How Much Does It Take To Be Financially Free?

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:

• 📅 Upcoming Events (a ton)

• 📣 Word On The Street: Opportunities to speak, fundraise, and more

• 💰 Data: How Much Does It Take To Be Financially Free?

• 🤖 Jasper.AI Founder’s Newest Project (a total 180)

• And more…

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

-Ethan

PS. You read this email to get connected here in Austin, so I want to introduce you to Bill Murphy.

Bill’s the founder of WILLPOWER, which hosts a ton of cool events like this (sound on) here in town. A lot of their stuff is great for anyone - but if you’re in CPG or wellness specifically, you definitely need to know him. Check out his…

• Monthly: Turn Up! CPG Happy Hour

• Bi-Weekly: Sunday Service Pickup Volleyball

Next week, he’s co-hosting the DTCx Ecomm Growth workshop, which looks great. Hit him up on LinkedIn, and make sure you’re following to hear about other cool stuff.

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.

October 3rd is Texas Venture Fest, a state-wide celebration of startups and tech. Six venues are hosting events in Austin, including partner-of-this-newsletter, The Red Fridge Society. Looks like last year was a blast, so hope to catch you out there this time around.

Also check out…

🗓️ TONIGHT: Exiting In Today’s Challenging Environment: Join David Lack, managing partner at one of Austin’s biggest PE firms, John Haynor, who’s advised on hundreds of capital raises and IPOs, and recently-exited founder, Jonathan Kleinman

🗓️ TONIGHT: Investor Connect: Co-hosted by Antler’s Caroline Healey and Samantha Cerqueira in partnership with NuFund (formerly Tech Coast Angels)

🗓️ TONIGHT: Take Care! Women’s Health Innovators: Join investor Mariana Gonzalez in conversation with a panel of founders, followed by breakout sessions

🗓️ TONIGHT: Pilot Social Hour: D’andre Griffin is another person you should know in ATX event culture. He runs a community called Pilot, with great social gatherings

🗓️ Sept. 27: Morning Marketing Mixer: Amy Jackson and Destinee Berman both run performance agencies, and are starting this series for marketing leaders in ATX

🗓️ Sept. 27: Pickup Hoops: Speaking of performance marketers, Nick Schenck, founder of 3rd + Lamar, hosts this pickup ball game for fellow business owners

🗓️ Sept. 27: Pitch Made Perfect: Shark Tank-style business pitches combined with a classic car show over at Cabana Club. Very weird. Very Austin

🗓️ Sept. 28: ATX Writing Club: Not strictly business-related, but Zac Solomon’s writing group is a great way to meet interesting people and get some focused work done

🗓️ Sept. 28: Tee Up! The Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce is hosting a social mixer at Golfinity ahead of their October tournament (open to non-members!)

🗓️ Sept. 30: Ladies Friend-working: Erin Laverone is a founder here in town, and hosts these highly curated happy hours that people love.

🗓️ Sept. 30: Quantonation Day: For anyone interested in quantum computing – includes a panel moderated by Jason Scharf (host of the AustinNext podcast), a look at the state of VC in the space, plus lightning talks from three industry leaders

🗓️ Sept. 30: AI-Driven Insights In Sales & Marketing: Part of a new series focused on sharing AI use-cases for non-profits, brick & mortar, or less-technical businesses

🗓️ Oct. 1: Gene Editing: UT’s Dr. Ilya Finkelstein will explore the progress made in gene editing, highlighting recent breakthroughs, promising results, and implications

🗓️ Oct. 1: Policy Leadership in the Age of AI: Hosted by the LBJ School of Public Affairs, including panels on the future of health, energy, national defense, and more

🗓️ Oct. 1: Raising Venture: Shannon Sibold’s team at MoFo is hosting this multi-part ScaleUp series. I’ve been, and the calibre of founders/info there is excellent

*MoFo is testing partnership with ABR, and I chose them because they do great stuff like this for founders

