Meet Ned Lavelle of Pinthouse Brewing

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

• 💰 Announcing: Joe Lonsdale’s New $100k Scholarship For Builders

• 🤮 Insights: The Great American Poisoning

• And more…

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

-Ethan

PS. You read this email to find out about other cool local founders, so today, meet Ned Lavelle, co-founder of Pinthouse Brewing. They brew more beer than any other brewery in town, and – if my somewhat illegible notes are correct – have won more awards than any other brew club in the south.

If you’ve ever enjoyed Electric Jellyfish on tap at a bar around town, you know their work.

Ned led a comprehensive tasting event at The Red Fridge Society the other night (hence, why my notes are illegible), talking us through the nuances of the industry, and the operations are nuts!

They do 200+ beer releases a year (across multiple locations, with vastly different barrelage and water sources between them). Meanwhile, they have to buy all the hops for the entire year at once, on a giant trip to the Pacific Northwest each summer.

Their brew, Mosaic Takedown, just won gold at the Texas Craft Brewers cup, so give him a shout and say congrats. Then keep an eye out for their next release.

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.

🗓️ Feb 14: Women In Business Leadership Symposium: Annual half-day conference hosted by McCombs School of Business. This year’s theme is, “Ascend: Women Redefining What It Means to Lead.”

🗓️ Feb 15: ATX Writing Club: Hosted by my buddy, Zac Solomon. Not strictly business-related, but always a great spot to meet cool people and get good work done.

🗓️ Feb 15: Galentines with Antler: Join Samantha Cerqueira, Allie Mullen, Sophia Spurlock, and dozens of other female founders and investors for drinks, pilates, a business showcase, and more

🗓️ Feb 17: AI and Us: This happy hour is focused on driving conversations around AI, and how to build a more collaborative future with it

🗓️ Feb 18: Fireside Chat with David Booth: Arena Hall, a kind of founder/investor club here in town, is hosting the founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors ($660B AUM)

🗓️ Feb 18: FI Texas Founder Showcase: Like a live Shark Tank – Founder Institute’s first cohort of 2025 will be pitching to a panel of investors

🗓️ Feb 18: AI for Sales: Noah Zandan, founder of an AI sales training platform, is joining the Austin Tech Council’s roundtable breakfast

🗓️ Feb 18: KS WELI Empower Hour: Dr. Ashley Kuchar is joining the Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute for a talk on thriving through distress and setbacks

🗓️ Feb 19: How to Start A Food Truck: Okay, it’s niche! But I know a few of you are actually considering this, so here’s a workshop from Austin’s Economic Development Department to give you the scoop

🗓️ Feb 19: Conscious Connection: Yash Singri is back with his non-traditional networking event focused on authenticity and depth

🗓️ Feb 19: Austin <> UK Connection: If you’ve got ties to the UK, Joe Blackman and Fred Schmidt (both MBEs) are bringing people together ahead of SXSW to meet, share info, and discuss how to get the most out of the event

🗓️ Feb 19: ATX CTO Club: This is gonna be a popular one – join William Baxter and other senior tech leaders to discuss this month’s topic, “Adapting to AI”

🗓️ Feb 19: Fridgeside - The State of VC: For experienced founders and investors – long-time investors Jim Curry and Jacob Gordon are holding court at The Red Fridge Society, discussing trends in the VC and equity markets

🗓️ Feb 20: Perfecting The Pitch: Kevin Koym, the founder of Tech Ranch (one of the top three impact-focused accelerators in the world), is giving a talk on how to get investor/grant buy-in on your vision

🗓️ Feb 20: Health Tech ATX: If your company is innovating in the healthcare space, this group’s for you

🗓️ Feb 21: Female Founders & Friends: Hosted the third Friday of every month by Juliette Richert of the Artemis Fund

🗓️ Feb 21: TechBio Transformers Meetup: Join Aaron Feller and a bunch of other people working at the intersection of biology, software, and AI over at Lazarus (they’ve got a Slack group too!)

🗓️ Feb 21: AWT Kendra Gives Back: Austin Women In Tech is hosting an event at Kendra Scott’s flagship store on S. Congress. There’ll be wine, networking, and 20% of proceeds benefit Austin Women in Tech.

Side Note: Kendra’s one of Austin’s most successful founders. I did a whole deep-dive on her company, and how she grew it from a spare bedroom to $1B+ valuation. Check it out here.

