self defense space)
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🚀 Grown almost all organically – less than $1.5k all-time ad spend
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🏆 Won SafeWise No. 1 Multi-Use Self Defense Tool Last Year
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Ashley played a key role in a project I’ve been working on, by helping me connect with one of Austin’s most intriguing unicorn founders (more on this later).
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Check out her full story in the second half of this email!
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Upcoming Events
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Things are always a little slow in the days after SXSW. But here are a few cool places to meet other builders…
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🗓️ Mar 14: Female Founders & Friends: Hosted the third Friday of every month by Juliette Richert of the Artemis Fund, and Angie Neas of JustWorks
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🗓️ Mar 15: ATX Writing Club: Hosted by my buddy, Zac Solomon. Not strictly business-related, but a great spot to meet cool people and get good work done
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🗓️ Mar 18: Strategies for Upscaling: Austin Chamber is hosting this panel with Brandy Garza, Sarah Goodman, and June Yuan – all leaders focused on various aspects of finance and capital
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🗓️ Mar 19: Conscious Connection: Yash Singri’s monthly non-traditional networking event focused on authenticity and depth
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🗓️ Mar 19: ATX CTO Club: Join William Baxter and other senior tech leaders to discuss this month’s topic, “Developing Talent”
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🗓️ Mar 19: B2B Email Teardown (Online): I don’t include a lot of digital events, but Exit Five is a B2B marketing group here in town, and next week, they’re bringing together more than a dozen B2B marketers, including Alex Lieberman (Morning Brew), to discuss what’s working right now
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🗓️ Mar 20: Crypto & Cocktails: Laid back happy hour hosted by Austin Lee and Dani Spence. They’ve also got a Telegram group for the super-nerds 🤓
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🗓️ Mar 21: The AI High: Texas Women In Business’ monthly luncheon will be joined by Maurie Beasley and Zen Van Loan of the Austin AI Alliance, and Vidhya Subramanian, who’s spent 20+ years founding companies, investing, and leading tech teams at huge companies like Goldman Sachs, Target, and JP Morgan.
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One Last Thing: The first-ever Austin AI Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, and tickets are still available. Rules are simple – most of the writing should be done by humans, and most of the production done by AI. Should be fascinating.
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VIP tickets are only $149 (so… basically the cost of normal tickets and popcorn these days), and include access to industry panels, tech workshops, the award show, after party, and more. If that’s your jam, you can learn more here.
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Love this newsletter?
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Wish you could send something like it to your ICP? Before ABR, I spent years behind the scenes at The Hustle and Hampton (and wrote this guide to the newsletter game). Now, I help select clients attract high-value readers with content that doesn’t suck. Ideal fit is agencies trying to reach 7- to 8-figure founders, with a CLTV of $10k to $120k. That’s my sweet spot. If that’s you, I have room for one more client this spring. Grab time with me here if you’d like to chat.
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Fun Stuff Coming Up
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…because if you’re anything like me, you work too much already. So here’s some fun stuff to do around town that’s not necessarily related to business.
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Now through March 22nd there’s an immersive experience at McCullough Theatre called NOWISWHENWEARE (the stars). The description sounds rad:
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An introspective, awe-inspiring journey into a matrix of light. Visitors move from total darkness to immersion in a theatrical constellation of 4,000 reactive points of light and an enveloping 496-channel sound design. Part meditation, part exploration, the stars, invites each visitor to explore traces of themselves in starlight, the universe, and those who have been here before us.
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Elsewhere we have…
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TONIGHT: Chess Social at Mozart’s Coffee – 7-11PM
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Mar 14: The 3rd Coolest Block Party In The World (on E. 11th)
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Mar 14: The Chillest Tasting – 5 Non-Alc Functional Spirits
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Mar 15: St Patty’s Day Pub Crawl (10+ Bars… Yikes)
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Mar 15: Jester King Brewing celebrates their dog (Sasha’s) birthday
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Mar 16: Flogging Molly Tribute Band at Central Machine Works
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Mar 17: The Rock Orchestra
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Mar 17: Strings in the Woods – Violinist at Barton Creek
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Mar 19: Whole Hog Butchery Class at Lutie’s with Chef Bradley
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Mar 19: Movie Night at Lazarus – Almost Famous
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Mar 19: Wine Trivia at the Austin Winery
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Mar 20: Craig Robinson Live at Cap City Comedy Club
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Mar 21: Fierce Whiskers’ Exclusive Bourbon Experience
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Mar 21: Buck’s Backyard BBQ Cook-Off
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Mar 21: Spring Equinox Market at the Austin Winery
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Mar 22: ATX Supper Club – Blind Date with a Book (Brunch)
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Mar 22: Texas Fine Wine 3rd Annual Tasting
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Later This Month: Bill Murray & His Blood Brothers
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This is a bit further out than I typically share, but… Come on. When Bill Murray comes to town, we gotta talk about it.
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He’ll be taking the stage with Mike Zito, Albert Castiglia, and The Bender Brass horn section for a night of classic rock covers – we’re talkin’ Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Wilson Pickett, and more.
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I actually had no idea he was this into music, but you can see recent performances here, and it looks like a great time. Tickets are super reasonable, and there’s a VIP meet & greet option. You can find all the info here.
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Word On The Street
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Local opportunities to grow your business, wealth, or personal brand
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Fundraising Soon? Drive Capital runs a $2.2B fund and writes $500k checks at the pre-seed, and seed level. They just announced their new streamlined application process, and Austin is one of their five key metro’s. Local contact is Anish Zuté so check out their thesis and give him a shout.
