Welcome to this issue of The Austin Business Review, a roundup of great local events and insights for Austin business owners (plus some other cool stuff for your life outside of work).
I’m writing this from my balcony, but by the time you see it, I’ll be somewhere deep in the heart of the Shenandoahs, road tripping across this beautiful country of ours on my way to visit family for the month of July.
It’s been a bit of a tradition since starting ABR.
Back when I had my first job writing, we got vacation time, but we always pre-made content and scheduled it to ship so it never looked like we were away.
It always bugged me. It was the one part of our writing that felt fake, and I told myself that when I finally did my own thing, I’d not only take time away to refill the well, but ideally, serve as a bad influence, emboldening readers to do the same.
Three summers in, and I can tell you that it’s never really easy to leave.
There’s always plenty of work to be done, emails to respond to, stories I’d love to tell, and of course, I’m certain the business would grow faster if I stayed.
But how much would the extra money be worth, really?
For better or worse, I’ve always been keenly aware that there’s a version of me, thirty years from now, who would hand over every penny to come back to this exact moment, and have this time again. Time for Wednesday morning coffee with my grandparents. A bourbon with my dad on his first official day of retirement (next Sunday). Or a night down on the dock with old friends, watching the sky as neighborhoods around the lake compete to see who lights off the most fantastically illegal fireworks.
This is the real wealth.
So, the tradition lives on. I’m off for July, but I’m leaving you with a special mega-edition of ABR, complete with the full month’s lineup of things I think are worth your time (including a bbq class you gotta see, and one of my all-time favorite artists, celebrating America 250).
I hope you bookmark this. Or, better yet, I hope you archive it, spend your free time this month around the grill with the people you love, and I’ll see you back here in August.
-Ethan
Upcoming Events
🗓️ July 6: Claudette Club Build Day: Brigitte Donovan and Toria Bonanni are hosting an AI work session at Creative Collective, their coworking space for women
🗓️ July 6: Build Your AI Assistant Using Claude Cowork: Chrissy MacDannell and Jake O’Shea are bringing in Jonathan Malkin to teach this workshop at Antler HQ
🗓️ July 7: Data Centers Dissected: Two industry vets – Jimmy D. Pike of Dell’s Data Center Group, and AMD’s Michael Schulte – discuss the good, bad, ugly
🗓️ July 7: The Health Hustlers: An exclusive group for health and wellness founders, hosted by Corey Hiben and Scott Mitchell
🗓️ July 8: Work Together Wednesdays: Brett Clark who owns Austin Boats & Busses is firing up the luxury bus for a roving co-working day to wine country and back.
🗓️ July 10: Trail Talks: Pat Killoren and Sam Huntington, both killer podcast hosts here in ATX, organize this walk for business owners (special guest founder TBD soon!)
