Welcome to this issue of The 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).
I’ll keep this intro short, because this is one of those weeks where everyone and their mother is hosting something cool. We’ve got:
🗓️ Live Events with Neil De Grasse Tyson AND Amor Towles (and many others)
📣 Learn The Art of Facilitation From A Pro (she charges $25k+ per day)
🌱 The 41st Annual Keep Austin Beautiful Day
🍻 The Story Behind One Of Austin’s Best Breweries
And more…
Did someone forward this to you? If you like it, you can sign up here!
-Ethan
PS. This is not an ad. In fact, it’s the opposite of an ad, because I just paid full price to sign up for this process-design workshop that Sara Loretta is hosting in a few weeks.
Why? Because Sara is hands down the best systems-thinker I know.
Every month, she hosts a roving pizza + happy hour series, where she talks through how to design and improve different client processes to make your business run smoother and be way better. The happy hour is free. I went to the last one. And I knew in the first five minutes I was going to the workshop too.
If you’re trying to build better systems to improve your client experience AND your life as a business owner, trust me… Get her stuff on your calendar. You’re welcome.
Upcoming Events
🗓️ Apr. 10: Trail Talks: This walk & talk event series is hosted by my buddies, Pat Kiloren and Sam Huntington, both of whom run excellent podcasts here in town
🗓️ Apr. 12: The AI Implementation Club: Every week, Chrissy McDannell hosts a dedicated focus sprint to ship that AI project you’ve had in mind for weeks
🗓️ Apr. 13: Drinks On James: A new monthly series from James Jackson Leach, drop by, grab a drink, talk AI with other founders & investors
🗓️ Apr. 13: Deals, Diplomacy, and Power: McCombs Business professor, Dilawar Syed, sits down with three high-power execs to talk the future of US Economic Statcraft
🗓️ Apr. 14: Austin Leading Ladies: This month’s installment is a fitness class, led by Madison Randeniya, owner of Max Strength Fitness
🗓️ Apr. 14: Scaling AI In Support: Local CX Team Leads will be talking about how they’re deploying and scaling AI in the trenches
🗓️ Apr. 14: How to Fire Yourself From Sales: The panel on this is excellent – long-time investor and author, Sam Goodner, and Yagub Rahimov, founder of Polygraf AI
🗓️ Apr. 14: Neil De Grasse Tyson is coming to the Long Center for an installment of his lecture series, “Science Under Siege”
🗓️ Apr. 15: LinkedIn Ads Masterclass: Moby Hayat added $1m+ top-line rev for multiple brands, so if you’re in B2B Services or SaaS, make a point to check this out
🗓️ Apr. 15: MoFo Pitch Day: Shannon Sibold’s team at Morrison Foerster are hosting a bunch of founders and VCs for a Shark Tank-style pitch.
🗓️ Apr. 15: AI in K-12: Damien Aldridge, Suzanne Newell and Laura Browder explore Who’s in your Texas workforce pipeline, what are they learning, and how.
🗓️ Apr. 15: ATX CTO: Every month, William Baxter curates a discussion for senior tech execs. This month’s topic: Monolithic vs. Microservices Architecture
🗓️ Apr. 15: Lecture Tour with Amor Towles: Not exactly business, and not exactly ATX (it’s in Georgetown), but Amor Towles spent 20+ years as a successful investment banker before becoming a global best-selling novelist, and his book, Lincoln Highway, is one Tim Ferriss raves about
🗓️ Apr. 16: Grow Your Business Through Your Chamber: Long time Austin lawyer Greg Morrison is sharing his experience growing Morrison Law via local networking
🗓️ Apr. 16: Empathy Masterclass: Joseph Cope and Mimi Nicklin invite women and female founders to learn how to turn intentional listening into influence at work
🗓️ Apr. 17: Female Founders & Friends: Hosted the third Friday of every month by Juliette Richert of the Artemis Fund
🗓️ Apr. 17: Founders-Only Pickleball: Part of John Davison’s new, “Meet A Founder Friday” series. All levels of pickleball experience are welcome!
🗓️ Apr. 17: Lion In The Changing Jungle: Vidya Moorthy is joining Texas Women in Business April luncheon for part two of her series on evolving geopolitics
🗓️ Apr. 18: Applied AI Society: Gary Sheng is hosting a workshop over at The Red Fridge Society on how to build your own digital “Chief of Staff” with AI
The Art of Facilitation
A lot of you know that before ABR, I was one of the first employees at Hampton, where we often ran retreats for dozens of 7- to 9-figure founders. Angela Parker is the person we flew in (from her secret lair in the Italian Alps) to run those events.