Last Thing… Some of you know that before starting ABR, I spent a few years at The Hustle, learning the newsletter trade. My old colleague, Matt McGarry, is hosting a newsletter marketing summit Feb 27-28 here in Austin, and he’s wrangled some of the best speakers in the industry.

Ticket prices went up recently, but I’ve got two options for you…

• You can enter to win one of five free tickets here (ABR Audience only)

• Or, if you want to guarantee a spot, code ‘ABR100’ will get you $100 off here

“Who is this best for?” These are heavy-hitters. If you’re scaling a media company, or investing at least 6-figures in your brand’s content strategy this year, I think this is a great bet. If you’re just at the idea stage, stay home and write.

Coming Up Next Month

Historically, I don’t cover much from SXSW here (aside from recommending Marc Nathan’s guide to the unofficial events, which is the only guide you need).

But Tim Ferriss just confirmed he’ll be recording a live episode of the Tim Ferriss Show at Mohawk Austin, as part of Kevin Rose’s Diggnation event on March 8th. Chris Sacca is also rumored to be in the lineup somewhere.

Tickets available here!

PSA…

The Austin Marathon is this weekend, and road closures start Friday. Driving downtown is gonna be a pain in the ass so avoid these areas if you can.

Word On The Street

A roundup of cool local opportunities to enrich your life & business

• Kids Heading to College Soon? UATX, the innovative new university co-founded by local billionaire, Joe Lonsdale, just announced their Build Scholarship, a $100k award for students combining technical excellence and civic purpose. That’s on top of free tuition, which all UATX students receive.

• Fundraising Soon? Morrison Foerster is hosting their semiannual Pitch Day April 23rd. Participating founders get coaching ahead of the event, and an opportunity to pitch a panel of VCs. To apply, send a non-confidential pitch deck to [email protected] by Friday, February 28th.

• Here’s your regular reminder that if your business is based in ATX (or relocating here), the city offers thousands back in job-based awards and tax refunds

• Need a Beautiful Gazibo? Austin School of Furniture students are building a timber frame, five-sided gazebo (CAD drawings here). The initial commission fell through, so it’s available to a new home at material cost ($5-$6k). You can email the school here for more info.  

Insights

Thought-provoking ideas and stories published by founders in ATX

1. The Great American Poisoning: With RFK’s confirmation seeming likely this week, it’s a great time to revisit this piece from Justin Mares, the local founder of Kettle & Fire. Some of the stats will blow your mind. A great reminder that MAHA changes really can’t start happening soon enough.

Note: Justin’s running the health track at Edge Austin, a weeklong unconference focused on developing frontier tech for human flourishing. Code ECJUSTIN10 will get you 10% off

2. Six Ways To Appreciate Time: I’ve been reading Sahil Bloom’s new book on The Five Types of Wealth. One of them is time, so I particularly enjoyed Katy Ward’s recent piece on different ways to notice and indulge in time.

3. AI and the Civilizational Crossroads: When people talk about how to deal with AI, the conversation often devolves into either pessimism (“bomb the data centers”) or blind accelerationism. In this piece, Brendan McCord shows how those are both at odds with core Western philosophies, and explores a third path. The writing here is so clear and clean – bookmark it to revisit over the next few years.

4. STR Owners: Ben Wolff runs a multi-million dollar portfolio of boutique STR’s, and he put out this great, quick read on their approach to revenue management. Four rules they follow to drive $4.5m+ in bookings at their Fredericksburg property over the last three years.

5. The Chicken Guide: Alright, here’s the deal… Kevin Fishner is opening a very cool farm-to-table butcher and grocery called Radius over on E. 7th street. Local, in-season meat and produce, plus inspiration for how to turn them into delicious meals. They’re even partnering with Greener Pastures to raise their own slow-growth breed of chicken, and just published this deep-dive on why that even matters.

Local Shop of the Week

The Austin Winery | 440 St Elmo Rd

Long-time readers will remember that a couple months back, I highlighted this as one of my all-time favorite wines. Not only is it delicious, but the name – Violet Crown – is a nod to the city of Austin itself (plus the label, memorializing the winery’s loyal dog, Henry ❤️).

I liked it so much, I tried to stock up as my go-to for parties or gifts around town.

Alas, when I went, they were sold out, with the next batch fermenting away in the tanks.

Well… The time is here. Violet Crown is officially bottled, and will be available at the winery starting tomorrow (Feb 14). That’s a week before you can find it on shelves at Whole Foods or other distributors.

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