Austinpreneur: Recent Episodes
Capital Factory
Capital Factory, the Center of Gravity for Entrepreneurs in Texas, presents Austinpreneur – a podcast highlighting Austin’s startups, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Join in on candid conversations with leaders who have built companies from the ground up and visionaries creating the next wave of world-changing technology. Discover the importance of your network, meet the people supporting your journey, and connect with the community making it all happen.
Episodes feature topics like: entrepreneurship, technology, startups, innovation, funding, coworking, mentorship, startup accelerators, VC funding, angel investing, innovation strategies, partnerships, and more.
Trying to predict the future for any business can be a challenge. Accurate and reliable data is a highly prioritized need for any business in any market. Complete Intelligence was built to provide business with data that is highly accurate and will allow you to build and grow with a glimpse into what the future could be. Tony Nash has built Complete Intelligence to enable revenue teams to better manage their risk.
With multiple days of programming planned at Capital Factory during SXSW, you can imagine the impact on the AFWERX team when the city of Austin understandably canceled large gatherings due to concerns surrounding the spread of COVID-19. Despite the sudden setback, the team quickly adapted and got to work on re-imagining Spark Collider into an 8-hour live-streamed event. With the event to begin in 48 hours, the AFWERX team with support from Capital Factory staff were able to create an event that attracted 5,000 virtual viewers- which was 4x the number of people expected to attend the actual in-person event. Learn how the event all came together from Capital Factory's Senior Programs Manager, Maryann Alspaugh, and AFWERX members Adam Welch and Tony Perez.
From a school project to a full-fledged business, Pandata Tech is making sure that the data you capture is processed and validated in mere minutes. Co-founder Jessica Reitmeieter has built a business that improves your companies data capture in real-time and reduces the overall false positives or negatives that other management systems struggle with. Jessica walked us through her entrepreneurial journey from Canada, her college co-op, to the creation of Pandata Tech.
Sebastian Long has heard so many horror stories from friends over the years when using Airbnb, VRBO, and other vacation rental apps. Born and bred into the hospitality business, Sebastian has had years of training and experience to build Lodgeur into the ultimate vacation rental for frequent travelers. Lodgeur offers stylish and comfortable rentals for travelers that feel like home. If it's for a long or short stay, Lodgeur is introducing a new type of experience.
Founded on the vision of shaping the future of computing, David Zakariaie and his team at Senseye are building the way humans and computers interact with each other. Founded in 2015, Senseye provides products that connect the user to the tech and future-proofs your business in order to keep your assets safe and secure. David sat down with Gordon Daugherty, President of Capital Factory, to chat about the cutting-edge tech Senseye is working on and they're unique sensory interface technology that is directly linked to the brain from a computer via the eye.
Bad things happen every day. A lot of the times you hear different things in the news but they don't really capture the full effect of everything going on. In the first few months of 2020, there has been increased violent behavior on college campuses. Pocket punch is looking to make a change with a four-in-one self-defense device. Founded by five female college students at the University of Texas at Austin, Sydney Marvin and Ashley Raymond chatted with Nick Spiller about the story behind Pocket Punch and how they are empowering individuals to be in charge of their own safety.
Going to the gym can be intimidating and stressful. What if you could get the same workout at home or at your office that fits right into your schedule? Kanthaka is a marketplace for personal trainers where you can schedule highly vetted personal trainers for whenever you want to sneak in that daily workout. Sylvia Kampshoff started Kanthaka 2 years ago in Houston and is now nationwide with over 15 cities and more to come! Sylvia sees the future of Kanthaka to be the go-to, accessible app for anyone wanting to live a healthy and fit life.
In 2020 our word of the year is “Houston” and our goal is to achieve the same scale and synergies we have in Dallas with a unique Houston angle to it. On January 29th, Capital Factory official announced that it has merged with Station Houston and will be the first member of The Ion with Rice University and Houston Exponential! Gordon Daugherty traveled to Houston to chat with Gabi Rowe, Executive Director and CEO of The Ion to talk about what the merger means for the Houston Startup Ecosystem and a preview of what's to come with the Ion's new building.
Whether you're starting a business or looking for your next project, having a mentor is extremely important. Having a person that can tell you the hard truths and tell you when you're wrong about something can help you grow both professionally and personally. Maia Donohue, author of The Startup Mentor, sat down with Gordon Daugherty to talk about her new book, the relationship between a mentor and mentee, and personal experiences with mentorship.
In the early 2000s, Justin Siegel and his best friend didn't want to work for other people anymore and saw an opportunity for making mobile games. Fast-forward 20 years, Justin is now the co-owner of NRG Esports— a massive global esports organization with teams in Call of Duty and Overwatch that include investors such as Jennifer Lopez, Shaquille O'Neal, and Michael Strahan. Find out how Justin went from creating mobile games to earn some extra cash to helping run one of the most popular esports organizations in the world.
Finding a good mentor can be difficult and it's easy to fall into the trap of only talking about fundraising. Flip Kromer is a seasoned entrepreneur and mentor that has been in the Austin startup ecosystem for a long time. Flip built InfoChimp, a pioneer in the Big Data startup space that was later sold to CSC. Flip stopped by for a quick chat and broke down the common mistakes that he sees as a mentor, repeatable teachings that can elevate your next mentoring session, and his new startup Tooksome.
Learning a new skill to start a new career path can seem terrifying, especially when its to get into coding. Finding a class that fits your busy schedule can also seem impossible. Austin Coding Academy combines flexibility and affordability for anyone looking to change their life with coding. CEO of Austin Coding Academy Chris Lofton told us that "ACA is really about hope. It's about the hope that you're not stuck in the situation you're in that if you work hard, you can change your life and we're looking for people who have this desire and drive and can hold themselves accountable to the homework schedule and do all the work we ask them to do." Chris sat down with us and talked about how coding talent in Austin is some of the best in the world and why big businesses want to come here.
In 2012, there was a huge momentum of fitness wearables overtaking the market. The gamification of fitness became a popular new craze and competition between people. Today, 82% of U.S. adults own a wearable or health app, but less than .01% of brands or organizations have connected to these devices. This is where Patrick Hitchins and his team at FitRankings come in— they have created a universal fitness platform for wearables and apps, with enterprise software tools, support, and security built-in. FitRankings mission is to allow any organization to quickly and effectively connect to wearables/apps, and allow individuals to do more with their fitness data. Tune into this episode with Pat and learn all about how you can get your event connected with FitRankings!
Founded over 20 years ago by a student in Russia uploading guitar chords and tabs for his favorite band, Ultimate Guitar has now grown to become the largest collection of more than 2 million musical sheets that have been contributed by the musicians all around the world. Michael Trutnev broke down how the guitarist community is alive and rocking, and how a simple morning meeting routine built a strong company culture.
With 20 years of entrepreneurial experience, Bjorn Billhardt has learned that leadership means something completely different from one industry to another. Bjorn is the CEO and Founder of Abilitie, a Leadership Development Simulation program trains professionals and university students into the next corporate leaders. Bjorn and his team are working to teach situational leadership and helping people learn to adapt to problems in a way that may not fit their industry.
To a major corporate company, a few thousand dollars from tax savings doesn't seem like much. To a startup, however, it's substantial. Taxes can seem like a grueling amount of work when you're trying to run a company, but don't let it weigh you down. Ari Palmer has developed TaxTaker, a full-service specialty tax credit platform for accounting professionals and startup companies!
On May 9th of 2012, President Barack Obama visited Capital Factory. Go behind-the-scenes with Bill Boebel, Alex Smith, Sarah Cox, Jessica Stewart, and Joshua Baer as they think back to the iconic moment that President Obama stopped by the office, the time and preparation that went into securing the building, and the moment when they got to meet the 44th President of the United States.
The SXSW Startup Crawl is just around the corner! Before that happens, learn about how it all got started with Allyson Weber and John Rodriguez as they explain all the craziness that took place to make one of the best kick-off events to the biggest tech startup event in Austin. Don't forget to sign up for this year's SXSW Startup Crawl on Friday, March 13th! Grab a group of friends and tour the latest and greatest of Austin's startup community.
Teaching your kids a second language can at times seem impossible. You lose your child’s attention fairly quickly when they don’t understand the words you’re saying. Leslie and Mark Begert have seemingly cracked the code on teaching a language and weaving in a compelling story to keep kids hooked. Leslie and Mark are the Co-Founders of FabuLingua, a language learning platform for kids ages 2 - 10 that utilizes a unique method designed to subconsciously develop a child’s comprehension and reading skills.
Owning a dog that has never been trained before can be stressful. Figuring out which trainer is better can be even harder! OneMind Dogs is an online subscription-based training platform created from the dogs' point of view. Simple, quick, and effective, CEO Noora Keskievari wants to help owners help their dogs! OneMind Dogs doesn't just want to sell you a product, they want you to help change the world, one dog at a time.
He was a Research Astrophysicist for NASA, Nuclear Physicist for the Department of Energy, and Director of Data Science for Rosetta Stone. Now, Charlie Burgoyne is the Founder and CEO of Valkyrie, a company dedicated to using their cutting-edge technology to help clients overcome challenges, invest in startups, develop products, and even create a Formula 4 racing team. Sean Duffy sat down with Charlie to chat about the company's philosophy and why a data-science company got involved in racing.
