Welcome to this issue of The 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).
Well, we had one quiet week, and now it’s back to the craziness that is Austin’s business events scene. Austin is the most interesting city anywhere in America right now.
As proof, I bring you…
🏓 Pickleball With Other Founders
💸 A Table Of DTC Giants
🧠 Reverse Brain Rot
And more…
As always, this puppy was curated and written without AI (and finished far too late on Wednesday night).
Did someone forward this to you? If you like it, you can sign up here!
-Ethan
PS. The newest leg of the Waterloo Greenway officially opened up this week (Phase II in the picture below). Word on the street is that it now offers a fully off-street bike and pedestrian trail connecting the Lance Armstrong Bikeway on 5th, all the way to Rainey St. and trail along the water.
Upcoming Events
🗓️ TODAY: Your Startup Sucks: Like a funny version of Shark Tank, where founders pitch a panel of investors, founders, and comedians
🗓️ June 13: Public Invention Con: A whole day focused on humanitarian innovation and engineering that serves the public good
🗓️ June 16: Agent Builders Breakfast: Abby Rakshit recently started hosting the local chapter of this national community
🗓️ June 16: Rotary Club Speed Networking: Hosted by Austin Rotary’s Executive Director, Teresa Taylor (she’s got a fascinating story, which I wrote about here)
🗓️ June 16: AI Show & Tell: A mix of longer presentations and shorter open mic demo’s down at The Red Fridge
🗓️ June 17: Vibe Coders With Traction: John Davison is bringing together founders who built products using AI (and actually got customers)
🗓️ June 17: TWIB Happy Hour: Hosted by author and retreat architect, Shawna Lee, who curates experiences for women going through important life transitions
🗓️ June 17: ATX CTO: Every month, William Baxter curates a discussion for senior tech execs. This month’s topic: Thinking Like A CEO, on the metrics and problem solving skills that matter at that level
🗓️ June 18: Giants At The Table: Mathias Ihlenfeld is hosting an intimate roundtable for founders of $5m+ ARR companies, followed by dinner and drinks at Mamma Betty’s.
NOTE: If you don’t know Matthias yet, he’s got a wild story – bootstrapped Woom Bikes to $25m+ right here in ATX, then took it global and grew to nine-figures. Now he leads the local cohort for Birthing of Giants.
🗓️ June 18: Keep Austin Intelligent: Leaders from business, education, and government are gathering to talk about how Austin is heading into the age of AI
🗓️ June 18: Build A Personal AI Assistant: Chrissy McDannell runs an M&A firrm here in town and is opening up her notebook to show how she’s built out her own AI assistant
🗓️ June 19: Founder Pickleball: John Davison is gathering a group over at East Side Padel (all levels welcome, but they’re primarily 2-3.75, if that means something to you)
🗓️ June 19: TWIB Summer Luncheon: Summer Salazar is joining Texas Women in Business to talk about building confidence and communication skills (these lunches go FAST so snag a spot now if you want one)
🗓️ June 20: AWT Wellness Day: A change of pace – Austin Women in Tech is hosting a 50-minute Vinyasa session over at YTX Studio in the Indeed Tower’s
🗓️ June 20: Founders & Funders Social Dance: No pitches or panels. Just laid back music and a li’l two-steppin’ with Kevad Belle and others
🗓️ June 21: Reverse Brain Rot: One hour of focused reading. One hour of focused writing. Hosted by Nicole Stump, one of Austin’s great stewards of all things interesting
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Other Fun Stuff Coming Up
June 11: Knightcap Chess Social at Holiday Cocktail Bar
June 12-14: Lord of The Rings - The Fellowship In Concert at Bass Concert Hall
June 13: Vivid Parlor Art + Social Experience
June 14: Austin Organic Gardener’s Meeting (…and Ice Cream Social)
June 16: Monster of a Land with NYT Bestselling Author Lauren Hough
June 18: Spirited Away Water Color Class (someone send this to Tim Ferriss)
June 18: Father’s Day Custom Whiskey Bottle Etching at the Ruby Hotel
June 18: The Drop In - Free Summer Concert Series at The Long Center
June 18-21: The Austin Chamber Music Festival
June 20: Birding 101 Walk
June 20: Nate Bargatze - Live at the Moody Center
June 21: Veracruz All Natural - Cookbook Launch with Reyna and Maritza Vazquez, local owners of Vera Cruz & La Fonda
Last Call Happy Hour
The historic Paramount Theatre is getting ready to close for renovations for the first time in 50 years. Before they do, they’re hosting one last shindig - an extended hours tour and happy hour that’s free and open to all as long as you RSVP.
On June 15, from 4-8PM, the bars will be running special throw-back pricing, and word is they’re pulling out one of the most treasured historic artifacts they have (which is a lot, coming from a place where Houdini himself performed on-stage)
You can find all the info, and RSVP here 👇
Insights
Thought-provoking ideas and stories published by founders in ATX
1. AI For Copywriting: Local copy writer, Katy Ward, shared this 4-page Google Doc of specific instructions she uses to keep Claude from writing like a sophomore poetry major
2. The Season of ATX Podcast Collabs: I’m not sure if it’s the summer or what, but there have been a bunch of great local podcast mash-ups lately…
3. Thinking Bigger: Dan Huot, the comms lead at SpaceX, sat down with Elon and Ian Dahl (director of satellite engineering) to talk about a bunch of projects the company has in progress. What really struck me about this piece though Elon’s explanation of the total energy radiated from our sun, and how earth currently uses about half of one-billionth of a percent of it. It’s a fascinating reframe, and it makes me wonder what it’s like to walk around all the time knowing that the opportunities for growth are vastly, vastly bigger than most people think.
BONUS: The Podcast I HOPE Happens: If you’re not on Twitter, just know something legendary is happening on the outskirts of Austin. Podcaster, Ti Morse, host of the up and coming Relentless show, is trying to land an interview with Elon Musk ahead of the SpaceX IPO.
Just one problem… Elon is… Tough to reach.
To get his attention, Ti spent two weeks pulling all-nighters to build a huge and intricate interview set that looks like the moon just outside town, then tweeted an open invite (the internet went wild, of course). He even included space suits, and a visual replica of SpaceX Lunar Mass Driver concept, which aims to one day manufacture and launch satellites from the moon.
Hands-down one of the coolest moves I’ve ever seen.
Below, Ti re-enacts the famous photo of Elon, contemplating the wreckage of one of the early Falcon 1 explosions. It was 2008, his companies were running out of money, the economy was cratering, rockets kept exploding, and he only had money for one more test.
Over the last two years, 80% of all mass launched to orbit – for the entire world – was carried on SpaceX rockets.
Relentless, indeed.
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