She’s a world-class facilitator, and one of the only people I know who will call bullshit on a billionaire when that’s exactly what he needs to hear.
She’s in town next week, teaching The Art of Facilitation Academy, a day-long masterclass on how to run a room. Space is limited, but if this is something you’re serious about, you will not find a better person to learn it from.
You can get on her calendar to hear more here, or if you want a personal intro, hit reply and let me know.
Austin’s Other Unicorn…
When we think of unicorn’s in ATX, it’s easy to think “tech.” But one of my favorite, local founder stories is that of Kendra Scott, who literally started door-to-door selling earrings out of a tea box to shops downtown (child in tow), and grew that into a billion-dollar company, and UT’s Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute (KS WELI).
It’s a wild story, and I wrote all about it here.
If you’re a UT student (or know one), KS WELI’s hosting its annual Changemakers Summit Friday April 17th, and the speaker list is stacked. I see names from Tecova’s, Burlebo, P-Terry’s, Function Health (another unicorn), Wonderkind, and more, plus a closing session with Allison Ellsworth, founder of Poppi, who sold to Pepsi for almost $2B last year. So just some unbelievable local talent in the room.
Tickets are free and open to all UT students. Everyone else can… I dunno… Get back to work, sorry 🤷♂️
PS. Kendra Scott also does these “give back” days where a portion of everything you buy goes to a non-profit. On April 17th, Austin Women in Tech is hosting their annual Sip & Shop event at the S. Congress location from 6-8PM with 20% of all proceeds going to support AWT.
Other Fun Stuff Coming Up
Apr. 10: Book Talk at First Light - Caro Claire Burke, author of Yesteryear
Apr. 11: Celebrate Earth Month - Curated Clothing Swap at Harper + Sage
Apr. 11: 50th Anniversary of McKinney Falls
Apr. 13: ATX Short Film Showcase
Apr. 13: Knightcap Chess Club
Apr. 14: Modern Calligraphy Workshop
Apr. 14: The Art of the Wild Bouquet
Apr. 15: Mayor’s Book Club - Jason Mott, Author of People Like Us
Apr. 16: Scent Social
Apr. 16: Cookbook Launch - Trinity Mouzon, Author of Eating at Home
Apr. 18: Spicy Boys x St Elmo Crawfish Boil
Apr. 18: How To Make Giant Paper Flowers
Apr. 18: The 9th Annual Texas Whiskey Festival
Apr. 19: Herbal Medicine Chest - Making Heart Tonics
Apr. 19: The 4th Annual Mushroom Conference
Keep Austin Beautiful
April 18th is the 41st annual Keep Austin Beautiful Day. Thousands of locals will volunteer at 160+ beautification projects across all ten city council districts.
Last year, more than 22 tons of litter were hauled off, and 144 miles of green spaces and waterways were cleared.
If you’re looking to pre-bank community service to count against your next court hearing* check out a full list of events in your neighborhood here.
*Correction: This is apparently not how the law works
“We Had No Idea and A Million Ideas Of What We Could Do With The Property” – The Story of Hold Out Brewing
I first met Grady Wright during happy hour at The Red Fridge Society, where he was slingin’ beers out of a Yeti cooler while holding court on the patio. His brewery (well, one of his breweries, for he is co-founder of both The Brew and Brew and Hold Out Brewing) is right around the corner – close enough that he often walks a flat or two of the latest batch over for upcoming events.
On one such recent swing-by, he caught my attention with what old school journalists would call, “a scoop” – Hold Out and it’s sister café were expanding north, taking over the Turnstile restaurant by Q2 Stadium and bringing a little bit of downtown culture to us barbarians up north (my words, not his).
Also… There was a top secret project.
I can’t tell you about the top secret one yet. But the hints of it are here, in his answers to the ABR Spotlight (you’ll see what I mean when it’s finally nannounced).
Restaurant Investors: Grady and his team are financing part of the Turnstile expansion with private loans that pay back with interest over 36 months. To learn more about that, get in touch with him here.
(not financial advice, do your due diligence, etc. etc. etc.)
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