Using a combination of Artificial Intelligence and object and behavior detection, Athena Security is on a mission to stop crime. Lisa Falzone, CEO and Founder of Athena Security, has developed a system that detects over 900 types of weapons. Within 3 seconds, it notifies the user and allows them to contact law enforcement quicker and more efficiently. Lisa mentioned that "the way to think about [Athena Security] is if you look at fire alarms... people really don't die from fires anymore... so the way to think about us is like a gun alarm... and our goal is to be the gun alarm and really stop all this gun violence that has been happening."
When you think of audio-content, you probably think of a few companies: Apple Podcasts, Audible, and Spotify. You’ve probably never heard of Beek.io but they are creating the largest audio site for the Spanish speaking market. Producing over 50 original audio content pieces per month and 2M monthly visits, Beek is building what Pamela Valdes likes to call “the Netflix for Audio.” Beek’s co-founder and CEO, Pamela Valdes chatted with Joshua Baer about her success, Y Combinator, and her journey from book reviews to creating compelling content.
Protecting sensitive user data seems to be a recurring issue in the 21st century. With the rise of the digital age, it can be hard for businesses to build and maintain trust with clients and partners. Karyl Fowler, Founder and CEO of Transmute, is building a scalable decentralized identity tool that allows businesses to manage millions of people’s identities, all while minimizing the risk of processing sensitive data. Transmute is helping businesses protect their data and create "Collaboration without Compromise."
Two of the hardest things to teach anyone is how to lead and how to be a leader. One of the main points is that leaders act, and they know what to do, but most of all they track their data and they measure it against their goals the whole way. That’s why brothers, Daniel and David Morgan wrote the book Chasing the White Rabbit: Discovering Leadership in the 21st Century. Daniel stated that “no matter where you’re learning your lessons, you have to go from a vision and a mission and very key points of what you would call intent… and then you give that to your organization to be able to execute… But you have to figure out how to pull them all within that vision.”
When people think of gaming, they think of sitting on a couch or in a chair, in front of a screen and not being very active. With the rise of virtual and augmented reality, the future of gaming is no longer stationary— it's interactive and physically challenging. The team at Juuk are making robots that interact with you and augmented reality that plays with you so you never have to play alone. Stephen Dodds, CEO of Juuk, stopped by the podcast and talked about how “Juuk’s entire mission is for you to get off the couch and be the hero in the game.”
Never in a million years did Zach Walker think he would be sitting on a podcast talking about the intersection of commercial tech and national security. Zach is a decorated Veteran with years of experience working for the National Security Agency, U.S. Air Force, and is now the Texas Lead for the Defense Innovation Unit.
Emerging from stealth less than a month ago, long-time entrepreneurs Abe Usher and Al Di Leonardo are already making waves in the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning space. Black Cape is working to use powerful bleeding-edge tech to help the U.S. Government both harness and make sense of their data. Listen in to learn how Abe and Al met, what it was like working on their first few companies, and how they got the idea to start Black Cape
Innovating in a large company can be overwhelming and sometimes move at a slow pace. In order to be at the cutting edge of tech and innovate on a global scale, Booz Allen Hamilton is using Innovation centers (or iHubs) throughout the country that are “centers of innovation where [Booz Allen Hamilton] looks at leading-edge technologies, what's going on in that ecosystem… and how we develop partnerships.” Dee Dee Helfenstein is the Executive Vice President in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategic Innovation Group, and she sat down with us to talk about fast-paced innovation and how to work with startups.
When it comes to retirement, most people don’t have nearly enough money saved. On top of that, the majority don’t have any money saved for the long term. Rocket Dollar is giving you back control of your finance to allow you to plan for the future. We sat down with co-founder and VP of Marketing Thomas Young to learn how and why he started Rocket Dollar, and how people can build their perfect portfolio.
Cannabis might not be legal in all 50 states, but that doesn’t stop young and determined entrepreneurs like Farhaj Mayan from creating a successful business. As Co-founder and CEO of Kanna, Farhaj is creating a marketplace for legal cannabis businesses for hiring, while at the same time making sure the workers have a safe working environment. Listen in as Farhaj talks about his journey from starting a haircutting company to how he got involved in the growing industry of CannaBusiness
Simply put, buying a home that is exactly what you want is stressful and tough, but what if it didn't have to be so hard? MyHouseby is redesigning the way home buyers can design and personalize their dream home by creating the process modern and simple. Gregg Alvarez, Co-founder and CEO of MyHouseby, sat down with us to chat about how his team is using emerging technologies tools to enhance the home-buying process.
Podcasting is not new but it has exploded in popularity over the past few years. With hundreds of shows being published every day, the data behind podcasting is becoming a void that is difficult to navigate. Backtracks CEO Jonathan Gill is making it easier for podcasts to be discoverable, measurable, and monetizable, all by giving podcasters insightful data and allowing them to make informed decisions. Listen in as Jonathan talks about how he turned a music-focused company to podcasting and how to be a successful podcaster.
When you ask people what superpower they would want, many will answer with: the ability to fly. We’re far from developing superpowers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a personal flying experience. Matt Chasen believes in a future where everyone has the ability to fly, and he's building that future today with LIFT Aircraft. He shared, “I think flying is one of humanity's most enduring aspirations. I truly believe that everyone, at some point, wishes they could fly, and not on a commercial airliner. I mean hop in a single-seat aircraft and take off vertically, hover, and fly around.”
Austin is becoming a hotbed for innovative technologies, which includes the emerging utilization of drones. From recreational usage to package delivery, drones are becoming increasingly involved in our daily lives. We sat down with industry expert Colin Guinn from Guinn Partners to talk about why Austin is becoming a hot spot for drone technology. Before starting his own consulting firm for technology products, Colin was the CEO and driving force behind DJI Innovations headquarters in Austin.
When asked what his business’ headline was, Co-founder and Managing Director of Moonshots Capital, Kelly Perdew had the perfect answer, “investing in extraordinary leadership.” No stranger to hard work and what extraordinary leadership looks like, Kelly Perdew is a military Veteran, successful entrepreneur, author, and winner of season 2 of NBC’s The Apprentice. Kelly sat down with us during Capital Factory’s annual Veterans in Tech Summit to talk about his career, what he sees as good leadership, and how he is helping other military veteran entrepreneurs.
In the new digital age, it seems nearly impossible to successfully bring a product to market. “Back in the day, we’d watch commercials but now we're not a spoon-fed audience. We like to interact with our content.” Amber Allen, the CEO and Founder of Double A Labs, came by the podcast to chat about creating massive, large scale experiences where audiences and fans can create their own content, share and be their own celebrity, and provide a way for the digital audience to participate. She stated, “It’s no longer about the thousands of people [at the arena]... it's about the million that will watch it.”
“I think we're getting to an interesting inflection point, with many different fields of technology, where we’re able to take disparate pieces that are mature enough for us to reasonably combine and make really impactful things.” That’s Abe Carryl, Booz Allen Hamilton’s Product Strategist, who focuses his time on rapid prototyping and product development. Abe stopped by the studio during Austin Startup Week to chat about his endeavors with Booz Allen Hamilton, working with startups, and cutting edge tech that's currently being built.
Yes, she’s a brand new entrepreneur and yes, she's brand new to the tech scene, but that doesn’t stop Abigail Rose from owning it and running a successful business. Abigail is the Co-founder & CEO of Blended Sense, a team of creatives who saw a disconnect between two industries that needed to be in sync. Abigail and her team at Blended Sense are working to enable the local small business owners to create engaging digital content by giving them access to creative freelancers in their local community. Listen in to the latest episode of Austinpreneur to find out how your business can work with an incredible team of creatives!
If companies want to grow and evolve, they need to think about what lies ahead in the future. Ari Popper is taking that one step further with SciFutures by tapping into the insights that Sci-fi authors have to envision what the future of a company looks like. “The problem is, when you're dealing with these nascent emergent technologies, that we don’t even know how to talk about them yet; we don’t have the right language to describe them. So, how can you build a disruptive solution when you can't even agree on what to call it? Science Fiction does that very well from what we’ve seen...sci-fi paved the way.”
It’s no secret that less than 10% of venture capital investing for tech startups are women investors, and only one-fifth of all U.S. VC investments go to startups where at least one founder is female. For Sara Brand, her career has “...been very technical in lots of roles and industries where [she has] often been the only woman.” Receiving both her Master’s and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, Sara is no stranger to male-dominated fields. From founding (512) brewing company to starting her own VC firm, Sara is working to help other female founders and business leaders to take back control of male-dominated industries.
With the rise of video game streaming platforms like Twitch and Mixer, the way people discover games has changed drastically and is now driven by individual creators and streamers. However, there are 2 major problems that Chrono.GG Co-Founder and CEO Justin Sacks sees: “There’s no attribution for the game publishers... and the actual content creators themselves don’t get any recognition or monetization for making all of that discovery.” Justin has been in the gaming industry for 13 years and is using his experience to both solve the discovery issue in gaming and connect game publishers directly to content creators.