🗓️ Oct. 1: Advancing Climate Innovation: Join Dennis Price, editor at Impact Alpha, as he leads a panel discussion on corporate strategies for supporting sustainability

🗓️ Oct. 2: The Next 20 Years of AI: Brent Wistrom is talking to leaders at Dell and the Austin Tech Council to find out what it’ll take to put Austin at the forefront of AI

🗓️ Oct. 2: Texas Women In Business Online Connect: TWIB’s in-person events fill up super fast, so it’s cool to see them offer this online version (more convenient too)

🗓️ Oct. 3: DTCx Ecomm Growth workshop: I mentioned this above, but Bill Murphy is co-hosting with Steph Liu and leaders from other CPG brands

🗓️ Oct. 3: Austin Ecomm Summit: Seems like more of a conference-style event, including talks from dozens of Austin’s top retail leaders

🗓️ Oct. 2: AI-Powered Content Creation: Andrew Lane helped grow Copy.ai to 10m+ users, and is giving a workshop on how to scale content ops with AI

🗓️ Oct. 2: DefCon ATX: Austin’s local hacker meetup, includes a series of 5-10 minute fire talks, plus plenty of time to socialize with other attendees

🗓️ Oct. 3: Season 1 Wrap Party: If you haven’t heard Pat Killoren’s Lone Startup pod yet, you should definitely check it out, then come celebrate the end of S1.

🗓️ Oct. 3: Networking for Wellness Founders: Probably the biggest community of health + fitness founders in ATX, led by Corey Hiben, founder of Andro Brands

🗓️ Oct. 3: Quantum Computing Meetup: A panel discussion between Scott Aaronson, and leaders from several major companies innovating in this space.

🗓️ Oct. 4: Coffee & Connections: For those of you out west, tired of going downtown for events, the West Austin Chamber is hosting one of their regular coffee gatherings

🗓️ Oct. 5: ATX Newsletter Creators: Michael Daigler is bringing together dozens of newsletter writers in ATX to meet, trade notes, and build connections

One more thing… October is Legacy Business Month here in Austin, a program from Preservation Austin celebrating iconic shops that have been open 20+ years.

There’s a kick-off party on October 3rd (complete with limited-edition beer) over at Zilker Taproom. You can pick up your free passport there, and it’ll guide you through all 10 businesses on this year’s list.

Visit ‘em throughout the month to get your passport stamped, and be entered to win prizes at the wrap party in November. Great way to explore the town

Hosting something cool? Email me the details below and I’ll try to share it in the newsletter or on LinkedIn.

Non-Work Stuff Coming Up

It’s the end of September, which means everyone and their mother is hosting Oktoberfest events. St Elmo, Meanwhile, Vacancy, and Real Ale to name a few. Also…

• Sept. 27: Timber Wilde is playing live at Treaty Oak Distilling (check ‘em)

• Sept. 28: East Side Mini Open - charity mini golf to support horse rescue

• Sept. 28: Shiner Fest (yep… another one!)

• Sept. 28-29: Riddle Recital - 10 Medieval Mysteries In Song

• Sept. 29: Saké with the Gang at Texas Saké Co.

• Sept. 29: Sprint Club (lots of founders here too)

• Oct. 1: Sober October - Herbal Mocktail Class

• Oct. 1: The Art of Food: Evening of Art, Tacos, and Conversation

• Oct. 2: Music on the Trail at the Rainey St. Trailhead

• Oct. 3: Starlight Soiree at UMLAUF Sculputre Garden

• Oct. 3: Tipsy Tarot at Irenes - Free Readings

• Oct. 3: Bourbon and Biscuits - Tasting Menu at Stella San Jac

• Oct. 4: Intro to Wheel Throwing at Rosa Pottery

• Oct. 5: St. Elmo Springdale - Grand Opening & Special Release of “ZERO”

• Oct. 5: Outdoor Screening of Jurassic Park at the Natural History Museum

One More Thing… Outstanding in the Field is a traveling event series that hosts these epic dinners on farms all over the country. (Documentary on ‘em here)

On October 5th, they’ll be at Boggy Creek Farm, over on the east side – Austin’s oldest urban farm (which actually hosted Sam Houston, first elected president of the Republic of Texas, back in 1841).