🗓️ July 10-11: The Agentic Engineering Stack: A two-day hands-on session with Jordan Hill, for those going beyond chat to agentic, self-improving systems
🗓️ July 14: AI In The Job Market: Austin Women in Tech is bringing together a panel of leaders, including Thom Singher, CEO of Austin Tech Council, to discuss the latest on AI in hiring
🗓️ July 14: Poker School & Novice Tourney: Finally… a table my speed. Chris Taylor over at the Red Fridge is hosting a low-stakes game for founders who want to brush up
🗓️ July 15: Metropolitan Breakfast Club: J. B. Sauceda who recently took over as host of the storied Texas Country Reporter TV show (50+ seasons) is speaking
🗓️ July 15: ATX CTO: Every month, William Baxter curates a discussion for senior tech execs. July’s topic: AI & Software Testing
🗓️ July 16: Meet Your Project: Kristen Pavle and Dave Gorum, cofounders of Play Into Being, are hosting a workshop for that project that’s been nagging at the back of your mind
🗓️ July 16: GAACC Women’s Club: Chef Laila Bazahm owner of Michelin-recommended Siti and El Raval, is sharing her journey as an entrepreneur
🗓️ July 17: Female Founders & Friends: Juliette Richert and Rachel Mackey are back with their monthly mixer over at Cosmic Saltillo
🗓️ July 17: TWIB Lunch & Learn: Texas Women in Business is bringing in Melanie Wild to teach a session on nervous system regulation for high powered women
🗓️ July 19: Reverse Brain Rot: This new series by Nicole Stump is taking off – one hour of reading, one hour of writing (and no screens allowed for either)
🗓️ July 21: Game Changers: If you’re into pro sports, Austin Chamber is bringing in leaders from a bunch of major franchises to talk about ATX’s pro sports economy
🗓️ July 22: Metropolitan Breakfast Club: Rebecca Farrell Ewing, Executive Director of Women in Neuroscience, is joining as speaker
🗓️ July 23: WEBii Cafe Business Table Talk: This is a fun idea – Jacqueline Sinex, executive director at WEBii, is starting a new coffee + marketing forum at her office
🗓️ July 23: Affordable Business Capital: This is pretty cool – GAACC is bringing in a bunch of bank, gov’t, and non-profit reps to talk about different funding options
🗓️ July 23: Consumer VC Wake Up: One of the best CPG events in town, Marc Nathan gathers brands, and service providers from across the ecosystem for coffee
🗓️ July 24: Building Real Software with AI: This is wild – Bryon Jacob, who was CTO at data.world, (and spent a decade at VRBO before that) is teaching this session
🗓️ July 29: AI & Robotics: Every month, HICAM, a new hard-tech incubator east of the city, brings a bunch of cool founders together to show off what they’re building
Wine Taste Like A Somm
Okay, this is awesome. My buddy, Mario Matavesco, recently relocated to Austin full time.
Better known as the Personal Sommelier, he spends most of his time either helping people curate their personal wine collections, or leading these unbelievable tasting trips to Bordeaux and other wine regions of the world.
He loves teaching people about wine, and partnered with Chris Taylor down at The Red Fridge Society to lead a handful of workshops for founders all about wine tasting.
If you haven’t been yet, it’s a blast. Not pretentious at all (Mario turned me onto my favorite Costco wine shopping trick). And a great spot to connect with other cool founders. There’s a session coming up July 29th. You can check it out here!
This is Mario teaching a bunch of us about fountain pens too…
Word On The Street
Interesting funding opportunities you should know about…
Central Texas Angel Network is hosting an info session July 21st ahead of their next funding cycle (application deadline is July 26th)
Cosmos Grants Are Back: Austin’s own Brendan McCord is offering quick decisions on $1-$10k grants (application deadline is July 26th)
RECOMMENDED PARTNERS
I don’t sell one-off ads the way many newsletters too. ABR is powered by long-term partnerships with a handful of incredible founders who get the vision, see the value, and want to help make this newsletter possible. So if you’re in the market for one of the following, check out…
GSD Camp: There’s a huge gap between vibe coding and building software that survives the real world. GSD Camp closes it for you in 6 weeks. Designed for busy founders, PMs, and ops leads – get the 5% of know-how you need to let AI handle the other 95%
John Davison, founder of GSD Camp, is actually hosting a series of free events in July too
There’s a weekly session called Vibe Coding and the Principles of Sane Development
Other Fun Stuff Coming Up
Movies
I say this every year, but one of my favorite things about Austin in summer is that there’s a strange abundance of places to watch movies while floating in water. Just a few upcoming examples for July…
Alsooo… If you’re looking for a more traditional (non-floating) viewing experience there are a couple other cool big screen things to shout out this month
Meanwhile, there are a bunch of interesting niche classes taking place all over town too, if you’re looking for a new hobby…
July 8: Creative Speech – The Spiritual Power Of Your Words
July 11: Henna 101 – Beginner Henna Class
July 12: Summer of Riesling: Tasting Masterclass
July 14: Sip & Solder Stained Glass Workshop
July 16: Balcones Texas Whiskey Blending Workshop
July 17: Cocktails with the Curator at Zilker Botanical Garden
July 18: Self Sustaining Terrarium Workshop
July 19: Cooking Class - 4 Breakfasts to Keep Blood Sugar Balanced
July 25: Hands On Honey Extraction Class
July 25: Pierogi Class at Lutie’s (if you haven’t been yet, go!)