If you haven’t noticed the amount of traffic happening, there are hundreds of people flocking to Austin every day. It’s not just people, big companies are coming here as well to tap into the talented ecosystem that Austin has to offer. “Austin I think is an incredible community. We came here because we saw a lot of innovation happening in Austin, a lot of great companies coming out of Austin, and we said you know let's try to get to know that local community... I think it’s one of the most vibrant communities in the world for entrepreneurs, for innovation, for technology. There’s something of a magic, a secret sauce of Austin.”
His background involves creating video games, space travel, global exploration, and collecting unusual things. Known online as Lord British of the Ultima Series, Richard Garriott has seen and experienced a lot in his extraordinary career. “Gaming over the last few decades has gone from non-existent to larger in the economic and social impact of all movies combined, all tv combined, and all print combined... It really is a dominant big business.” Richard stopped by the podcast and chatted with us about his long and historied gaming career and his love for space with Fred Schmidt, Capital Factory’s Director of International Affairs.
If you missed out on this year's Women in Tech Summit at Austin Startup Week 2019, don’t worry because we have you covered! Vanessa Liu was able to sit down with us after her keynote speech to talk about how to break down borders with innovation and the 5 lessons she learned while being an entrepreneur:
- Know your strengths
- Map your interests to your strengths
- Shape your success
- Ask for help
- Collaborate
Fun Fact: Vanessa’s mom created Lizzo’s Bedazzled Tequila bottle
You probably didn’t know that the Parking and Garage Industry has an annual revenue of close to $10 billion. With the world becoming more connected as our technology is rapidly advancing, it’s no surprise that parking would be next on the list to innovate. Today, parking garages are becoming Mobility Hubs where it's not just a place where you park your car. Juan Rodriguez opened our minds to how he and his team at FlashParking are looking to revolutionize the parking industry. “Think about charging… Think about getting your car washed. Think about Amazon dropping off a package inside the trunk of your vehicle. Think about Goodyear installing new tires” all of this and more can be done at a Mobility Hub.
He worked for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, worked at Realtor.com during the Dot Com Boom, started the first social impact company in the world with Ethos water, created All for Good, and is now the CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt is a highly accomplished entrepreneur that is now dedicating his time to fighting for justice and fair treatment for all.
We had the pleasure of hosting Jonathan at Austin Startup Week 2019 and sitting down for a podcast to chat about his work with the ADL, social entrepreneurship, and intersectional justice. He left us with three tips on what to do when facing intolerance:
- Speak out
- Share facts
- Show strength
n 2014, Jeff Cavins and Jennifer Young sold all of their belongings and set out on the road to live in a camper for 7 months. This all started after they became fed up with sitting in fluorescent-lit rooms and selling companies for other people. Jeff explained, “I looked at Jen and we shared this look with one another and decided: We can’t do this anymore— let’s do something that’s related to the outdoors.”
Today, Jeff and Jennifer run Outdoorsy, an RV rental experience marketplace with headquarters in San Francisco, CA and Austin, TX and operate in 14 countries around the world. What started as a simple thesis to get out of the office and appreciate the outdoors, became an impactful business and marketplace for everyone.
Around 50% of all expenses that startups make require a credit card, but did you know it’s next to impossible to get a company card from the banks when you’re starting a new company? While at Y Combinator, the founders of Brex “[Henrique and Pedro] noticed that all the YC companies that got funding of $120,000… needed a credit card— not as a financing tool but as a payment instrument.”
Larissa Rocha, employee #1 at Brex, stopped by the podcast and told us that “banks wouldn’t give a [startup] a card because they didn’t have a financial history, so they would then go after the founder for a personal guarantee, which is not ideal.”
Now, with over $2 billion in valuation and investors such as Peter Thiel, Brex is the premiere next-generation financing for the startup community.
A lot of first-time entrepreneurs are scared when it comes to selling their products. “If you don’t believe in [your company] enough to get out of your comfort zone and go have a conversation with someone and try to get them to pay money for it…. [ you’re not going to make a sale and scale the business].” We had the opportunity to learn this and more from Jake Dunlap, CEO and Founder of Skaled Consulting when he dropped by the podcast to chat with Nick Spiller about sales, marketing, and how being a bad employee lead Jake to start his own company.
When you think of the Internet of Things, you think of millions upon millions of devices connected online spread across the globe. These are devices that use Wifi, Bluetooth, and cellular data to connect to the internet, and it can get pretty pricey depending on what ISP you have. But what if there was a cheaper, more efficient alternative network to run these devices? Helium is the world’s first peer-to-peer wireless network providing a decentralized infrastructure for IoT devices. Dive deep into the world of a decentralized wireless network with special guest host and Lead Analyst of Multicoin Capital, Ryan Gentry, and Chief Operating Officer of Helium, Frank Mong.
Dr. Jason Dempsey is the co-founder of MILLIE, a company that empowers veteran and military spouse real estate agents to help military families through the moving process. Dr. Dempsey served as an infantry officer for 22 years, completing 2 tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Iraq during which he completed his Ph.D. in Political Science at Columbia University. After his distinguished military career, Dr. Dempsey became an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
Dr. Dempsey stopped by the podcast after his keynote speech at the Veterans in Tech Summit to discuss the state of Veteran Entrepreneurship and what the future looks like.
One of the toughest questions that entrepreneurs deal with is, “how do I get venture capital funding for my startup?” In Scott Kupor’s new book Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Scott writes that “Whether you’re trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how VC’s think.” But why is Scott sharing these secrets? It’s all about improving the relationship between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs. During his time in Austin, Scott stopped by the podcast to chat with Joshua Baer about Startups in Austin, his new book Secrets of Sand Hill Road and how to navigate deals with VC’s.
One of the hardest things to do when operating a startup is working with a big corporate company. Luckily, we got the chance to sit down with Booz Allen Hamilton's Principal and Managing Director of the Innovation Hub in San Francisco, Adam Porter-Price. He gave us some great tips on how to close the deal— for both sides of the table!
- Get out of your own way
- Understand the time cycles that you're operating
- Be patient
- Don't take every single meeting, make it meaningful
- And, last but not least: You better have a deal on the table
How do we flip the script and help women and people of color visualize themselves as entrepreneurs? This is one of the challenges that Elisa Sepulveda is working on at the Riveter. During Austin Startup Week 2019, we met with Elisa to chat about her experience with the Riveter, Mentorship, and the passion that drives her to team up with startups. She shared that, "Getting the opportunity to represent a brand that showcases what I believe in was an incredible opportunity that I couldn't pass up."
Human movement is very complex. From hand gestures to the subtle twitch of an eye, movement can say a lot. That's why Mohamed Elwazer, CEO and Founder of linedanceAI, is building a platform for AI to interpret all of the complicated movements of American Sign Language. For AI, Interpreting ASL is one of the most challenging applications to map because of the subtle gestures and positioning of one's body are very important."We're not talking about simple gestures such as: hey, left, right, forward, backward. We're talking about complicated movements that could form a real sentence in American Sign Language."
Tune in to hear from Brance Hudzietz as when he stopped by the Capital Factory Dallas office to learn how Mohamed and linedanceAI are pushing the boundaries of AI recognition and what we can look forward to in the future.
Ever wonder what the true customer value is for big companies like Amazon? Listening to customer feedback. Jeff Bezos once said that “[Amazon] spends so much time up front, that by the time we get to the backend, we really know what the customer wants.” Sandy Carter, Vice President of Amazon Web Services, stopped by the podcast to chat about innovation, supporting startups, and why working backward from the customer is so effective. The way innovation works at Amazon is not your average process:
- Amazon starts by writing a press release that is driven by research.
- Next, they create an FAQ that answers a few questions including what the design is and how it will be disruptive.
- And then you finally design the UX.
And the very last thing is to be bold and ask for help.
Just like entrepreneurs creating a startup, Peter Newell is addicted to solving problems. “When I got into a room with a bunch of startup folks and I had a problem it was like throwing fresh meat to a piranha.” A retired Army Colonel and former director of the Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF), Pete is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO of BMNT who is using the problem-curation skills developed from his time as with the REF to help government agencies and other large organizations adapt and evolve at startup speed. “The impetus was to create a company that would be the connective tissue that would translate things between the government, startup world, investors and others so that we can create these opportunities to actually help men and women at the edge of the battlefield.”
So you want to run for office and have no idea where to start? Much like hundreds of fellow Americans, you’re not alone. For people considering public office, it’s extremely hard to figure out where to start, what forms to fill out, and all the other steps that follow. According to Jeremy Smith, it doesn’t need to be that way.
Civitech is building a platform that connects marketing and communication tools to perform strategic functions of a campaign all on one platform. Not only does it allow you to run a successful and well-organized campaign, but it also allows you to effectively communicate with the people you are trying to serve.
Listen to this latest episode of Austinpreneur to figure out how you can use Civitech.io for your next political campaign
Is there a more confusing pair of words than Blockchain and Cryptocurrency? Most likely, but when it comes to this pair of words, it’s easy to get lost and confused in the ever-complex world of token economics. For some, investing in Crypto just comes naturally, and that's exactly the case for Tushar Jain. Originally the co-founder of a Health Tech company, Tushar found his true calling by becoming the Managing Partner of Multicoin Capital, a cryptofund that leverages venture capital economics in the public market.