Fresh food straight off the farm, local cocktail pairings, and guest chef Rick Lopez, who leads the 2x James Beard-nominated restaurant, La Condesa, here in town. As of this morning, there are still a few seats left.

Word On The Street

A roundup of cool local opportunities to bolster your business, brand, or personal life

• Is your kid heading to college soon? University of Austin (the fascinating new school, co-founded by local billionaire Joe Lonsdale et al.) is accepting applications for class of 2029. Thanks to their innovative model, every accepted student gets a full-ride scholarship 🤯

• Austin Tech Week is coming up. If your company wants to host a pop-up event off-site, you can apply to have it added to their programming here.

• Fundraising soon? Central Texas Angel Network has one more funding round this year and you can apply to pitch. There’s an info session on Oct. 14, and applications close on Oct. 21

• Panelists Wanted: The Running Remote conference is in April of next year, and Shelby Wolpa is putting out the call for CEOs of Austin-based remote-first companies to join a panel on the main stage and discuss lessons learned. Ideal candidates have 40+ staff, running either hybrid or full-remote. If that’s you, and you want more info, email her here!

How Much Does It Take To Be Financially Free?

The other day, I shared this chart ☝️ which basically changed my career a year ago. It’s from a wealth survey we did when I was working at Hampton, and shows the monthly personal burn rate for founders based on net worth.

The thing that’s striking is that, regardless of wealth, ~75% of people top out around $10-$20k/mo – far less than you might expect ($6m invested conservatively could throw off that kind of cash).

Since the survey, I’ve seen this reenforced a few other times:

• Sam interviewed two people – one with a 9-figure net worth, the other with a personal income of $10-$15m per year – and both told very similar stories

• The most recent episode of Moneywise covered this specifically (shout out to the guest, Lauren Broeder, who actually went to school here in Austin)

Combined, I’ve found that these freed me to focus on business ideas that are smaller, but more interesting to me personally, knowing they can still provide the lifestyle I want.

One more insight from that original survey that stuck with me…

At every level of wealth, people desired more money. That never changed. Typically, they were aiming for a net worth 2-10x their current amount.

But what differed was why they had the goals they did.

Some were searching for a sense of security. Others already had that, and admitted the goal was more arbitrary – just something to shoot for.

The most powerful predictor of whether people felt financially secure was not their level of wealth, but rather, the ratio of income-to-burn. Proving once again, it ain’t about how much you earn – it’s about how much you spend.

If that concept is exciting to you, reader John Davison is working on an app to tame monthly burn, and looking for a marketing co-founder. Hit him up here if you wanna chat!

Other In-SIGHTS…

A few cool images from the news to keep you stoked on what’s going on in TX

1. The founder of Jasper.AI is building something new in Austin, and wants your input. Dave Rogenmoser is doing a full one-eighty, going from software to in-person community concepts. We’re talkin’ green space, fire pits, food truck, and yes – pickleball.

He’s looking for opinions on what makes a venue like this amazing. Join the discussion here

2. In August, Texas installed more solar than the rest of the country combined, according to data from Cleanview. Same for battery storage, and it appears we were the only state to add wind capacity at all.

Michael Thomas wrote an excellent piece on why Texas out-performs. It basically comes down to 1) Demand is growing here faster than anywhere else, and 2) Our approach to grid interconnectedness is one that, “some energy analysts consider the country’s best” (didn’t see that coming)

3. Starbase Texas celebrated 10 years this week. Elon shared this epic image of the Starship Super Heavy Booster being recovered after flight four. Flight five is ready and waiting for bureaucratic bullshit FAA approval

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