Six Degrees of Kendra Scott

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!).

Buckle up, buttercup, because there’s a ton going on this week:

• 📅 Upcoming Events (a ton)

• ✉️ Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Kendra Scott

• 📣 Your Next Acquisition – A Brewery?

• 🔪 Local Artisan of the Week

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

-Ethan

PS. Texas Independence Day is Sunday, so I’ll give you two of my favorite Wikipedia facts about the Texas Declaration of Independence:

First, it apparently referred to Mexican tariffs as, “piratical attacks upon our commerce… [by] foreign desperadoes…” (stealing this to describe highway tolls I pay in any other state).

And second, this… The most Texas thing of all 👇

Love this state ★ Okay, let’s get into it…

Upcoming Events

For the relentlessly curious… Now through March 6th, UT is hosting the 2025 Texas Science Festival, a collection of talks, demos, summits, and tours for science lovers throughout the community. I’ve included some of the most interesting in the list below, but you can see the full lineup here.

Elsewhere, we have…

🗓️ TONIGHT: Austin Hardware Meetup + Demo Day: More and more, Austin is becoming a hub for hard tech (see Proto Town). Nick Frank is getting a bunch of cool people together to demo products over at Re:3D

🗓️ TONIGHT: What She Said: What She Said is a community and referral platform for women in business. Join Sarah Catherine Baker, Heather Trumpfheller, and others for drinks, networking, and… tattoos?

🗓️ TONIGHT: Sales OStin: In this month’s edition, Chris Lopez and Kathryn Moore are joining to discuss how to build a sustainable pipeline

🗓️ TONIGHT: Nerd Nite: Like a local version of TED – this month’s version is all about love and includes two talks: Dr. Marci Gleason on “How Couples Navigate Big Transitions,” and Dr. Tim Clark Newton on "“Love and Placebo”

🗓️ Feb 28: 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

🗓️ Feb 28: Intro to Design Thinking for Nonprofits: I know several of you are focused on non-profits that are important to you. So you may love this workshop, led by Jennifer "Houli" Houlihan, recent managing director of the Austin Forum on Technology & Society, and teacher at US Army’s tech accelerator

🗓️ Mar 1: TEDx UT Austin: Set to be the biggest TEDx gathering the college has hosted, so likely a great place to connect with early-stage founders if you’re investing

🗓️ Mar 1: ATX Writing Club: Hosted by my buddy, Zac Solomon. Not strictly business-related, but always a great spot to meet fascinating people

🗓️ Mar 1: ATX Newsletter Club: Hosted by Michael Daigler, this group rallies newsletter writers & operators from around the city, over at Cosmic Pickle

🗓️ Mar 2: Get Sh*t Done: Hosted by the inimitable Alice Huang (who hosts perhaps 50% of all the events in the city, I think) - a focused work session to kick the week off strong

🗓️ Mar 2: Chili Cookoff & Car Show: If you’re out west, this one’s good for the family – West Austin Chamber’s chili cook off, with live music, zip lines for the kids, and more

🗓️ Mar 2-7: Edge City, Austin: A six-day pop-up village and un-conference focused on how AI, biotech, and community design will shape the future (killer speakers).

🗓️ Mar 4: Being a Human Worker In 2030: The Austin Forum for Tech & Society will explore how humans who want to stay relevant can adapt to… [motions at everything]

🗓️ Mar 4-6: AI x Robotics: UT’s Robotics and Machine Learning Labs are hosting this multi-day symposium for people in academia and industry.

🗓️ Mar 5: Entrepreneur Game & Social Hour: Hosted by my buddy, Tomer Soran. He developed this game for founders, which adds a cool twist to the happy hour

(Note: I know a lot of event organizers read this email. The game’s a fun way to get people mixing at your events, so hit Tomer up if you want to learn more.)