Founded in 2017, Multicoin Capital quickly earned a reputation for being the pioneers in crypto and token economics. Tushar joined us on the podcast to talk about how to convey information and to get the right people to notice you.
So you have an idea to build something but no idea where to start. In come’s Patchr to help you take your idea into design concept all the way to manufacturing with a simple and intuitive platform that CEO & Founder Eric Schneider says “it just works.” PCBs software hasn’t been updated or innovated upon since its initial release in the 80s. Eric is a passionate creative that has spent years designing and developing hardware for various companies with only a week's notice.
Eric stopped by the podcast and talked to us about building a company that puts its community first and how having a hacker ethos will drive change and tech growth in the future. “If you’re not building a community, you’re not going to succeed.”
Finding a great startup can be tricky. A lot of times, it’s like Neo finding the Matrix — you know it when you see it.
Sure, every investor or mentor has questions they want to see great answers for.
But a lot of times, it's about the X-Factor. It’s about finding that one startup with that something special you can't really put your finger on.
Since they’ve been evaluating companies for over ten years now, I wanted to sit down with Sam Decker and Bryan Menell, Co-Founders of Capital Factory, to try to identify what exactly is that special something.
So, in this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, they shared what they’ve learned over the past ten years about what makes a startup truly great.
Entrepreneurs are often curious as to how investors evaluate deals. If that’s you, you’re in luck because on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, we’re giving you an inside look at that process.
On this show, Josh interviewed Roger Chen, Principal at Silverton Partners. Roger discussed how he evaluates deals and even walked us through a specific example of a deal they recently decided to fund.
2 things that make Austin a great city for entrepreneurs:
Talent from UT and that it’s not Silicon Valley.
By its nature, Austin is both full of talent because of UT and other regional institutions and a place where tech is not the only economic engine.
The entrepreneurs have firsthand experience with the industries they’re trying to disrupt.
On this episode of Austinpreneur, I spoke with Kathryn Weinmann an investor at Norwest Venture Partners.
Her company is a multi-stage investment firm that for more than 50 years has funded over 550 companies, managing about $6B in capital.
With their many years of experience, Kathryn broke down the 4 qualities they look for in a pitch, and the first one is huge.
When you say simulation, some people tend to give blank stares and others simply question what that actually looks like. Matt Confer from Abilitie says that the big problem for his company is: “How do you convince people to get out of their day job and invest in training?” He explains, “You have to make it super immersive and they need to see [the program] in action.”That’s exactly what Abilitie, a Leadership Development Simulation, does— and they do it well. Abilities has developed an award-winning simulation that trains corporate leaders and university students the same way pilots, military personnel and people in the medical field are trained; training by doing. Ever wonder what the key skills are to be an effective decision maker? Matt breaks it down with three simple steps:
- Challenge the constraints
- Instead of a post-mortem, embrace a pre-mortem
- Check the basics
Listen to the episode to find out more!
Have you ever had a bad experience while moving to a new city? It could be anything from disliking the neighborhood or even the home itself that you moved into. It all comes down to the sociology of home buying. According to Vi Nguyen, Co-Founder & CEO of Homads, “How you settle into a city is how you will perceive the city later on.” Homads is helping both Austinites and travelers find that perfect place to call home-sweet-home. When it comes to home buying or renting, it’s easy to get lost in the woes of moving your life to a new location.
Around 85% of people tend to be unhappy with where their original relocation AND roughly 87% of people who had a relocation specialist wish they had MORE help. In comes Homads, who use machine learning to find you that perfect home. Whether its month-to-month or a forever home, Homads will find you the perfect place.
Ever wonder how you can successfully get press to cover your company? It's not about cold emails— but rather, running into the right people in public or at events. People can tell their story and convey their message easier in-person than they can over an email or a phone call. Brent Wistrom from AustinInno stopped by the podcast and said, “It's like the Mark Cuban thing. If you can tell me in two sentences why I'd be interested, then I'm probably going to want to do that story.”
Brent is the Senior Staff Writer over at AustinInno and covers the Entrepreneurial and Startup Ecosystem in Austin. If you’re looking to pitch a good story, it’s all about having a connection with the city of Austin. Brent’s two successful tips for an interview are:
- Not reading off a pre-written corporate script
- Having a good reason for doing what you're doing
If you have a great story for Brent, be sure to email him at bwistrom@americaninno.com and let him know Austinpreneur sent you!
On this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast we talked with David Robinson, Jr., Associate at Blueprint Local. Blueprint is a new platform for investors who want to focus on deploying capital in opportunity zones.
David gave us the 411 on opportunity zones, discussing how investing in these areas can help make an impact across local communities while also providing major tax incentives for the investor. David also had some great advice to offer Texas entrepreneurs who are trying to raise funding.
On this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, we’re joined by Ben Metcalfe, Principal at Ridge Ventures. While he’s a VC now, his career contains many other notable achievements, too. Back in the day he was a founder, working on a startup called WP Engine. He also ran public policy and innovation at Uber for a while.
Ben came along with us on the Texas Startup Roadshow, and we were fortunate to be able to chat with him for a bit. Tune into this episode to hear our discussion about Ben’s journey from Founder to VC, why authenticity is key to Austin’s startup ecosystem, and the two things every entrepreneur seeking funding needs to keep in mind.
Chicago Ventures has a great thesis: Entrepreneurship and innovation are not constrained or restricted to a few select coastal markets. But, unfortunately, as entrepreneurship and innovation have become more distributed, capital has remained concentrated in those coastal markets.
Cities like Austin and Dallas have all of the structural conditions to produce great venture scale outcomes. But there hasn't been enough early stage capital to match the quality of the founders that these ecosystems are producing. That’s why, in 2013, Chicago Ventures started investing in Texas.
On this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, Peter Christman, Principal at Chicago Ventures, came on the show to talk with us a bit more about Chicago Ventures, how they’re investing in Texas, and what they learned on the Texas Startup Roadshow.
During the Texas Startup Roadshow, we toured facilities for Complexity Gaming, one of the nation’s most elite and long standing esports organizations. They currently manage 11 esports teams and have won over 130 championships.
While there, we got to sit down with Cameron Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer at Complexity. In this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, he’s giving us an inside look at how Complexity is leading the industry by putting player wellness first, using AI and machine learning to measure player aptitude, and leveraging the power of gaming to create impact and change in the world.
What’s next for VR? What will happen to screens in the future?
On this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast we sat down with John Arrow, Founder and CEO at Mutual Mobile, to talk about these issues. John is an ambitious goal setter and expert when it comes to predicting the future of technology. In this episode, John talked about a range of topics including: why titles are self-confining, the future of VR, what he hopes to achieve over the next decade, and what he thinks will happen to screens.
JJ Castillo had been a filmmaker for most of his life. And he planned to continue doing it for the rest of his life. But that was before the DK2 (Developer Kit #2).
Interested in VR, JJ had been playing around with 360 photos and videos. But he’d only been watching these videos on his computer. Then one day a friend let him watch the videos on his headset. That’s when everything changed. JJ realized that VR was all he wanted to do. Forever.
Today, JJ is Founder and CEO of Viewer Ready, an Austin based company that creates content using VR and AR technology. Their clients have included Anheuser-Busch, The NBA, Dell, and Tiff's Treats. He came on the show to talk about his story, his plans for the future, and what he learned from filmmaking about incorporating storytelling into VR experiences
She has a PhD in physics. She’s also worked for McKinsey.
He was a US Diplomat and an entrepreneur.
Today they’re running one of the newest accelerators in Texas.
I’m talking about Oksana Malysheva and Joe Merrill, Co-Founders and Partners at SputnikATX. They came on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast to share a bit of their expertise.
These are some of the topics we talked through:
What SputnikATX is all about
What makes them different from other accelerators
How they’re focusing on diversity, equality, and inclusion
There's a big gap in funding for early stage CPG firms, here in Austin and across the nation.
But that’s where Springdale Ventures comes in. They’re a VC fund dedicated to bridging that gap for CPG companies.
On this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, Genevieve Gilbreath, Co-Founder and General Partner at Springdale, came on the show to discuss issues why she was drawn to the CPG space, how Springdale is filling the funding gap, how they’re raising capital, and why companies should consider Springdale.
Traditionally, if you were a gamer, you needed a console.
But that probably won’t be the case for much longer. Why?
Gaming expert Estevan Aviles weighed in on the latest episode of the Austinpreneur podcast. He came on the show to talk about a variety of gaming topics, including what trends — like this move to streaming — we can expect to see over the next few years. He also recapped his experience at the E3 gaming convention and give us the lowdown on Austin’s gaming ecosystem.
We’re always trying to wrap our minds around something: What makes Austin so special? While we have great weather mixed with southern hospitality and a Texas can-do attitude, there’s one thing that really makes our city shine: An incredible network of entrepreneurs, investors, mentors and startup resources.
On this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, Ross Buhrdorf, CEO of ZenBusiness, is here to talk about “the network effect” and the role it’s played in his success as an entrepreneur, and as an investor and mentor.
