Austin Business Review
Posts
Events Are Back In Full Swing

Events Are Back In Full Swing

Ethan Brooks
January 30, 2025

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!)

I’m officially declaring Austin’s events calendar back in full-swing.

There are a ton. I always try to keep this email focused on only the things that really caught my attention this week. Things that I think you can get real value from. Even so, the event list was longer than normal.

Bunch of cool stuff going on, and the year is just getting started.

-Ethan

PS. One thing I always want to do is introduce you to cool local business leaders. So this week, meet Jason Kim. He’s CEO at Firefly Aerospace, which has 700+ employees and is based just north of town in Cedar Park.

They recently launched their Blue Ghost Lunar Lander – the first of three missions to the moon between now and 2028 – which is currently orbiting Earth, and sent back the photo below.

It’ll spend about three more weeks orbiting while the Firefly team checks and calibrates all the instruments, and then it’ll land at Mare Crisium, a lunar “sea” just visible to the naked eye from Earth at about the 2 o’clock position on the face of the moon.

You can follow the full mission on Instagram, and give Jason a shout on LinkedIn to say congrats.

Also, catch Jason’s interview on the AustinPreneur podcast here, or check out this documentary on the engineering at Firefly.

The View from Blue Ghost 1

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.

🗓️ TONIGHT: Nerd Night Austin: Like a local version of TED, this month’s theme is all about making movies, and includes talks from Emmy-nominated sound designer Lyman Hardy, and filmmaker Jason Neulander

🗓️ Tonight: Art, AI, and Imagination: Curated by artist Chris Van Loan Sr. in partnership with the Austin Public Library

🗓️ TONIGHT: Sales OStin: Valentyn and Lucy Yaromenko are hosting this event on sales strategies in 2025, with perspectives from the VC and scale-up worlds

🗓️ Jan 31: Pitch & Run ATX: Chat business with Zeke Torres and a bunch of other founders, funders, and startup folks on a 4.2 mile run around the lake

🗓️ Jan 31: Coworking & Connections: Hosted by Austin Woman Magazine over at the ContentStack Experience Center

🗓️ Feb 1: Founders Running Club: Every Saturday, Anette Armenta and Eddy Hernández host a 5K run around the lake for early-stage founders

🗓️ Feb 1: ATX Writing Club: Hosted by my buddy, Zac Solomon, and this week in a new location. Never strictly business-related, but always a great spot to meet fascinating people and get some good work done.

🗓️ Feb 2: Author Rachel Hollis at BookPeople: NYT best-selling author of Girl, Wash Your Face is doing a live talk + signing of her new book, What If You Are The Answer

🗓️ Feb 4: UX Cookoff: Love this concept by Kat Usop – UX designers are competing design a hypothetical AI platform. You can sign up to showcase, judge, or simply view

🗓️ Feb 4: Circular Enterprise Connect & Share: An annual summit for owners, of circular businesses, hosted by the City of Austin (which has a lot of resources for these types of founders)

🗓️ Feb 4: CyberSecurity 2025 - Risks & Strategies: A fascinating panel, including Anastasia Uglova, Tod Beardsley, and Robert "RSnake" Hansen (who sold his company for $44m cash, and has broken into 2,100 banks)

🗓️ Feb 4: Pinthouse Founder Story: Pinthouse Pizza co-founders, Ned Lavelle and Joe Mohrfeld, are leading a beer tasting over at the Red Fridge Society

🗓️ Feb 4: Austin AI Forum: Shout out to Jessica Yang for helping pull this together – a keynote and panel discussion on how AI is reshaping business models and creating new markets, with insights from founders, engineers, and VCs.

🗓️ Feb 5: Grocery Run: This is a pretty wild opportunity for women running CPG brands – Startup CPG is bringing in 4 leaders from Whole Foods to talk about their buying process

🗓️ Feb 5: TEN Capital Live: Network with investors, hear pitches from more than a half-dozen startups raising, and take in a panel discussion on the future of Texas Tech (including Jason Scharf, local investor and host of the AustinNext podcast)

🗓️ Feb 5: Build An AI Assistant for Your Solopreneur Biz: Sara Loretta is joining the Marketing Automation Meetup to show how she built LizzieAI, an AI-powered account executive for her consulting company.

🗓️ Feb 5: China’s Risky Moment: Rodger Baker, Executive Director at Stratfor, is joining the Metropolitan Breakfast Club to talk geopolitics, business, tech, and China

NOTE: Not everyone knows the name Stratfor, but it’s where Peter Zeihan cut his teeth. If you enjoy his work, you’ll probably dig this talk

🗓️ Feb 6: Growth Mindset in 2025: Aisha Rodriguez is hosting this event, for founders looking for a mental reset heading into the new year

🗓️ Feb 6: HealthTech Nerds: If your company is innovating in the healthcare space, check out this happy hour hosted by Destinee Berman and Sheila Pande

🗓️ Feb 6: Austin Women In Tech: AWIT is co-hosting this gathering with the Austin Forum over at Remedy

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

One More Thing… If you’re looking for a different way to connect, check out this networking hike by Javier Castenada. He and his co-host Chad do these monthly, exploring different trails every time. Feb’s hike meets here. Text or email to join! 👇

Later This Month…

Codie Sanchez is hosting a virtual summit on how to buy businesses Feb 21-23. Early-bird tickets are 75% off until Friday night.

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

…because if you’re anything like me, you work too much already. So here’s some fun stuff to do around town that’s not necessarily related to business.

TONIGHT: Mozart’s Chess Social
TONIGHT: Non-Alc Mixology Class at Dear Dry Drinkery
Jan 31: Kevin Hart Live at Bass Concert Hall
Jan 31: Hans Zimmer Live at Moody Center
Jan 31: Within These Walls - Gallery Art Show + Drinks
Jan 31-Feb 2: Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival (Hundreds of Artists)
Feb 1: Tie-Dye 101 at Rivian’s Event Space
Feb 1: Free Crawfish Boil at Kitty Cohens
Feb 1: Vinyl Market + DJs at Central Machine Works
Feb 1: Intro to Succulents Workshop (they have a bunch of others too)
Feb 2: The 18th Annual Chili Cook-Off at Hotel San José
Feb 2: BEARFACE Whiskey Cocktail Competition at Saturn Bar
Feb 7: Spaghetti Dinner + Book Swap at the Toasty Badger
Feb 8: Austin Used Book Market at Community Garden Coffee Shop
Feb 8: Water Lantern Festival
Feb 9: Yoga in the Beer Hall at Central Machine Works
Feb 9: No Regrets Tattoo Experience at Riches’ Art

Last Thing… Okay, this is far out on the calendar, but Hamilton is coming to Austin and if you have any interest in seeing it, you already know how fast tickets go. It’ll be here for two weeks from March 25th - April 6th. You can snag seats here.

That’s all for this week!

Typically, I include some articles and other stuff, but I haven’t made my way through the ones on my desk yet. Though I am enjoying this interview with SKU founder Michelle Breyer, and have this deep dive from 8VC on disrupting healthcare bookmarked.