July 25: Antonelli’s Cheese Tasting Boat Cruise on Ladybird Lake
July 26: Hot Pearl Summer – Using Ocean Flavors in Cocktails
July 30: Floral Arranging Workshop
BBQ Master Class - Do NOT Miss This
Finally, this puppy deserves to be called out all on its own – Camp Lucy is this amazing resort out in Dripping Springs. The owner actually collects antique buildings from all over the world, disassembles them, moves them to Texas, and reassembles them there (but that’s a story for another time).
The restaurant there is called Tilly’s and it’s unbelievable. They’re hosting a three-day BBQ master class featuring chefs and pit masters from all over.
There are a few different ticket levels, but $450 gets you a full day of hands-on classes, plus all food & drink, brand activations, and merch. Higher end tickets include multiple nights at the resort (there’s a couples option), 1-1’s with the chefs, and welcome + goodbye meals with the group.
Of all the things in this email, this is the one thing that might get me back in town early.
Local Artist Of The Month: Bringing Back Mega Monuments with Mo Mahmood
This is part of two much longer pieces I’m working on, but given that we’re headed into America 250 this weekend, I wanted to take a second to highlight one of my all-time favorite art stories since starting the newsletter.
Mo Mahmood is the local founder of More Monuments, a 501(c)3 whose sole mission is to bring back the art of large-scale statues and “awe-inspiring megastructures that define a new era of American artistry and craftsmanship.”
Originally from Delaware, he moved to the west coast to do robotics after school, and realized he loved working in the physical world but wanted to focus on things that were more artistically driven. Work that ultimately brought him here to Texas.
“I’ve been thinking about large scale art and celebration,” he told me recently, as we toured some of his work out at ProtoTown.
There, he’s already built the largest monument in the Austin area – a 54 foot tribute to Spindletop, the oil strike that catapulted Texas onto the main stage, kicked off the oil boom, and ultimately made the US the world’s number one energy producer through two world wars.
My visit came as he was preparing to unveil a new piece – a ten foot statue of George Washington dreamed up by he and his artist partners in honor of America’s 250th.
The 10-footer is part one of a three-part plan. The next will be a fifty-foot version, and ultimately, if Mo has his way, a 500 foot colossus, one of many, meant to stir the soul and re-inspire Americans to build great things.
The latest statue, arriving at its new home outside Austin. Crafted in France, Mo and the team will now do final touches and repairs from the journey before the final unveiling
As we walked, he talked about what he calls “The Great Forgetting,” America’s slow turn away from building great, beautiful things on a huge scale.
“The last great large statue we had, in terms of like, gorgeous statues, was the Statue of Liberty,” he said. “And that was in 1886, so a hundred and forty years ago.”
The colossus itself is a reminder of this.
It takes inspiration from a sixty-foot statue from the 1939 World’s Fair, built to honor the 150th anniversary of Washington’s inauguration. It was only made to be temporary – back then, we were so used to building huge things, so optimistic about the future, that we could even tear them down without ever wondering if they might disappear for good.
Mo and I spent the morning trotting all over Prototown HQ, looking at his work, but also the work of other great innovators in the physical world. Giant autonomous construction equipment, robots that build houses, and more.
“How do you reverse a great forgetting,” I asked just before we parted ways.
He thought for a moment, then confidently answered, “Monuments.”
“To the real history of America,” he said. “Things that people can look at that are tangible. The average Roman household had one or two statues,” he added smiling. “How many does the average American house have?”
If you agree, he’s got your home’s first statue right here 🇺🇸
Visualization of the Colossus