Everyone loves Monopoly. Right? You get to make investments, charge rents, and earn an income. What’s not to love? It's a great game.
But Hrish Lotlikar and his team have taken monopoly to a whole new level. They've built a platform called SuperWorld, which is basically Foursquare meets Pokemon Go meets Monopoly. Oh, and one more thing — all of this is powered by blockchain.
We were really interested in what Hrish and his team are doing with SuperWorld and we wanted to invite him to talk with us a little more about blockchain and AR. So, on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, Hrish came on the show to tell us more about SuperWorld, why they decided to build on blockchain, and what we can expect when it comes to the future of AR.
Austin Startup Week, established in 2011, is five days full of inspiring events that celebrate Austin startups— including the organizations that support them and the spectacular people who make it all happen. From September 22-26, tech companies throughout Austin will welcome local and visiting entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts who are interested in learning more about the startup scene in Austin. Throughout the week you’ll find panels, keynotes, specialized meetups, happy hours, workshops and our famous Austin Startup Crawl.
On this episode of the podcast's Austin Startup Week edition, you’ll hear from Sustainable Communities & Planet Track Lead, Bart Bohn about what you can expect from the track and why you should attend. Visit austinstartupweek.com/schedule to learn more
Austin Startup Week, established in 2011, is five days full of inspiring events that celebrate Austin startups— including the organizations that support them and the spectacular people who make it all happen. From September 22-26, tech companies throughout Austin will welcome local and visiting entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts who are interested in learning more about the startup scene in Austin. Throughout the week you’ll find panels, keynotes, specialized meetups, happy hours, workshops and our famous Austin Startup Crawl.
On this episode of the podcast's Austin Startup Week edition, you’ll hear from AI & Data Science Track Leads, Liz Coufal and Navira Abbasi about what you can expect from the track and why you should attend. Visit austinstartupweek.com/schedule to learn more!
Health insurance incumbents have simply not innovated in 40 years. The industry is ripe for disruption.
Well, Will Young, Co-Founder and CEO of Sana Benefits, is certainly disrupting the industry for the better. He came on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast to talk about the industry, his business, and other topics including how his team thinks about UX and UI and why they’re focused on a holistic design approach.
Anna Robinson was a partner at McKinsey. Then she had a health scare. Spoiler alert: She’s doing well now!
But that experience was an “aha!” moment for Anna and it gave her real clarity. She realized that it’s so important to figure out what you care about the most. For her, that was mentoring and empowering women in the workplace.
So, she founded a company dedicated to making a difference in these areas. On the latest episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, Anna talked about her organization, CERESA. We covered topics like Anna’s journey to entrepreneurship, what makes CERESA different from other mentorship models, and they’re unique approach to matching mentors with mentees.
On this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast we turned things around a bit and interviewed Joshua Baer. Yes, the Joshua Baer.
Most of you probably know him as Founder of Capital Factory and this podcast. But he’s also a very successful serial entrepreneur and investor.
You’re of course familiar with the success he’s had since founding Capital Factory. But in this episode he took us back a bit and walked us through his earlier entrepreneurial journeys. He talked about what it was like to run a software company during the dot-com boom (and bust), what it was like to pioneer the wild west of email marketing, and gave us an inside look at how he took his company from dorm room to successful acquisition.
829,000 Instagram followers. 2,600 employees. 100 stores.
Over a $1 billion dollar valuation.
And this all grew out of a little spare bedroom in a startup house outside of the Austin city limits.
Who are we talking about? Kendra Scott. She’s an incredible entrepreneur with an amazing success story. And she came on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast to tell us all about it.
Think about the starving artist — they’ve been around for centuries.
Artists today truly want to be out there.
But a lot of times they don't think of themselves as entrepreneurs.
They don't have a lot of confidence in their abilities as business people.
But they've got some amazing ideas to contribute to the world.
That's why Jan Ryan is helping to build a design program at UT Austin that’s based on the core principles of entrepreneurship.
I sat down with Jan to talk about how and why she’s building this new program. Jan also talked about her own journey from artist to entrepreneur, why failure is so critical, and how we can keep making strides to support women in entrepreneurship.
Founders and entrepreneurs are typically in control. They’re motivated, logical, and driven. But there’s one area that often escapes us: our own health.
But if we aren't sleeping, or exercising, and if we’re constantly eating fast food, and stress has overtaken our lives … are we really the leaders?
That’s the question Shayna Dunitz asked on this episode.
She’s the COO of Central Athlete, an Austin-based fitness center. Before she started at Central Athlete, she worked for 3 Day Startup, where she helped entrepreneurs reach their dreams. Far too often, she observed amazing leaders who were taking charge of everything … but their own health.
On this episode, she gave some practical advice to entrepreneurs to get the most ROI from their sleep and health habits.
Like a lot of entrepreneurs, Ross Baird, Founder at Blueprint Local, has been creating businesses from the very beginning.
But what sets Ross apart is his passion for social entrepreneurship.
Most people separate the world into two pockets: Making money and doing good.
But Ross knows that a business can actually be a great, financially sustainable way to do something that you care about.
So, on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, Ross joined us to talk about lifting up your community through social entrepreneurship, partnering with others in your region, and leveraging the new opportunity zone legislation.
Some companies have a more difficult time getting funding that others. Maybe you’re a founder of a CPG company. Or maybe you’re a founder who lacks a technical background or a technical team. If that’s you, you know that it can be a little trickier to get the funding your business needs to keep growing.
We’ve been talking a lot about this lately. So, today, we’re focusing on another type of company that can also struggle to get funding: consumer hardware products.
Brandon Austin, Co-Founder at GoFish Cam, came on the latest episode of the Austinpreneur podcast to talk about his company, how they used Kickstarter to prove demand — and eventually secure the funding they needed, and how they’re fitting into the Austin ecosystem. His story demonstrates that even when it’s tricky, you can still rise above the challenges to secure the funding you need.
John Entwistle and Kyle Carberry have a really unique investor story.
It starts with graduating high school.
When the end of their Senior year rolled around, John and Kyle had a decision to make: Go to college or pursue their vision to launch a cloud based coding system. They chose their vision.
But that meant they needed funding.
And unlike most entrepreneurs, as recent high school grads, they didn’t have a network to reach out to. They built a top class investor network from scratch. How’d they do it? John and Kyle came on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast to talk about their company, Coder, and their story.
Last year, in 2018-2019, the Anti-Defamation League saw a 572% increase in white supremacists propaganda across the country. Chris Magyarics, senior researcher at the ADL is helping fight that hate.
Chris is responsible for the ongoing monitoring of various white supremacists organizations and sub movements throughout the United States. He also serves as an expert consultant to law enforcement agencies. Because online hate, even in the tech industry, is growing.
“Unfortunately, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole. You take one extremists off of your forum and then they pop up somewhere else in one of the more obscure platforms,” says Chris. A series of trends he sees emerging include white supremacists trying to gain political office and increasing their propaganda efforts.
And don’t be fooled, it’s not just swastikas anymore… white supremacists are rebranding. It’s hard to pinpoint these days because the propaganda doesn’t bluntly scream white supremacy. Thankfully, ADL is working with tech companies like Bumble to figure out how to use AI to spot and weed out extremists from their platforms.
But tech companies aren’t the only ones responsible for spotting and reporting hate. Tune in to this episode to learn what YOU can do to combat hate online.
Yao Huang was on track to become a doctor.
She became Founder of The Hatchery in NYC instead.
As she journeyed from a labcoat to founding one of New York’s most notable incubators, Yao learned a lot about life and business.
So, I wanted to invite her to be a guest on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast. In this show, Yao talks about her experiences and shares some of the key principles she’s learned along the way.
Our country is divided. And technology is how we're going to solve problems and help people
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), the new US representative for the Texas 21st district, believes that problems are best solved “out here more than in DC, and my job is trying to figure out how to get more [innovation] back there.”
Government does what it often does, which is force some of the tough questions to be dealt with. So Roy remains optimistic that we'll be able to do that.
But, he told me, Washington needs a kick in the pants. And that's not an ideological statement. It needs to address the problems that need addressing.
The thing that Roy likes about technology is the entrepreneurial spirit and the innovation that is going to solve the problems. That is happening in places like Austin and throughout the rest of the country, though usually not in Washington.
Startups looking for funding need to figure out their customer’s pain points and get something sold.
“If you can show that customers are throwing money at you to get out of pain, that is the most impressive thing to an investor, there’s proof that you're creating value,” said Chris Sklarin, managing director of Castor Ventures— a venture fund enabling Massachusetts Institute of Technology alums to invest in high-growth companies connected to fellow alums.
The world is full of fake news.
Don’t let your brand fall victim to it.
Corporations can be inspired to change their policies or products based on public backlash, but you don't want to change your corporate policies if that backlash is manufactured.
Jonathan Morgan, CEO of New Knowledge, the world's first platform for disinformation defense, is an expert at spotting and stopping fake news. He visited Austinpreneur and shared some insights on how companies can defend themselves.
When your employees see you achieve goals that you've set for yourself, they know you're going to expect them to achieve the goals that you've set for them— as well as those that they've set for themselves.
