...And We're Back! Happy New Year

Annnd we’re back! Happy new year, folks, and 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!)

Things are still a little slow as everyone shakes off the holidays. I’m also uot of town, trying to sneak in a ski trip in the frozen wastelands of picturesque New England. So this issue’s mostly designed to get you set up for the year ahead with:

• 🗓️ Events & Hosts You Should Know

• 📣 Word On The Street: Including fundraising opportunities + free college

• 💡 Insights: 5 Great stories published by ATX founders

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

-Ethan

PS. I’ve got a bunch of cool plans to make this newsletter even more useful for you in the coming year. To do that, I need to know more about you (yes… you) – so keep an eye out for questions and polls like this, and when you see ‘em, weigh in (or hit reply and write to me directly!)

Upcoming Events

Events are slooowly ramping back up. So this week, instead of an exhaustive list, I wanted to highlight a few favorites that you’ll see in this newsletter again and again, and that I recommend earmarking for the year ahead.

In addition to the ones below, I recommend taking a second to connect with other serial hosts like Alice Huang, Zac Solomon, Cherie Werner, Michael Daigler, Juliette Richert, Chukwudi Kanu, Bill Murphy, Marc Nathan, Paris Bland & Devin Ambron to name a few.

Keep an eye out for their events (I share most of them here). It’ll change your year…

🗓️ Jan 3: Pitch & Run: Every Friday, Zeke Torres hosts a 2-mile walk and 4.2-mile run around the lake, specifically for founders

🗓️ Jan 3: Founder Fridays: On the first Friday of ever month, Georges Colbert hosts this happy hour in partnership with LAUNCH, the VC firm founded by Jason Calacanis

🗓️ Jan. 4: The Board Walks: One of my most-recommended events, every Saturday, Elle Beecher gathers dozens of people for a walk + talk around the lake. If you’re new to ATX, this is probably the fastest way to get connected

🗓️ Jan 7. Tech Trends for 2025: Jay Boisseau runs the Austin Forum On Technology & Society and his events are top-notch. In this installment he’s talking with founder/CTO Jay Williams and Jimmy Pike, a former exec at Intel, AT&T, and Dell with 70 patents

🗓️ Jan. 8: Marketing Automation & AI Meetup: One of the problems with AI is there still aren’t many people talking about how they’re actually using it. Well, Sharon Decaro’s group changes that

🗓️ Jan. 8: Keeping Up with GenAI: Similar to the above, this is a new online series hosted by the Austin AI alliance. This week, CTO Emily Gupton is showing how her company is using tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney to overhaul their design rendering workflow

🗓️ Jan. 9: Networking for Health Entrepreneurs: Every month, Corey Hiben brings together the biggest group of health, fitness, and wellness founders in the city.

🗓️ Jan. 10: Ops Not Oops: Sara Loretta recently launched this coworking event. Two hours of silent deep-work every other Friday over at Radio East

🗓️ Jan 15: Founder’s First VA: Okay, this one’s rad. First of all, it’s taking place at Chris Taylor’s Red Fridge Society, one of my favorite spots in town (bookmark their event cal, and check out the deep dive I wrote on them). And it features my buddy Tomer Soran, who’s sharing hands-on tips for onboarding your first VA.

Tomer also hosts a weekly “Business & Birdies” golf game over at Butler Pitch & Putt which sounds like a blast.

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 social calendar is still quiet too – one of the reasons Austin hosts “Free Week” around this time every year to support the local bars. Still, a few things stood out…

