An Absurd Number Of Founder Events

PLUS: Speak at Austin Tech Week... Earn 10.75% Interest... Willie Nelson's Guitar Guy... and more...

Author

Ethan Brooks
July 25, 2024

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 (honestly… too many)

  • 📣 Word On The Street

  • 🤠 Willie Nelson’s Guitar Guy

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: The Ad Optimized Website: Hal Smith has managed $150m+ in ad campaigns and will share tips on scaling to $1m/mo. in revenue

🗓️ July 26: Pitch & Run: Trade ideas with Zeke Torres and dozens of other founders and funders on a 4.2 mile jog around the lake every Friday

🗓️ July 26: User Adoption Hurdles with AI: John Heintz is sharing his experience overcoming users’ psychological barriers to the adoption of AI

🗓️ July 27: Founders Running Club: Join Anette Armenta, Tim Tkachenko, and others for a 5k run around the lake every Saturday

🗓️ July 27: The Board Walks: Not strictly business-related, but Elle Beecher’s group is fantastic, and lots of founders/investors are regulars

🗓️ July 29: Scaling Your Series A: Wen Zhang is giving this workshop on how to deploy your Series A capital to drive growth over the first 24 months

🗓️ July 29: My First Million Fan Meetup: Hosted by Alice Huang who also hosts a fan group for Modern Wisdom (with WhatsApp chats for each!)

🗓️ July 30: Business After Hours: For anyone out west, tired of going downtown, join West Austin Chamber for food + networking

🗓️ July 30: Tech + Tequila Talk: Guest speaker Daniel Domene shares how learning the language of design changed his approach to product management

🗓️ July 31: Founder & VC Forum: Martín Martinez, of Founder Institute, is hosting a fireside chat with Lauren Postler and Kwame Boler.

(Fun Fact: Lauren leads strategic growth for the Office of Entrepreneurship & Leadership at UATX, the fascinating new college launched by Austin billionaire Joe Lonsdale and others.)

🗓️ July 31: “But Wait, It Gets Worse”: Love the title 🤣 Richard Avery is discussing cyber threats in the age of generative AI

🗓️ July 31: Biohacking Happy Hour: Back by popular demand, Chris Taylor is hosting at one of my favorite local founder hubs – Red Fridge Society. Wrote more about ‘em here

🗓️ Aug 1: Open Coffee Downtown: This laid back event by Marc Nathan is specifically designed to bring founders and funders together monthly

🗓️ Aug 1: Esports & Gaming Tech Meetup: Justin Schoenfelder is interviewing attorney Dean Elazab about the legal side of the esports world

🗓️ Aug 1: Hardware Happy Hour: Led by Riley Knox, who’s taking a huge swing with Leviathan, a company focused on the future of high speed freight

🗓️ Aug 1: Networking for Healthcare + Fitness Founders: Huge community of wellness founders in ATX, led by Corey Hiben

🗓️ Aug 1: HackAI: New group - the first Thursday of every month, Bryce Miles and Reid McCrabb bring people together to talk AI and jam on projects

🗓️ Aug 1: Using AI in HR: David Hanrahan will share current use cases for AI in talent acquisition, performance tracking, manager coaching, and more

🗓️ Aug 1: Technically Ethical Happy Hour: Every month, Sam Levin brings this group together for thought-provoking conversations about modern tech

🗓️ Aug 2: GAACC Conversation Series: Zarina Lam Stanford served as CMO of IBM, Rackspace, and now, Bazaarvoice, and is sharing her insight

Sam Lavin’s discussion group on the ethics of modern tech – Technically Ethical

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 26: Mick Jagger’s Birthday at Tweedy’s Bar

  • July 27: Cigars & Sunsets at William Chris Vineyards

  • July 27: 3D Printing 101 Class

  • July 27: Intro to Wheel Throwing (Pottery Class)

  • July 27: Y’all Out Boy (FOB Cover Band) at Stubbs

  • July 27: The Goonies playing at Blue Starlight Drive-In

  • July 27: Dirty Dancing playing at First Light Books

  • July 28: Roosevelt Room Master Class: Brandies of the World

  • July 29: Bird Dog Pit BBQ Class

  • July 30: Non-Alc Cocktails & Bouquet Making Class

  • July 30: Improv Show at Joe Rogan’s Comedy Mothership

  • July 31: Roadhouse playing at Central Machine Works

  • July 31: Half-Off Wine at Wanderlust (50+ wines on tap)

  • Aug. 1: First Thursday (Music + Food) at Hotel San Juan

  • Aug. 3: Superhero Fit Games

  • Aug. 3: Pints & Plants - Market at Jester King Brewing

  • Aug. 3: Postmodern Jukebox in Concert

One more thing… Every year, millions of Purple Martins migrate through Austin on their way to and from South America. Every night, thousands swarm back to their roost in a display people have called, “a hurricane of birds,” and “better than the bats.”

Austin Audubon is hosting a free viewing party Aug. 2-3, and Amy’c Ice Cream is slingin’ two special flavors (purple ube ice cream and blackberry coconut lime sorbet) and giving 20% of sales to Austin Audubon.

Word On The Street

A roundup of cool local opportunities to grow your business, wealth, or personal brand

  • Speak at the first-ever Austin Tech Week (an evolution of the old Austin Startup Week), kicking off October 28th

  • Earn 10.75% on your capital by lending to Wanderlust Wine Co., a local wine bar with three locations, raising money to expand operations (do your due diligence, not financial advice, etc. etc.)

  • AAPI Founders: “Project Rebuild Small Business” is giving $3k grants to 10 local founders. Submissions are open to July 31, and it takes 10 mins to apply

  • Reminder: If your company is located in ATX (or relocating here), the City of Austin offers thousands back on wages, hiring, and property taxes.

     

  • Nexus Grant: Opening July 30, the city is offering fifty $5k grants to new and emerging artists or businesses in the creative space

Local Artist of the Week

Maybe you noticed above, there’s a bunch of 80s movies playing at unique venues all over town next week. So this is a fun opportunity to bring up an incredible local craftsman, Mark Erlewine, who played a surprising role in one of my all-time favorites, Back to the Future.

Erlewine’s a guitar maker, based here since ‘74, and an absolute icon – he’s worked with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert King, Joe Walsh, Paul McCartney, and more.

Willie Nelson’s been playing the same guitar – Trigger – for more than 50 years, and since 1977, Erlewine is the only person he trusts to maintain it. Here’s a video on how he does that.

Erlewine and Willie Nelson’s guitar, Trigger - Credit: StewMac

Collectors will love this: Mark invented a guitar called the Lazer, a custom headless guitar that blues artist Johnny Winter said was, “the closest thing I’ve found to sounding like a Strat & feeling like a Gibson.”

German machinists literally broke lost the mould needed to make the custom tuner, and he’s has less than 50 left, so he’s taking orders for the last of their kind.

I can barely believe this, but owners pick from 3 iconic woods: Korina from the 1950’s Gibson factory, pieces from “the tree” (the rarest mahogany in the world), or Black Walnut from the same tree used to make Albert King’s guitar, Lucy, and Jerry Garcia’s Strat.

Okay, so what about Back to the Future? Well, remember the opening scene, when Marty’s messing with the “mega-powerful amplifier”?

The guitar he’s got is another one of Erlewine’s own designs – the Chiquita Travel Guitar – dreamed up for Billy F. Gibbons of ZZ Top, and used by everyone from Stevie Ray Vaughn to Joe Bonamassa. Van Halen even snapped a pic with one.

You can still get ‘em (surprisingly affordable), made and tuned by the man himself, right here in ATX 🤘

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…