There are different dimensions of goal setting. There's goal setting for yourself, your employees and the organization. They sort of philosophically weave together.
Mark Lundstrom, founder and CEO of Radia, dropped by our podcast to chat about how setting personal goals correlates to entrepreneurial success.
The way that he keeps grounded in his goal setting is with athletic activity. Lundstrom sets a yearly quota for himself, and it all started when he said he'd run 1,000 miles in a year.
Joel Fontenot has been around the Dallas startup scene for quite some time. In fact, he was one of the original Dallas VCs— and he's still at it today. He's also been an entrepreneur and an executive. As someone who has been on all sides of the table, Joel has plenty of industry knowledge; we believe his unique perspective is important to share on Austinpreneur.
Joel came on the show to talk us through his career and share some great insights about revenue, people, and diversity and inclusion.
If you think roboticists have some sort of mystical genius calling to the field, think again. For Vivian Chu, at least, it took hard work and great mentors.
She and her Ph.D. advisor founded Diligent Robotics so that their robot, Moxie, could become a team member at a hospital. Vivian’s interest in robotics started with haptics, teaching robots about touch, and launched into creating a robot who could share some of the non-patient-facing duties of nurses. A robot who is a member of a mostly human team.
Vivian came on Austinpreneur to talk about inventing Moxie, what it’s like to be one of a two-woman roboticist team, and what she hopes to inspire in young people who are interested in STEM.
Sarah Ortiz Shields wants everyone to register to vote. The Executive Director of Austin Tech Alliance is all about voter registration (and pushing for an online process) as well as voter education in Travis County.
We interviewed Sarah on Austinpreneur about civics, the LGBTQ community and how she discovered her purpose— using her skills to build stuff for her community.
The change from LaCroix to nonprofit was big. “One day I had mountains of sparkling water and the next I was paying a quarter every day for my coffee,” she said.
If you haven’t heard about the Dumb Money craze, you’re missing out. Chris Camillo, Dave Hanson, and Jordan Mclain are the masterminds behind the uber successful YouTube channel.
Dumb money is a term that means a lot to this group. Because they consider themselves to be dumb money. With little experience in the investor space they’ve experienced more success than any hedge fund in the past 10-15 years. And they believe most of the world is “dumb money.”
Just average folks without any education or professional experience on Wall Street. But the good news is, this team is out squash the lie that you have to be “smart money” to play in this space. Their mission is to inspire and educate ANYONE who is interested in investing in startups or early stage investing to just get started. Right now. You don’t have to be qualified to do really well when it comes to startup investing or investing in public markets. It’s just a matter of getting started and learning slowly…
So you need to get from Austin to Houston.
But you don’t want to fly, Uber won’t work, and the Megabus option doesn’t sound too appealing either.
Enter Kush Singh and his team at Hitch.
They’re out to solve the intercity transportation problem that exists between some of the larger towns in Texas.
We love Aunt Bertha. Why? Well, they’re basically the Amazon of social services.
Founded by Erine Gray, Aunt Bertha is a search and referral platform for social services. Anyone in the US can enter their zip code and find available health and social service programs if they’re going through a difficult period of time.
Erine came on this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast to talk about issues like: his startup journey, how he raised funding, why he decided to go the for-profit route, and what it’s been like bringing technology to non-profit organizations.
Shane Adams is an entrepreneur, angel investor and startup mentor. When he couldn’t get hired as a substitute teacher, he didn’t give up on his passion to mentor students from low income communities across Austin. Instead, he asked what else he could do to help these students achieve a brighter future. And that’s when the SLA Foundation was born.
Shane and his wife are on a mission to help these children achieve greatness. They’re pioneering youth engagement in schools in so many different ways. Like bringing young professionals into high school classrooms so that students can hear real life stories of success.
By introducing everyday role models who have jobs many of these kids don’t even know exist, Shane is opening up a world of new possibilities.
This is the magic that happens when an angel investor and startup mentor decides to pursue social impact.
Government innovation… is that really a thing?
Sean Singleton, broker dealer at Franklin Templeton Investments, had a lot to share around this on this episode.
He told us that Secretary Carter was the first sitting Secretary of Defense to make his way into Silicon Valley in over a generation. Carter quickly noticed the private sector was doing a lot more innovation than the government ever will. In fact, if you look from 1953 to 2017, there was parity between the private sector and the government up until the late 80s. But now there’s a delta of $250 billion in terms of what each sector is doing in research and development.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Sean touches on his time at DIU, the Defense Innovation Unit. There he worked with men and women in uniform to learn about the priority problems that impact their mission. Once he knew that, he would find the entities that could solve their problems with already established products. An incredible collaboration.
Imagine having to redact sensitive personal information in 52,000 documents…
Manually. Every single month.
This is just one example of a customer that Lisa McComb and Melissa Unsell-Smith, founders of Rectify, have been able to help since they started their business.
Rectify is a document cleansing company that leverages machine learning to automate the process.
No more all-nighters. Just automated tech that helps make humans more effective at their job.
It’s like Reddit… but for kids. Sound dangerous? It’s everything but that.
Joe Troyen, Founder and CEO of Penpal Schools, is building a community of teachers and students from all around the world who desire to learn together. But don’t let the name fool you. They’re not just writing letters to each other.
They’re accelerating a new shift called project-based learning. It’s happening all over the world as more schools realize that asking students to memorize facts for tests is pointless…Isn’t that why we have the internet after all?
Joe joins us today to discuss how he built Penpal Schools, how he’s been successful in finding investors and how he’s now taking it into schools around the country.
“Somebody asked me this the other day, ‘What did you learn the most from bootstrapping?’ It was very specifically that we had to do every job before we hired.” That's the mindset of David Hauser.
On today's episode, we sit down with David Hauser, Founder of Grasshopper. We're diving deep into the bootstrappers attitude and how YOU can put this practice to action.
When young women graduate college, it’s estimated that 50% of them say they believe they can ascend to executive leadership.
But after a couple of years, that number drops to around 16%.
We are certainly miles down the road from where we used to be.
You don’t have to go back very far to a time when there were no entrepreneur accelerators for women. There were no women lead venture funds investing in women entrepreneurs.
Now we live in a world where we have programs supporting women. Incubators and entire programs built around helping women rise to the highest levels.
In the 1960s, US defense related R&D was one third of global R&D. Today, it’s 3%.
Mike Brown and Zach Walker with the Defense Innovation Unit in Austin, Texas, are building bridges between enterprise tech and the Department of Defense.
Most of what the DOD needs is happening commercially: AI, autonomy, and cyber are all necessary to ensure our military is competitive, and they're happening outside the Pentagon.
DIU is keeping tabs on everything that's happening in our economy beyond traditional defense contractors. Universities, national labs, and startup companies are all fair game for the DOD to tap into that innovation so our military can remain competitive.
“A really good sign is if you see someone roll up their sleeves and you feel like that investor is an employee.”
That’s how Orlando Mendoza, General Partner at Arsenal Growth, recommends you find the right investor.
Orlando and his team at Arsenal bring their expertise to entrepreneurs on a regular basis, not just criticizing from afar in the occasional boardroom meeting.
What do you know about Africa? If you’re like most American’s, probably not a lot.
But what if I told you that some of the most revolutionary entrepreneurship on the planet was coming out of the continent of Africa?
This is where Teddy Warria and his team at Ideas Come to Life are changing the game.
In the country of Kenya along, there are over 30 million mobile phones.
In a country of 45 million people.
But why so many?
The best part about being a venture capitalist? The people.
Matt Blomstedt says it’s actually ALL about the people. He’s a managing partner at SpringTime Ventures based in Boulder, CO. From the founders and entrepreneurs to his investor base, Matt believes the venture capital industry is driven by relationships.
We loved hearing about Matt’s passion behind building these strong relationships with the startup ecosystem. Over the years, he’s learned that building these relationships take time, and that’s okay because he wants SpringTime Ventures to be about so much more than just seed funding. If they’re not able to help your startup with more than just a check, you’re probably not the right fit.
Tune to hear more of Matt’s advice to entrepreneurs.
When Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) visited South by Southwest, their name tags bore the slogan, “Never stop exploring.” Their technological explorations might be a key to saving our planet.
Rickard Gustafson, the CEO of SAS and Didrik A. Fjeldstad, its Vice President of brand marketing, visited our podcast recently when they were in town for SXSW.
Gustafson hopes to “spark some discussions with my US colleagues about sustainability. “For us it's about pollution, emissions, and greenhouse gasses. For them it's primarily a discussion about noise.” Let that sink in for a minute.
We all know that person. The people that, no matter the ups and downs, are just simply the nicest person in the room.
Blake Garrett is that person.
As the founder and CEO of Aceable, Blake is genuinely the nicest person in any room. But how? How do you get to that level of success and maintain your title of “Mr. Nice Guy?”
In a lot of ways, Austin & Toronto couldn’t be more different.
We’ve got breakfast tacos & brisket. Toronto has poutine.
We’ve got a very moderate climate. Toronto had nearly 3 feet of snow in 2018.
But what if Toronto and Austin had more in common than we think?
The move from corporate wonk to entrepreneur was not a planned one for Toby Sun, CEO/co-founder of Lime, a dockless bike-sharing company.
