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).
SXSW is over, but things haven’t slowed down for a second. In this issue, we’ve got…
🗓️ Events (a bunch)
📣 Bill Gurley Is Hiring
🤖 AI Show & Tell: How One Accountant Uses Claude to Pitch Clients
💃 Founder Story: How An Austin Local Became One Of LA’s First Dance Agents (we’re talkin’ work with Prince, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and more)
Did someone forward this to you? If you like it, you can sign up here!
-Ethan
Upcoming Events
🗓️ TODAY: Future Forum Happy Hour: Coctails and conversation over at Lustre Pearl with members and friends of the LBJ Library’s Future Forum Group
🗓️ TODAY: Book Launch: Intro to Gen AI: The second edition of this book is out, and Jay Boisseau, founder of Austin Forum on Tech & Society, is hosting the authors at his bar downtown for a discussion & signing
🗓️ Mar. 20: Grab Coffee with ABR Readers: We’re meeting out at St. Elmo Springdale, which has a great coffee service in the morning and plenty of parking
🗓️ Mar. 20: Founder Pickup Basketball: Every month, Nick Schenck hosts a pickup game for founders at Ramsey Neighborhood Park. Email him here to get on the list
🗓️ Mar. 21: ADHD Entrepreneur Anti-Summit: Bill Widmer and Sebastian Schroeder are hosting this summit at AWKN Ranch, geared towards finding clarity and authenticity in your work
🗓️ Mar. 24: Corporate Founder’s Forum: Okay, this one sounds great if you’re trying to figure out how to partner with non-profits at your company
🗓️ Mar. 25: Metropolitan Breakfast Club: Hear from Adam Powell, Executive Director of the Austin History Center
🗓️ Mar. 25: ReCap Finance & AI: Ben Lehrer, CEO of First Water Finance, is bringing together a group to discuss AI through the lens of finance & change management
🗓️ Mar. 25: Austin Robotics & AI: Tim Uys, Lead Designer at TriMech, with 30 years in product development, will show how to take ideas to production-ready products
🗓️ Mar. 26: Fridge Fire: Chris Taylor’s firing up the brand new sauna over at The Red Fridge Society for a founder social with Mark Hellweg of Vim Custom Saunas
🗓️ Mar. 26: Growth Sales System for Entrepreneurs: Brandon Taylor is joining Texas Women in Business for this Lunch & Learn session on sales/growth
🗓️ Mar. 26: The Lion in the Changing Jungle: Vidya Moorthy, president of Austin Business Woman, is talking about shifting geopolitics and what they mean for business
🗓️ Mar. 26: USIOC Spring Mixer: An informal gathering of members and friends of the US-India Chamber of Commerce
🗓️ Mar. 26: Applied AI Live: Michael Daigler, Jordaaan Hill, and Travis Oliphant are showing how to build production-grade OpenClaw systems
🗓️ Mar. 26: Nerd Nite: Like a local version of TED - This month’s installment is all about NASA’s Lucy Mission, investigating the Trojan Asteroid Belt – “the fossils of our galaxy”
🗓️ Mar. 26: Happy Hour with Cold Cycle: End your day back at The Red Fridge with another event from Chris Taylor, this time featuring the local founders of Cold Cycle, an innovative cold brew machine that makes batches in minutes instead of hours.
See you at Happy Hour?
On March 26th, a bunch of us are getting together down at Remedy for an informal happy hour to round out the month.
If you haven’t been yet, it’s one of my favorite bars. Co-owned by Jay Boisseau, the founder of The Austin Forum on Technology & Society, and the Austin AI Alliance.
It’s the kind of spot where you sometimes bump into tech legends on a random Thursday morning.
Like this newsletter?!
Want something like it for your company? I help business owners who are subject-matter experts turn their knowledge into compelling newsletters their target clients love and share.
Why you should trust me: I got my start at The Hustle (one of the biggest in the biz) and wrote this book on how 7-figure newsletter companies work. Also… You’re reading this.
If you’re thinking through a content strategy, and want an outside opinion on how to make it awesome, I’m happy to nerd out. Grab time on my calendar here.