🗓️ Mar 5: Tiny Experiments: This is rad. Author Anne-Laure le Cunff is joining Nick Gray for an interview at Book People. If you don’t know her, she’s a neuroscientist and writes this great newsletter on mindful productivity. Her book, Tiny Experiments, drops March 4th

🗓️ Mar 5: TWIB Online Connection: Texas Women In Business does a monthly Zoom. Their IRL events sell out all the time, so if you’re looking for an in, consider this

🗓️ Mar 5: Building & Evaluating NextGen AI: This one’s pretty technical, but probably a good fit for anyone building serious tech in this space. They’ll discuss ​evaluating multimodal AI systems (whatever that means), optimizing agents, safety & guardrails, and more

🗓️ Mar 5: AI Unplugged - Hype vs Reality: Is AI truly transformative? Or an overhyped bubble? This panel of founders and investors will discuss (I see Jay Boisseau, founder of the Austin Forum on Tech & Society, on the speaker list, so you know it’ll be good)

🗓️ Mar 5: Wilbe Live: Stumbled across this, but the description sounds awesome: “live, unapologetic, and off-the-record conversations with some of the brightest minds reimagining our world through science and entrepreneurship.” Instant sign-up.

🗓️ Mar 5: Batty Awards: Okay, this one’s great… Laura Lorek, founder of Silicon Hills News, is hosting the first-ever "Batty Awards," celebrating the achievements of Austin's entrepreneurial ecosystem. From AI unicorns to humanoid robots, the names on the award list are a great reminder of how crazy the talent pool in Austin actually is

Pause for relevant giph…

🗓️ Mar 6: Female Leaders of Austin: The second installment of Lidija Newman’s new event series for local female founders. She also does a monthly coffee meetup for the same group if mornings are more your jam

🗓️ Mar 6-7: Austin for America: Born from SXSW outcasts, and focused on defense innovation, human performance, and the next American century

🗓️ Mar 7: LAUNCH Founder Fridays: Hosted by founders Georges Colbert and Ash Uprety in partnership with LAUNCH, the VC firm founded by Jason Calacanis 

🗓️ Mar 7: TEN Capital Live: A day-long event at Oracle’s Venture Lab, with fireside chats, panels on AI governance and cybersecurity investment trends, and plenty of time to schmooze

🗓️ Mar 8: Tectonic Defense Conference: A two-day summit focused on emerging defense tech, global security challenges, and other things shaping the future of warfare

One Last Thing… The Austin Venture Association is hosting a curated get-together for experienced investors, and post-seed founders on March 8th. I don’t cover a lot of SXSW-related events in here. But I know several of the people behind this one, and they’re solid. If you’re a growth-stage founder or seasoned investor, looking to connect ahead of the conference, check this out.

Hosting something cool? Email me the details below and I’ll try to share it in the newsletter or on LinkedIn.

Fun (Non-Work) Stuff Coming Up

First up… Whiskey Fans: Master distiller, Marlene Holmes, is being inducted into the '25 Whiskey Hall of Fame and they’re throwing a party down at Milam & Greene on Saturday. Just past Dripping Springs, there’ll be live music, food trucks, and a special MK Holmes Hall-of-Fame-Edition Bourbon available for purchase. Congrats, Marlene!

Or if beer is more your style… Check out the second annual Pint-vitational Beer Fest at Holdout Brewing on Saturday, featuring 40+ breweries from around the area.

Also, we’ve got…

• Feb 28: Pop-Up Dinner to Celebrate Austin Farms

• Mar 1: Reclaimed Jewelry Making Workshop at Project Art Wimberly

• Mar 1: Acro Yoga for Couples - 90 Minute Workshop

• Mar 1: Half Empty / Half Full Literary Comedy Showdown

• Mar 2: Pedals & Pints - Brewery Tour and Tasting Flights

• Mar 2: Charity Bottle-Share (very OG Austin)

• Mar 2: Celebration of Women in Jazz

• Mar 4: Story & Sound Writing Club

• Mar 5: No Regrets Tattoo Experience at Riches Art

• Mar 5: Whose Line Is It Anyways - Live In Austin

• Mar 7: Bite Club x Cuba 512

• Mar 7: Intro to Wheel Throwing at Rosa Pottery

• Mar 8: Am I The Asshole? Live Comedy Show

• Mar 8: Infield Athletic Club

• Mar 8: The Glassmith - Glass Blowing Competition

• Mar 9: Second Annual “Escape to Ski Shores” Spring Kickoff Party

One More Thing… Do you like books? Do you like Beer? What about Baklava? Well, if you answered yes to all three, have I got the event for you…

My buddy Zac (same guy from the ATX writing club above) is hosting Books, Beer, and Baklava over at Opa on Saturday March 8. With all the SXSW chaos, this is something for locals who want to ditch the “networking” for some real connection.

Your book-to-swap is your ticket in. Bring one of your favorites, and I’ll see ya there.