He simply got tired of sitting in traffic. Sun loves working on projects that can change people's daily lives. At the end of the day, following this passion simply made the most sense to him.
“I myself am a biker, I love not to drive a car,” says Sun. “So after living in many major cities in both Asia and the US, I always dreamed about alternatives to get around easier. I hate sitting in the car in traffic!” he reiterates.
Ever wondered what goes on inside the head of VCs partners that they won’t tell you? We do, too.
So we asked one.
We invited John Frankel to join us for this episode of Austinpreneur. He told us all about the issues VC firms face in their portfolio companies, such as accounting problems. He also told us who and what he looks for before investing (and, what he doesn’t want to find).
John is Partner at ff Venture Capital, which he founded in 2008. They invest primarily in US, Canadian, and Israeli-based companies, specifically in applied AI, cybersecurity, and drones.
I continue to be amazed by how Austin has truly become a global economic center.
Look no further than the recent Memorandum of Understanding economic agreement between Austin and Limerick, Ireland.
I spoke with Limerick Mayor James Collins and Eric Jones, VP Global Brand & Communications at WP Engine about how Austin and Limerick are thriving together. Limerick is now home to tech powerhouse WP Engine’s second largest office after Austin.
Ten years ago, when the global economic recession thrashed Ireland, Limerick was hit especially hard.
In a partnership with all stakeholders from the city, trade groups, education, and social enterprise groups, instead of trying to land one big employer, Limerick worked to diversify among different industries.
At the crosswalk outside Abbey Road Studios, 300,000 people a year journey to recreate the iconic Beatles album cover.
For people in Austin, Abbey Road Studios is coming to you.
Not only has the studio come to South by Southwest twice, but the studio’s music and tech incubator Abbey Road Red is exploring ways to connect with Austin’s music and tech scene with Capital Factory.
Recently I spoke with Isabel Garvey, Managing Director of the world famous Abbey Road Studios. She is taking an entrepreneurial approach to the studio (“shaping the future of music since 1931”) to ensure it's relevant in the next 87 years.
Our guest on today’s episode of the Austinpreneur podcast is Stephen Wolfram. Stephen is a mathematician, a physicist, an entrepreneur, and author of a best-selling book. He’s also the creator of the Wolfram Language, one of the only true, symbolic programming languages in everyday use today trying to describe the real world.
Wolfram language is the smarts behind Siri and Alexa.
On today’s podcast we talked about Wolfram Language and how you could be using it in your own businesses.
If Texas were a country, it would be the 10th largest economy in the world. Despite that, there's only 2% of the venture capital firms invested here.
Things are changing and there is no reason Texas couldn’t become the next tier one market for venture capital in the country.
On the latest Austinpreneur, we spoke with Kevin King, Managing Director of Texas Halo Fund about, the stage Texas Halo Fund looks typically invests in, the industries Texas Halo Fund looks for, and the state of the Texas startup ecosystem.
Texas is very welcoming to early-stage companies and very encouraging to entrepreneurs. It is a great location for companies that are looking to start up.
“Real businesses create their own source of funding and don’t have to ask anyone for permission to exist.” That’s the philosophy of Bryce Roberts, co-founder of Indie.vc.
They’re introducing us to the world of permissionless entrepreneurship. Because when you’re seeking funding every 12-18 months, you’re living at the mercy of venture just to exist.
They’re saying it doesn’t have to be this way. Indie.vc wants to be a part of the last, or even the only, round of funding founders take to launch into profitability. Because believe it not, there are many big, successful businesses that didn’t start with a seed round.
In fact, if you talk to a lot of these successful bootstrapped companies, they would argue the best thing that ever happened to them was that they didn’t take that seed round early on. On today’s episode, Bryce explains why it’s time to shift your focus and determine whether or venture is a fit for you.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices are widely used and growing more popular each day. But are they secure?
According to Adam Perschke, absolutely not. Luckily, he and the team at NOVAM are doing something about that.
NOVAM is a distributed IoT security company. They’re using a blockchain security fabric for monitoring, mitigation and compliance in the IoT space.
In this episode, Adam Perschke, CEO at NOVAM, explains why IoT security is so lax right now, and how NOVAM is trying to strengthen security and protect these vulnerable IoT devices from harm.
“I’m an open source software developer for Microsoft.”
“That’s not what you think of from the Windows Monolith.”
Ben ran a successful software design company for many years, but when he saw the opportunity to be a first mover in early Slack, he shut his whole company down.
He had clients, products in progress, staff, everything. He switched completely and rebuilt his team to create Howdy.ai, a slack plugin that makes customizable standup activities simple.
On this episode of Austinpreneur, I talk with Ben Brown about Howdy, how it works and why it’s groundbreaking, why Austin and not San Francisco, and his thoughts on running his company alongside his wife. I love his take on mixing marriage and business.
On this episode of Austinpreneur we are joined by Evan Burfield, CEO and Founder of Union. Evan talked about Union — what it is, what it does, and why you should be a part of this network of startup communities.
“Money is kind of the easy part. In fact, if it's a purely cash, it's probably not very interesting to us.”
“For us to be successful we believe that we need to figure out how we can add value outside of the money.”
Rogue Venture Partners is an Oregon-based investment firm now on it’s 3rd fund, a $30M fund.
On this episode of Austinpreneur, Tom Sperry, Managing Partner of Rogue, explains how his company invests, what they look for, and what advice he would give to entrepreneurs.
In this episode, we caught up with Barbera Wolfensberger and Danny Frietman at SXSW. We talked about how the Netherlands is solving societal challenges by combining creativity and tech. We also learned more about the New Dutch Wave and how the relationship between the Netherlands and Texas is strengthening to service startups.
Barbera is the Director General of Culture and Media within the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands. Danny is the Managing Director of Enterprise Summit in the Netherlands.
On this episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, we sat down at SXSW to catch up with Frank Gruber, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Established. We talked about everything from The Downtown Project in Las Vegas to what his team was up to at SXSW to why founders are so important to startups.
When doing customer interviews, Jason Cohen had theories about what customers would be willing to pay for WordPress service that is safe, scalable, and fast.
From that understanding, he’s built an incredibly successful company.
Jason Cohen is the Founder and CTO of WP Engine, the largest digital experience platform for WordPress at $100M annual revenue.
On this episode, Jason joins me on Austinpreneur, to discuss how his company has grown and taken advantage of an explosive market, as well as the entrepreneur’s bootstrap vs venture funding debate.
On today’s episode of the Austinpreneur podcast, I talked with Matias Lyon, CEO of iF.
Matias talked about how iF is working to lift Chileans to a higher social and economic status through entrepreneurship. In Chile, there's a large discrepancy between those at the top of the income bracket and those at the bottom. Listen in to today's episode!
Alton McDowell is the Co-Head of Technology and Disruptive Commerce at J.P. Morgan.
In the bank, J.P. Morgan has four million business customers—Alton calls them startups. As these customers scale up, there are more and more resources available to them.
Listen in to hear Alton share how he’s able to see around every next curve of business growth—from startup all the way to a billion-dollar company. Check out the Texas Startups Roadshow in Dallas/Houston/Austin.
“When you’re focusing so much on the distribution of your content, you lose sight of the creation.” YouTube star, comedian and author Hannah Hart visited the Capital Factory on route to SXSW.
She started a t-shirt line while making YouTube videos on the side because she never thought the ad revenue would be substantial enough. But year after year, with intentional focus on each project she tackled, her platform grew. This influencer is now so much more than just a professional YouTuber--although she still does that well.
She’s now an author of two books, television personality, podcaster and so much more. On today’s episode, we hear about her journey growing her massive platform from scratch.
AI has grown by leaps and bounds. But, there’s still a long way to go. We're continuing to ask the big question: what can AI do for us? Come join us as we chat with Tom Parish, VP of Marketing at ConverseNow.AI.
What comes to mind when you think about space travel? Do you think of it as a relic from decades past? That visiting anywhere other than the moon is unthinkable in the near future?
The space industry is concerned with much more than just making it to Mars. In this episode of Capital Factory recorded at SXSW, we spoke to Richard Garriott, Molly Cain, and special guest Bill Nye in search of the answer to this question: What will the next decade of space travel look like?
The digital world of work is changing. Coding, engineering, and software development are no longer what they used to be. These hard skills require new knowledge along with a compatible soft-skill set to set students up for success in the new world of work. Carl Settles, Jr., founder and executive director of E4 Youth, an Austin-based organization dedicated to bridging the gap between underserved youth and creative careers, joined the podcast to talk about how he's training young digital entrepreneurs differently.
That's why E4 developed a curriculum built on 30-40 minute activities based in theatre that really help develop relationships and resilience amongst their students. The better kids start to do at those soft skills, the better the quality of their work.
That creates a loop. The students start to feel better about who they are, and they begin to understand what it takes to make something of quality. It's still critical thinking, but it's linked to passion.
E4 helps kids make connections and find access to creative careers they can love.
29 people.
That’s how many lives the Crisis Text Line saves every single day. And that’s just the amount of active rescues that are called in, let alone the 5,000 people that use the service every day.
Nancy Lublin is the founder of the Crisis Text Line, and her organization is able to help that amount of people through the use of life saving data science.
