How To Get Pop-Up Space Downtown (Cheap)

PLUS: 12 Great Business Events... An Interesting Acquisition Opportunity... Speak at SXSW... And more...

Author

Ethan Brooks
July 11, 2024

Welcome to this issue of Austin Business Review, a weekly roundup of great local events and opportunities 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…

  • 📅 Upcoming Events (a bunch!)

  • 📣 How to Get Cheap Pop-Up Space Downtown

  • 🎨 The Saga Of 3 Street Artists

  • 🎤 Speak at SXSW

  • And more…

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

-Ethan

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: BD Happy Hour: Emily Prebble and Barrett Crosswell recently started this bi-weekly happy hour for local biz-dev pro’s. I’ve been, and it’s great!

🗓️ TONIGHT: All-In Pod Summer Meetup: Join Joseph McConnell and dozens of other All-In fans to talk business, tech, and “Hot-Swap Summer” (iykyk)

🗓️ July 12: Pitch and Run: Every Friday, Zeke Torres and other ATX founders trade ideas while running 4.2 miles around the lake

🗓️ July 13: The Board Walks: Not strictly business-related, but Elle Beecher’s group is one of the best places in Austin to find a fascinating conversation (and lots of founders/investors are regulars)

🗓️ July 16: Movies & Workish: For anyone allergic to traditional B2B networking events – Jessica Allen is hosting a matinee get-together at Galaxy Movies. Watch Despicable Me 4 and mingle with other founders. Her video invite here is great 😆

🗓️ July 17: Demo Day: Founder Institute’s spring 2024 cohort will demo their companies, and executive director Martín Martinez is doing a fireside chat with Joyce Durst, a pioneer in enterprise software, tech, and near-shoring

🗓️ July 17: Turn Up! CPG Happy Hour: Hosted by Bill Murphy and Marc Nathan and showcasing great local CPG companies (you can apply to display your CPG brand here)

🗓️ July 17 Product Tank: A bunch of product people are getting together to talk shop at Subterra Agave Bar, including a fireside chat with Brett Webster, who leads product management at the multi-billion dollar Dematic

🗓️ July 17: Austin AI & ML Meetup: Join Microsoft’s Daniel Janik, along with dozens of other AI & ML builders

🗓️ July 17: Business Model Canvas: A few years ago, I took Seth Godin’s AltMBA, and he assigned this book on business model generation. Now, the city of Austin’s hosting a class on the same framework

🗓️ July 18: Exploring Corporate Philanthropy: This one’s good if you either A) Have a non-profit and are looking for donor connections or B) Are thinking of starting your own philanthropic practice. Laura Villagran Johnson and Steven González from PNC Bank will discuss their approach to corporate philanthropy

🗓️ July 19: Artemis Female Founder Meetup: Hosted the third Friday of every month by Juliette Richert of the Artemis Fund

Other 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.

  • July 11: Dry Drink Non-Alc Cocktail Class

  • July 12: The Art of Calder and Dali at AO5 Gallery

  • July 12-13: Masters of Smoke Ardbeg Scotch Tasting

  • July 12-17: Spirited Away showing at Austin Film Society

  • July 13: Second Saturdays - Swing Dancing at Blanton Museum

  • July 13: Floating Sound Bath at Rancho Moonrise

  • July 13-14: City-Wide Vintage Sale

  • July 14: Roosevelt Room Master Class - Home Bartending 101

  • July 14: Blind Wine Tasting at RSRV Country Club

  • July 14: Permanent Jewelry Pop-Up at Meanwhile Brewing

  • July 15: Knightcap Chess Club at Justine’s

  • July 15: Open Mic & Crew Show at Comedy Mothership

  • July 17: New Beer Release at Blue Owl Brewing

  • July 17: Wednesday Night Jazz Meeting at the famous Cactus Café

  • July 18: Latino Floating Moonlight Serenade

  • July 18: Texas Iberico Tasting & Wine Pairing

  • July 19-20: Ten Piece Chef Sushi Dinner & Sake Pairing

  • July 19-21: Classic Game Fest - Huge Retro Gaming Show

  • July 20: Summer Wine Tasting Series at Underdog - BBQ Wines

  • July 20: Dirty Dancing is playing at the Blue Starlight Drive-In

One last thing… You may know Robert Rodriguez from his award-winning work on films like Sin City, Spy Kids, Machete, and more.

Well, he’s an Austinite, and this summer, he’s hosting a film series at The Paramount, featuring a handful of his all-time favorite movies:

Check out his interview with fellow Austinite, Tim Ferriss, for more on his life and work (including the story of El Mariachi, which cost $7k to make and grossed $2.6m)

Opportunities

This is a new section I’m testing out, highlighting cool opportunities to grow your business (or acquire new ones)… Let me know if I should keep doing it

1. Cheap Pop-Up Space Downtown: Apparently, ~12% of downtown storefronts are vacant. So the Downtown Austin Alliance has a program to rent cool spaces to businesses and non-profits for pop-up activations & events.

  • Venues: Both indoor and outdoor

  • Capacity: 200-3,000 people

  • Price: $250-$350/day (more if your org does >$250k in rev)

  • ATX Today did a great writeup with more details

2. Get Into Walmart: Applications are open until July 15 for Walmart’s 2024 Open Call event. Chosen founders will get mentorship and the ability to pitch their product for Walmart & Sam’s Club shelves. Shout out to Marc Nathan for the heads up!

3. Business For Sale: Local founder Mike Michaels is exploring the sale of one of his companies, Big Weekend Calendars, next year. The business does steady 6-figures in revenue, with ~40% profit margins, and plenty of room to grow. Open to partial seller financing. Serious inquiries can reach him here for more info.

4. Speak At SXSW: Through July 21, you can submit ideas for book readings, panels, fireside chats, meetups, presentations, and workshops you’d like to host at SXSW 2025. The community will vote on them in August.

Fundraising? Applications are also open for SXSW Pitch now through November 8.

Local Artist of the Week

A couple weeks ago, I told you about Niz, the street artist behind some of Austin’s most iconic murals.

Well… One of her pieces was recently covered up, and there’s an interesting story there (and a new artist to check out).

The Background: This is the original piece by Niz – one of her most intricate – painted on the wall of Masa y Más. It was a picture of chef Robert Campos’ mother, his inspiration, and was there for about eighteen months until the restaurant closed earlier this summer.

The Change: Tacodeli is moving into the space and hired local artist Mike Johnston to do a new mural. At first, Johnston demurred – he and Niz are friends, and he didn’t want to paint over her work. But in a twist, Tacodeli had already painted out the old mural, creating a blank canvas for the new one. So he sent Niz this lovely message, and got to work.

The Artists: Mike and his wife, Erin, form a two-part art crew called Team TRUTH. Both long-time Austinites, their work is all over town. If you’ve seen the Alamo Drafthouse’s epic Bob Marley mural, or more recently, the piece for Ryan Reynolds’ IF, you’ve seen team TRUTH in action.

The New Mural: Tacodeli kept it real. The new mural is an ode to a third underground artist, Cindy “Crash” Raschke, who passed away in 2017.

She was famous for hand-painting cars here in Austin, and actually painted the original Tacodeli van, along with the tabletops and menus that now make their restaurants unique.

To me, it’s a cool reminder that all the murals around town have a story behind them. And sometimes, several layers of stories, some of which can’t be seen with the naked eye.

The new mural

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

Thank you to all the incredible local founders and leaders who share great insights and events. You can follow and connect with them here…