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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).

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

This week, we’ve got a few things on-deck:

• 📅 Upcoming Events (a bunch)

• 📣 Word On The Street: Fundraises, Pitch Contests, and Art Grants

• 🎨 The Controversy in the Austin Art World

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

-Ethan

PS. I’m looking for a venue to host 15-20 founders to discuss Tim Ferriss’ new book. If you’d like to join and/or host at your office, gimme a shout!

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.

🗓️ Today: Trust-Based Philanthropy: For those of you who are in more of a giving phase of your career, Impact Austin is hosting a panel of experts on local change.

🗓️ Apr. 11: BoozyLess - NonAlc Happy Hour: Mike Lee, local co-founder of Soul THC drink, is holding court down at the Red Fridge Society

🗓️ Apr. 12: Books, Beers, and Baklava: Not strictly business, but a great chance to meet Zac Solomon, and other book-lovers over beer and some greek dessert

🗓️ Apr. 12: ProductCamp Austin: A free one-day unconference focused on all things product. Want to speak? Deadline to submit a session is today (April 10)

🗓️ Apr. 14: Rise Together: Wen Zhang is hosting this event series for female founders. If you don’t know Wen, you must. Her story is inspiring

🗓️ Apr. 15: AI for Nonprofits: The thing that caught my eye about this panel is that Bryon Jacob, CTO and co-founder of unicorn, data.world, will be on it 

🗓️ Apr. 15: Design Thinking for Innovation: This is rad – The Kendra Scott Center is hosting three leaders from IDEO to talk about design thinking and innovation

🗓️ Apr. 16: Google Employee No. 13: Steve Schimmel will share what it was like building Google in the early days (and more recently, launching a rum with Johnny Depp)

🗓️ Apr. 16: Austin CTO Club: Hosted every month by William Baxter, this month’s topic is M&A – what you need to know for a successful transition on the tech side

🗓️ Apr. 16: Austin Connections: Networking at Half Step bar on Rainey Street, followed by Texas Radio, Live, a live-recorded concert celebrating Texas music

🗓️ Apr. 17: Hill Climbers: Are you a founder who like to ride? Every Thursday Sam Huntington leads a two-hour ride, starting from Meteor at 6:45

🗓️ Apr. 17: CTO Colloquium: Dan Martell, author of Buy Back Your Time, is speaking alongside others at this 2-day conference focused on CTOs

🗓️ Apr. 17: AWT Member Happy Hour: Austin Women in Tech is hosting a members only happy hour over at Swift Fit. Good reason to sign up if you haven’t yet

🗓️ Apr. 18: Pickup Hoops: Nick Schenck, founder of 3rd + Lamar, hosts this pickup ball game for fellow business owners every month. Email him here to join

🗓️ Apr. 18: UT Pitch Day: Texas Blockchain and Texas Venture Group are hosting a pitch competition for UT founders. Cool for anyone scouting up-and-coming talent

🗓️ Apr. 18: Female Founders & Friends: Hosted the third Friday of every month by Juliette Richert of the Artemis Fund, and Angie Neas of JustWorks

One More Thing… DTC founders and marketers, Patrick Scott Pittman, is partnering with SKU Austin to host a hands-on workshop on email and SMS marketing Apr. 29-30.

It’s called Planting for Profits, and it’s two days of focused sessions with various business experts, designed to help you launch and optimize new pop-ups and email flows.

There will be a bunch of mentors, including Story Brand expert, Katy Ward (another friend of ABR), to help you through each stage. And the goal is to leave with some serious work done for your business.

Code ‘ABR’ gets you $300 off, so if this has been on your to-do list forever, check out the details or apply to join here.

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

Fun Stuff Coming Up

The big thing going on this week is the Moon Tower Comedy Fest – 11 days, 14 venues, and 140+ comedians, including the likes of Aziz Ansari, Mae Martin, Joey Diaz, and more.

Elsewhere, we have…

• Apr. 12: Full Moon Spring Market at the Herb Bar

• Apr. 12: The 8th Annual Texas Whiskey Fest

• Apr. 12: Julie Mosher live at Scoot Inn

• Apr. 13: Paddleboard Yoga Class at Mozarts

• Apr. 14: BBQ, Blues, and Brews at Oakwood Brewing

• Apr. 15: Tuesday Twilights at LBJ Wildflower Center

• Apr. 16: Toffee Making Class with Lutie’s Chef Susana

• Apr. 17: Movies on the Lake - Pride & Prejudice

• Apr. 17: BYOB Water Color Class at Rich’s Art

• Apr. 19: Live Oak Distilling’s 28th Anniversary

• Apr. 22: Chef Aaron Franklin live on stage with Roy Choi – The Choi of Cooking

One More Thing… On April 24th, the local chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier is hosting You Grill Girl, an annual cook-off in the Franklin BBQ parking lot featuring the female chefs, pitmasters, and restauranteurs of Austin.

This year’s theme is prom (so dig into your closet, best-dressed wins free tickets to the 2026 event), and I’m stoked to see executive chefs from some of my favorite spots in town, like Janie Ramirez of Dai Due, and Susana Querejazu of Lutie’s (check out the toffee-making class she’s hosting above).

You can find all the details and snag tickets here.

Word On The Street

A roundup of cool local opportunities to grow your business, wealth, or personal brand

1. Investors: Wheatsville Co-op is Texas’ largest consumer co-op, and they’re raising money for an upcoming expansion/relocation. Previous expansions drove 15-20% growth in 3 years (this one’s projecting 18-25%), and investors get a 3.5% dividend yield. Contact Bree Whitehead for more info.

2. Last Call for $100k Pitch Competition: Austin FC is hosting the Dream Starter $100k Pitch Competition. Application deadline is Monday, April 14th, so peep the application questions here, then apply here.

3. Artists: Sara Vanderbeek and Liz Moskowitz are hosting Grants 101, a candid session all about how to apply for art grants, down at Sara’s DORF Gallery on S. Lamar – Part of a broader Art and Money series taking place this summer

Local Artist of the Week

John Yancey is a professor of art and art history at UT. He’s also a muralist and ceramic mosaic artist with several iconic pieces around Austin.

This week, he caught my eye for two reasons…

First, a piece of his has been at the center of a quiet controversy roiling through the Austin art world the last few months.

“Riffs and Rhythms,” is a huge mosaic at the convention center, and it’s been there for decades. With the center slotted for demolition next month, the city voted to ‘deaccession’ Yancey’s piece along with several other installations.

Basically, they released their rights back to the artists, along with virtually all responsibility for preserving/moving the pieces before destruction.

Can’t save your piece? It goes bye-bye.

Hence, the controversy.

The news this week was that an anonymous donor stepped in with the $70k needed to preserve Yancey’s piece, which is very cool, and was the first thing that put him on my radar.

But then I realized he is also one of the names behind the huge “Rhapsody” mosaic down on the corner of 11th and Waller, which holds a special place in my heart.

That mural sits directly next door to my favorite historic building in Austin. That little patch of ground – the building and the mural – is arguably the starting point for the entire revitalization of the East side, which used to be so thick with crime, people wondered if it could ever be changed.

It was one of the first things I ever wrote about in this newsletter, so it’s very cool to meet the man behind the piece, and realize the role he’s played (and continues to play) in art around the city.

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