How does one go from studying performing arts to creating an animated film for both 2D animation and VR?
With a diverse skill set and a desire for self-expression.
Among entrepreneurs, everyone has a weird path that led them to their startup. The path for Matt Udvari, Founder of Part Time Evil, LLC, is no exception.
In this episode, Matt explains how Part Time Evil went from making iOS games to working on a VR film, and he gives us a behind-the-scenes look into the story for Part Time Evil’s film for VR (and traditional 2D): Between Spaces.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again:
Texas by itself has the 10th largest economy in the entire world. It has the strongest economy in the United States and more Fortune 500 companies than anywhere apart from New York.
That is why the Texas Startup Manifesto exists: to unlock all of the entrepreneurial opportunity in Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and the rest of the state.
We brought together Lawson Gow (Founder & CEO of The Cannon), Bryan Chambers (Vice President of Capital Factory), Cindy Revol (Principal at Perot Jain), and Joshua Baer (CEO of Capital Factory) in this episode of Austinpreneur to talk all about the Texas Startup Manifesto.
Virtual reality is high stakes for the data world. Companies are able to tell data-driven stories in immersive ways unimagined until recently. Enterprise content is on the verge of exploding.
Tyler Cummings and Wallon Walusayi joined us on the Austinpreneur podcast to tell us all about the emerging VR/SaaS industry. Tyler (COO) and Wallon (CEO) are co-founders of 3Data, where they’re providing companies around the globe the toolset they need to reimagine data and experience insights unavailable in a 2D environment.
These guys knows their stuff when it comes to VR. Dive in to hear the future of all things virtual reality, and how the business space is utilizing it to drive new insights.
If you want to be inspired by three absolutely amazing women, listen to Capital Factory co-founder Mellie Price interview Stephanie McMahon, Chief Brand Officer of WWE and Jean Case, Chairman, National Geographic Society and author of Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of Breakthroughs and Purpose.
Case’s five fearless principles are:
1. Make a Big Bet: “Big bets are made incrementally, one step at a time.”
2. Be bold, take risks: "Think about risk taking and failure as R&D. The most valuable piece of R&D is the error because that's when you perfect your idea.”
3. Make failure matter: "We are used to crash and burn, but what if you looked at it as crash and learn?”
4. Reach beyond your bubble: “Build unlikely partnerships. Transformational breakthroughs take place with diverse teams with different perspectives who can cover each other's blind spots.”
5. Let urgency conquer fear: ”When you feel that urgent, burning stuff inside of you, that is the moment that can push you out of your comfort zone and maybe get you to go do some bolder thing.”
Women are starting companies at 5x the rate of men. But most aren’t starting venture scale companies in traditional corporate workplace environments. That’s why Amy Nelson created The Riveter, a network of community and workspaces built by women for everyone.
Amy was a corporate litigator for a decade and had a traditional career before launching The Riveter.
She found that there was a huge need that wasn’t being met: work environments for entrepreneurial women designed to help them thrive in a like-minded community.
Here are the 4 things The Riveter is built on:
- They unapologetically think of women first when building community and open workspaces.
- They democratize access to their space by offering part time memberships for those who don’t need a full time workspace.
- They educate women on how to improve their business and invest in other startups by bringing in renowned speakers and experts.
- They are building a membership benefit organization that ranges from life to business benefits such as off site childcare partnerships and travel programs.
Meet Chris Vanek and learn how SOCOM fits into the larger Department of Defense.
Find out how they think about innovation, what areas they can invest in, and what their number one innovation priority is right now
Come join us as we chat with the Founder and CEO of disruptED, a company creating augmented reality for grades K-12. We’ll dive into how the learning landscape is changing and what is to come in the future.
Diversity and Inclusion.
Most every company of any real size today has some sort of diversity & inclusion program. If they don’t, it's definitely on their radar. But what about entrepreneurs? Capital Factory Ambassador of Emerging Technologies Brance Hudzietz interviews DivInc CEO Preston James about diversity, inclusion & equity for startups in this week's episode.
Many entrepreneurs either mobilize to specifically become a DOD contractor, or they steer clear of any government contracts. Most think the regulatory barriers are a significant hurdle.
Think again.
The US Army is completely overhauling the way it does business with outside contractors. They have reimagined their interactions to actually assist entrepreneurs with personnel and infrastructure to design solutions the US Army needs. Jay Harrison was appointed specifically to assist in that overhaul. He is the Command Innovation Officer of the Army Futures Command, located in Austin, Tx.
He came on the Austinpreneur podcast to share how his team partnering with entrepreneurs. They’re assisting in development of innovative solutions, and helping streamline regulatory issues to rapidly develop products that not only protect the country, but can be reused and commercialized.
Don’t miss this episode!
Can you think of a better job than Chief Programming Officer for SXSW? That’s what our friend Hugh Forrest has been doing for more than 30 years. As chief programming officer, he has the privilege of overseeing all the panels, presentations and sessions at the conference, as well as the film and music festival. This means he gets to work with some of the most creative people from all around the world.
What began as a music and media conference has now morphed to include creativity in all its many forms. From film to food to tech and politics, you can find all the emerging creative trends at SXSW.
Some new trends you can expect this year are blockchain cryptocurrency and cannabusiness. You can also expect to see a couple of sessions with prospective candidates for the 2020 presidential election. You’ll walk away with a good idea of what to expect in the 2020 run.
Interested in proposing an idea for SXSW? Hugh walks us through his top three tips for getting your idea in the door.
Tech development is a community affair.
Innovators have no chance of seeing their creations blossom if they’re not plugged into the people around them. Technology is inherently bound to the needs of the community at large. That truth holds fast even at the cutting edge of entertainment.
What can you do if you’re struggling to connect and develop relationships with your community?
Fortunately, we had Chuck Freedman—Developer Relations Lead at Bose Corporation—on the podcast to talk about how his successes at embracing users in the past is helping him frame his outlook toward the future.
“They’d give me mentors based on being the only woman or the only person of color vs actually seeing my aspirations and who could help me get there.”
Mentorship is one of the best ways to advance your career by bringing you up to the level of talent required for the work.
On this episode of Austinpreneur, we sat down with Women in Tech Pitch Challenge winner and Founder of Mentor Method, Janice Omadeke. She outlines her advice to entrepreneurs about support and opening doors, to founders wanting to think more inclusively, to entrepreneurs on how to pitch. We also discuss what led her to pursue starting her company, why Austin, and the women in tech challenge competition.
Some entreneurs have education. Others have experience. This entrepreneur has both. He’s a founder, director, entrepreneur, PhD, MBA. So, we asked him: What’s more important, education, or experience?
He said both.
David Altounian joined the podcast to share his top 3 lessons on entrepreneurship. David co-founded Motion Computing, which developed the first 12-inch slate tablet. He’s also Interim Dean at the Bill Munday School of Business, and a also partner over here at the Capital Factory.
He’s the kind of guy you listen to.
JD Weinstein is no stranger to the Austin startup scene, having been instrumental in catalyzing the UT Austin startup scene and then spending many years helping to grow Capital Factory's Accelerator.
Now he's taking on a new challenge with Oracle - one of the biggest tech giants - and helping them to offer a differentiated program for startups that gives them access to technical help and also the Oracle sales channel. Listen to this podcast to find out if your startup might be able to benefit from the Oracle Cloud offerings and ecosystem.
Kids love consuming video content. Parents aren’t so sure: YouTube can be a landmine filled with garbage too mature for young people. Tankee is here to solve that problem.
Gerald Youngblood came on the Austinpreneur podcast to tell us all about his new content platform, Tankee. It’s radical, and it’s based on kids. Gerald’s a dad, so he went straight to young people to find out what they were watching, what they enjoyed, and why.
He shared with us his discovery process for his platform, and how he’s managed to balance incredible safety with amazing content.
While it’s so much better than years before, the startup and venture capital world is notoriously difficult for women. But at the same time, supporting only women initiatives is counterintuitive, says Molly Cain founder of Gov City.
She’s worked in both the government and the tech space where she’s witnessed really positive changes for women over the years. She didn’t expect to experience this lack of diversity in the federal world because it’s easy to assume all the rules and regulations protect it from bias. But Molly says it was the most fierce environment for women because emotions are especially not welcome. One of the greatest gifts women often have is their ability to use their emotions to collaborate, connect, and build relationships. But it went unappreciated in the government sector.
How do you balance the two? We discuss that and more on today’s episode.
Private sector innovation has seen tremendous growth over the past 10 years, while the military has been looking to infuse it in their strategy.
“We are at a reflection point in the military,” explained Mark. He continued, “the current system is an industrial one. To be able to to deliver on time and at a better price, we need to figure out how to best modernize our practices.”
We sat down with Mark Esper to chat on how tables have turned and what the future is for innovation in the army.
Capital Factory, the Center of Gravity for Entrepreneurs in Texas, presents Austinpreneur – a podcast highlighting Austin’s startups, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Join in on candid conversations with leaders who have built companies from the ground up and visionaries creating the next wave of world-changing technology. Discover the importance of your network, meet the people supporting your journey, and connect with the community making it all happen.
Welcome to the show!