Other Fun Stuff Coming Up
TONIGHT: Woodworking Happy Hour at Vacancy Brewing
TONIGHT: Movie Night at LBJ Wildflower Garden
Mar. 21: Robert Plant, Live at ACL
Mar. 21-22: Austin Herb Society - Plant Sale
Mar. 22: Cigar Rolling Class at Bobalu
Mar. 22: Learn Pysanky - The Art of Ukrainian Egg Painting
Mar. 24: Robocop - Screening at Austin Film Society
Mar. 25: Pinot in the City - Sample 40 Willamette Valley Wines
Mar. 25: A Long Weird Trip - Celebrating The Grateful Dead
Mar. 26: Putt Fore The Parks - Putt Putt Tournament
Mar. 26: Life & Legends of Larry McMurtry
Mar. 27: The Round Top Table - Dinner with Brooklyn Decker
Mar. 27: Big Reds & Bubbles - Elevated Sip ‘n Stroll
Mar. 28: Galaxy Whiskey Gala
Mar. 28: Jim Jeffries at ACL Live
Mar. 28: Modern Spring Wreath Making Workshop
Mar. 29: Roosevelt Room Master Class Series - Home Bartending 101
Word On The Street
See what other local leaders are up to with a roundup of jobs, product launches, fundraising opportunities, and more.
Bill Gurley Is Hiring a director for his new foundation, focused on giving micro-grants to people inspired by his book, Runnin Down A Dream [→ Read More]
Build Week: A 7-day, fast-paced entrepreneurial program for students, PIs, and postdocs, with a chance to secure $125k in funding. [→ Apply by Mar. 25]
Summer Camp for Entrepreneurial Teens: Squizzle Brand Camp teaches your kids storytelling, business, and teamwork through weekly, modular hands-on product sprints [→ Applications for 2025 Open]
Hiring, raising, or got some other opportunity ABR readers should know about? Get your message in front of the community with Classified Ads.
Insights
Thought-provoking ideas and stories published by founders in ATX
1. A University with No Tuition: I really enjoyed Jason Scharf’s recent conversation with Carlos Carvalho, president of UATX. They dive into the unique economics behind the school, how they’re restructuring incentives to focus on student performance, the value of the western tradition, and the importance of producing excellent citizens.
2. The Right Tool for the Wrong Way To Work: I’m on my second listen-through of Chris Williamson’s latest interview with Cal Newport. More and more, I’m auditing my screen time, looking for what’s truly necessary. Cal’s ability to build an audience without social media has been fascinating to me.
3. Kiva’s Rise to $1B+ in Micro-Loans: Lyn Graft wrote this excellent profile on Jessica Jackley, founder of Kiva, which offers micro-loans to millions around the world (primarily under-banked women in developing countries). This was a fun read. Most people don’t know this, but I started my writing career traveling the US, interviewing social entrepreneurs who were inspired by Kiva, which was just hitting its stride back then. Cool to see how far they’ve come.
🤖 Bonus: The AI Show & Tell
Members of The ABR Insights Network got together this week for an AI Show & Tell. These calls have two rules: No Selling, No Sponsors. Just business owners screen-sharing to show how they’re actually using AI in their company right now.
Sam Hill is the founder of EcomCFO, which does outsourced finance and accounting for large DTC brands (7- to 9-figures).
He shared how he built a Claude skill to help review prospects’ books and save hours during those early client conversations. He talked through the process of creating, testing, and improving the skill, how he’s rolling it out to the team, and more.
You can watch the video below. If you want to be on these calls and part of the conversation, join the ABR Insights Network today
Story of the Week: “The Only Place My Heart Wanted To Go Was Austin. Home”
This week’s story is straight out of the Hollywood (literally). Teresa Taylor is the Executive Director of the Rotary Club of Austin, which has been organizing business leaders here for more than a hundred years.
Born and raised here, she studied business at UT. Then a $99 spring break gamble took her to LA, where she fell in love with the city, moved there, founded TT.Productions, and spent the next 25 years working with some of the biggest names in entertainment.
To give you just a few examples, she…
Worked privately with Prince on one of his most controversial performances
Served as a key witness in a lawsuit against Madonna
Negotiated Michael Jackson’s film shoot in Budapest (while literally in labor)
And more…
She produced one of the first reality shows on Oprah’s network, did the Super Bowl with Stevie Wonder, scooped up 4 LA Emmy Awards, and was generally a badass for quite some time.
Now, she’s back in Austin, leading Rotarians, and writing the next chapter of her story 👇👇👇
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