New Series: Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon Kendra Scott

Alright, here’s the deal… I sit on the board of a founder support group here in town, and we’re hoping to invite Kendra to speak at one of our dinners.

But as the local founder of a billion dollar jewelry brand (which she launched from her spare bedroom), she gets about a zillion invites a year.

So, how to stand out?

Answer: Letter chain. Hand-write a note to Kendra, then give it to a founder here in town who’s one step closer to her than I am. They pass it to someone, and they pass it to someone… You get the idea.

Along the way, we’ll highlight each founder and tell you a bit about what they’re up to. And we’ll see if the power of the Austin startup community can make a little magic happen. I call it “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Kendra Scott,” and it starts now 👇

First up is Courtney Werner, founder of Gift ‘N Stick, these great little QR stickers that let you record a video message, link it to a sticker, and stick it on anything you want (like a letter to Kendra Scott).

I first came across them in the Weird & Wonderful ATX Gift Guide we did last year, and the moment the idea of a letter-chain hit me, I knew this would be a cool way to add that little something extra.

Backstory: Even as a kid, Courtney loved the mail. She wrote letters to celebrities and foreign dignitaries, got replies (and sometimes even famous pen pals).

“I love that feeling,” she told me. “When you go to your mailbox, and there's actually something exciting in there. It's not just bills or trash. Someone's trying to connect with you.”

That love for connection has been a through-line in her work.

Prior to Gift ‘N Stick, she co-founded a family company called KOYA, which patented technology for discoverable geofenced messages – letting you drop notes or gifts to friends when they visited different places.

That experience sparked this idea to combine digital and physical messages, and the idea for Gift ‘N Stick arose from there.

They built V1 in a weekend. Her husband, a longtime software developer, got an MVP up and running fast while she focused on design, branding, and ops.

And the ops are considerable. There’s a very unique challenge with this product, because every sticker is unique. “In some ways it's kind of nice, because it creates a moat,” she told me. The technical challenge isn’t one that everyone is willing to bite off. “[But] we don’t get a discount on volume at all,” she laughed, which has them thinking creatively about how to scale when the time comes.

There have been early wins. A recent experiment with these card templates has proven much more popular than she expected. With so many holidays every year (plus birthdays, anniversaries, etc) she sees potential for a demand engine, similar to the one that’s made Hallmark such a juggernaut.

My Own Take: They nailed the UX. It’s got exactly the features you’d want (like the ability to lock messages, or get notified when someone views) without any pain-in-the-ass extra steps. Just stick, snap a picture, and go. Literally the only word that comes to mind is, “delightful” (a term I use rarely basically never).

Looking ahead… They’re eyeing a kind of marketplace model, where artists could upload their own card designs, to be sold alongside the original stickers. With that comes a full rebrand that’ll allow them to continue taking the product in new directions.

“All of those different pieces really light me up,” Courtney told me. “I'm excited to see what comes of that this year.”

If you’re looking for a new way to stand out to your clients, check ‘em out here!

Word On The Street

If you’ve ever dreamed of leaving startup life forever, and opening a brewery… Blue Owl here in town is looking for potential buyers. Couple of quick facts:

• Established back in 2015

• Good-size following (10k+ on FB, 17k+ on IG)

• Won two medals at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup last year

For more info, email the owners, Suzy and Jeff, at [email protected]

(Also, if you’re genuinely thinking of stepping into the brewing biz, I’d suggest trying to connect with Ned Lavelle, at Pinthouse Brewing too. He’s an ops wizard – they do 200+ releases a year – and is very generous with his insight)

Local Artisan of the Week

Study The Blade

Okay, based on the most-clicked events every week, I know we’ve got a bunch of foodies in here. If you’re one of them, and you care about your knives, you should check out Don (last name, a mystery for now).

I just found him on Instagram, and he’s a private chef and artisanal knife-sharpener here in Austin.

I love stuff like this. Something you guys don’t know about me is that I like to give chefs knives as wedding/housewarming gifts. I even built a workshop in my garage to custom make them (learning). Don refurbs and sharpens, and shares all that knowledge with people via:

• Sharpening Services (only $15 per knife w/ 48-hour turnaround)

• How-To Videos on Instagram

• Sharpening classes in his workshop

He also does pop-ups 1-2x per month at breweries around town (follow him on IG for dates), and offers private chef services too.

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