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The Deadline To Apply for Central Texas Angel Network’s second cycle of funding for 2025 is coming up March 17th
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Cask & Keg
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New Releases from Breweries & Distillers In Town
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If you’re one of the six people left in Austin who still drinks (🙋♂️), you may dig these as we head into the weekend…
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Cut Loose: A new 5.1% Czec Pils over at Zilker Brewing. The write-up says it, balances malty sweetness and floral hops, leading with a light citrucy aroma before ending with that peppery hoppy note. Available on tap or in 4-packs now.
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Alpha – Green Label: The second beer in Blue Owl’s Green Label Series, Alpha is a West Coast IPA. Sturdy, clean, with bursts of pine, grapefruit, and mango (so they say). They’re also hosting a Green Label party March 16th, where you can beta test the next beer in the series – a hazy IPA – before anyone else.
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Gold Steps: Pinthouse Brewing does more than 200 releases a year. One of their most recent – a pale ale – is special because it’s the first recipe from Ryan Elman, one of their newest brewers. He cut his teeth as HEad Brewer at Other Half in Brooklyn, so swing by to try this one out.
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Bottled In Bond: Still Austin is doing a four-part seasonal release series, with each bottle tailored to the tastes of the season. Spring is a straight rye whiskey, 100 proof and aged four years, with hints of honey, citrus, almond butter and fig. Available starting Friday (the 14th) which just so happens to coincide with their live event with NADC Burger
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Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Kendra Scott: Part II
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Welcome to part two of this series. We’re trying to get a speaking invitation to unicorn founder Kendra Scott by passing it from founder to founder here in Austin ✉️
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Along the way, I tell you a bit about what each is building, and we see if the ATX entrepreneur community can make a little magic happen.
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The next person in our chain is Ashley Raymond.
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Her first company, Pocket Punch, was among the first ever accepted into KS WELI, Kendra Scott’s entrepreneurship program at UT, where she went on to serve as founder coordinator and alumni advisory board president through grad school.
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Today, she’s the co-founder and CEO of Safely – one of the only brands actually innovating in the pepper spray space.
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Pictured left to right: Safely co-founders Margaret McCallum, Meagan Doyle, Ashley Raymond, and Danna Tao
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Background: Before Safely, there were self-defense products, and self-defense educators. But almost no companies doing a great job at both (and virtually none built by women for women).
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Ashley and her co-founders met at UT, bonding over an unfortunate truth – all four felt unsafe on campus in the wake of two tragic murders.
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Realizing other women felt the same way, they turned to business to do something about it.
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They launched Safely in 2021: Starting with two products – pepper spray, and… Laptop stickers.
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The stickers were less of a revenue driver, and more of a way to build community as their pepper spray made its way through development.
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They had mottos on them, like, A safer tomorrow starts today, and Protect your peace of mind, and they worked well… Except one time 👇
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“We did one that said, ‘Fight like a girl,’” Ashley told me, laughing. “But that caused us to get our first cease and desist from a breast cancer awareness foundation. We didn't know that was trademarked.”
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Not all pepper sprays are created equal. About 30% don't even work because they aren't tested right. So product design and testing was a huge priority out of the gate. They focused on:
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One of the most shocking early lessons came when their lab tech asked what they wanted their expiration date to read.
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“He told us it can last up to four years,” Ashley told me. “But some companies put one year, because it encourages people to reorder.”
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“I was like, no,” she said. “If we're building trust, and we want to be this company that people trust for their safety, we're putting four years. I don't care if we're losing out [on reorders]. If it's four years, it's four years. I'm not going to tell someone to go buy one every year.”
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Another early design decision led to an unexpected win. To set themselves apart, they wrapped one of their SKUs in a holographic shell.
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“It's more difficult to manufacture than other materials,” she told me, “So that took a lot of developing. But when we finally got it we realized an added benefit that people really like – they're reflective.”
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Runners flocked to it for a win-win: Protection on the one hand, and increased visibility to drivers on the other.
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A life-long runner herself, Ashley’s all too familiar with the threats women face out on the road.
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So Safely’s leaned into this community, co-hosting live events with Fleet Feet, Nike, and others as a significant part of their marketing strategy.
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More than a run club, Safely runs typically include some kind of basic self defense instruction, along with an opportunity to use another one of their innovations – practice spray.
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This one is more of a marketing innovation – the product has existed under other brands, but is typically called “inert spray.”
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“Even when we were learning about that, we were like, what does that mean,” she laughed. “You get it, but you don't get it. It's not marketed well to the end consumer.
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“So we're like, how do we make it fun?”
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Answer: Cart out a life-size pink skeleton, and let people go wild.
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The practice spray looks and shoots just like the real thing. But it’s filled with pressurized water, to help avoid situations like this…
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Social media is another key growth channel for them. There, they focus heavily on the teaching side of their mission, with videos for women on things like:
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They’ve even recently started going behind the scenes of the business, talking about things like product development, or the ups and downs of retail, which is a growing segment for them.
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Amazingly, the result of all that content is that they’ve been able to grow the brand without spending more than $1.5k on ads… Ever. Leaving more to invest in product development.
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Their most recent innovation? The Safely Sidekick, a 5-in-1 spray with flashlight, personal alarm, and optional knuckles & glass breaker.
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It’s the result of years of R&D – with inspiration as far back as those early days at KS WELI – and not only sold out of its first run, but also just won SafeWise’s No. 1 multi-use self defense tool for 2024.
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And there’s more to come.
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“We really want it to be a company that every woman comes to,” Ashley said. “Whether it be for a safety tip, a resource we can send them, or a product.”
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Connect with Ashley here, and keep an eye on Safely’s website and Instagram for upcoming events, product releases, and more.
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That’s all for this week!
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Email me here if you want to share any feedback, or let me know about an event you’re hosting.
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Until next week,
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-Ethan
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