• TONIGHT: Dry January Ritual Refresh - Zero Proof New Years party

• TONIGHT: Watercolor Landscape workshop at Riches Art

• Jan 3: Ikebana Japanese Flower Arranging at Zilker Botanical Garden

• Jan 3-4: Free Week - lots of live music with no cover charge

• Jan 3-5: Once Upon A Time In The West Screening @ Austin Film

• Jan 4-5: City-wide Vintage Sale at Palmer Events Center

• Jan 5: Kitten Yoga to Benefit Saving South Texas local rescue shelter

• Jan 5: The Prince Experience at ACL Live

• Jan 8: Adaptations Book/Film Club - The Motorcycle Diaries

• Jan 9: 3D Printing 101

• Jan 9: Earth Paints & Mineral Pigments at Buzz Mill Coffee

• Jan 10-11: The Improvised Shakespeare Company

• Jan 11: Coffee for Creatives at Merfolk’s on S. Congress

• Jan 11: Vivid Parlor - Enter The Dreamscape (hosted by my friend, Katy Ward)

One Last Thing: Roam Ranch, out in Fredericksburg, hosts regular community events that allow you to participate hands-on and get closer to your food. It’s run by Taylor Collins and Katie Forrest – the husband-wife duo who built EPIC provisions and sold it for 9-figures – and they make the events extremely approachable.

I went to their Thanksgiving turkey harvest a couple years ago not knowing what to expect, and it was profound (surprisingly, very family-friendly too – the team does an incredible job honoring the animals, educating everyone, and stewarding the whole process).

Their winter bison harvest is coming up Jan 11. Attendees will witness the field harvest of a bison, then have the option to help process the meat, ultimately taking home 2-3 pounds for your freezer. If getting closer to your food is a focus in 2025, consider this. You’ll never forget it.

Word On The Street

A roundup of cool local opportunities

• Fundraising Soon? The Central Texas Angel Network runs six funding cycles per year. There’s an info session for cycle one kicking off Jan. 7

• Hardware Founders: 021 VC is a badass new hardware incubator built on 500+ acres just outside town. They’re writing $1m checks, no cap, plus a 2.5% kicker, so if you’re raising soon, check ‘em out.

• For Those of You Out West: The West Austin Chamber hosts a lot of cool events that make it into this newsletter. They’re offering bulk discounts on tickets for the year starting Friday, Jan 10.

• If You’ve Got Kids Heading For College: UATX, the innovative new school co-founded by local billionaire Joe Lonsdale, is accepting applications for Fall ‘25. Round one deadline is Feb 15. and thanks to their donors, all accepted students get a full-ride scholarship

• If You’ve Got Kids Headed For The Workforce: Austen Alred recently announced “The Gauntlet,” a 12-week, all-expenses-paid, very intense AI programming bootcamp. All graduates receive a $200k/yr job in ATX

Insights

Thought-provoking ideas and stories published by founders in ATX

1. EoY Review from a 9-Figure Founder: I read a lot of 2024 wrap-up stories over the break, and enjoyed Noah Kagan’s the most. It’s a short read, but his points on knowing people well, and signing up for epic adventures in 2025 really resonated.

2. Using AI in DTC: If you’re an ecom founder, you’ve gotta go check out what Cathryn Lavery is doing these days. She sold her brand to PE a few years back, then recently bought it back, and is rebuilding in public. Her posts are super actionable, like this one on how they’re using AI, what’s working, and what’s not. Awesome stuff.

3. Speaking of AI… Local unicorn founder, Brett Hurt, just re-leased the 7th edition of his book, The Entrepreneurs Essentials, as a free audiobook. It’s read by an AI version of his voice (which he’ll use to replicate in many languages), and he also used NotebookLM to do this great podcast-style overview.

NOTE: Brett’s been at the forefront of AI and publishing for a while. He was one of the first to create a custom GPT so you could chat with his book. If that topic’s interesting to you, be sure to check out my deep dive on AI author Geoff Woods too.

4. Finance Frameworks for Personal Growth: Akash Kanojia is a local founder, former trader, and lecturer in finance, and he’s working on this nine-part series on how different financial concepts relate to life outside money. It’s excellent.

5. STR Owners: Local founder, Ben Wolffe, manages a multi-million dollar portfolio of STRs, and writes some of the best content out there on how to drive bookings. Check out his recent case study, exploring how he would go about adding $1m in bookings for this resort in Arizona.

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