Love & Wealth with the Founders of Alamo Drafthouse

Welcome to this issue of The Austin Business Review, a weekly roundup of great local events and insights for Austin business owners (plus some other cool stuff for your life outside of work).

This week, in addition to the events, we’ve got a piece I’m really excited about…

It’s an interview with Karrie League, co-founder of Alamo Drafthouse, sharing her lessons learned after 30+ years of marriage and building a business with her husband, Tim.

Alamo is an Austin staple, so it’s a pleasure to feature this kind of story.

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

-Ethan

PS. I’m thinking about what features to add to this newsletter this year, and your opinions would be helpful. If you’re trying to get connected in Austin this year, grab some time on my calendar. I would love to chat!

Upcoming Events

🗓️ TONIGHT: Python - The Documentary: It’s the programming language building the future of AI. Austin Forum on Tech & Society is gathering to watch & discuss

🗓️ Jan. 16: Trail Talks: Pat Killoren and Sam Huntington, both killer podcast hosts here in town, starting the year off strong with their trail walk series

🗓️ Jan. 16: Female Founders & Friends: Hosted the third Friday every month by Juliette Richert of the Artemis Fund

🗓️ Jan. 16: Planning Palooza: Texas Women In Business is curating a roundtable discussion on: “What do you wish women’s business groups talked about more?”

🗓️ Jan. 16: Founder Pickleball: This is a new event series hosted by John Davison and Connor Tomkies, both of whom do other great events in town too

🗓️ Jan. 17: Wining Grants With AI: Capital Factory’s Shannon Aronin is leading this workshop for non-profit staff and social entrepreneurs

🗓️ Jan. 18: Age of Audio: Okay, this looks cool – a documentary on the rise of podcasting, showing over at the Austin Film Society

🗓️ Jan. 20: Close The Loop: You know those small tasks lingering on your to-do list for months? Cross them off with Nicole Stump and friends in this co-working session

🗓️ Jan. 20: AI for Ecommerce: Power breakfast and panel discussion on how AI is being used, from giants like Amazon and Walmart to individual DTC brands

🗓️ Jan. 21: Rethinking The Things We Touch Every Day: Jacob Borgeson is gathering climate tech founders to discuss material science and sustainable goods

🗓️ Jan. 21: Local Businesses… Héctor Muñiz is leading a workshop on how to boost your company’s visibility on Google Maps and Search

🗓️ Jan. 21: Texas Women In Business: For their January happy hour, local designer Karen Bodu will be leading a seasonal styling soirée

🗓️ Jan. 21: Austin HardTech: Nick Frank and Peter Taylor are getting people together at Q-Branch for live demos, open mics, and investor reverse pitches

🗓️ Jan 22: Women in Business Leadership Symposium: This year’s theme is Leading in the Age of AI

🗓️ Jan. 22: Austin AI Alliance: Kicking the year off with their first meeting, over at The Center for Government and Civic Service

🗓️ Jan. 22: Wake Up! CPG VC: One of the best CPG events in town, Marc Nathan gathers brands, retailers, and service providers from across the ecosystem for coffee

🗓️ Jan. 22: Agentic Demo Night: AI Collective Austin is partnering with Atlassian to find “the most credible, high-leverage applied AI work happening in the community”

🗓️ Jan. 22: Electrification of Mobility: Sean Voigt and Arthur Marronnier are sitting down with a panel of leaders in the EV space to talk about what’s next

🗓️ Jan. 22: AustinNext Live! Jason Scharf is sitting down for a live podcast with Chris and Rob Taylor – brothers and long-time founders here in town – to talk Austin tech and debate the merits of bootstrapping vs venture-backed

🗓️ Jan. 23 PE/VC Night: Eddie Hernandez is bringing together a focused group of experienced investors to network and talk shop

Other Fun Stuff Coming Up

January 23rd is Hi, How Are You Day an Austin tradition, commemorating musician Daniel Johnston, and raising awareness for mental health. Johnston is the guy who made the iconic mural of Jeremiah The Innocent homaged by this newsletter.

Elsewhere, we have…

• TONIGHT: Behind The Frame - Art Lecture at Rich’s Art

• Jan. 16: Book Launch - Empathy Impact: Wild Effects of Kindness in Action

• Jan. 20: Ink & Drink Tattoo Lesson at Dark Horse

• Jan. 20: Linger - Cookbook Event with Hetty Lui McKinnon

• Jan. 20: Murder on the Orient Express Opens at the Zach Theatre

• Jan. 21: Don’t Think About Dinner - Cookbook Event with Jenn Lueke

• Jan. 22: Where Grit Meets Grapes - Texas BBQ & Wine Tasting

• Jan. 22: Latte Art Throwdown at Peaches Coffee

• Jan. 23: Bert Kreischer, Live at ACL

• Jan. 23:  Live Band Karaoke (this sounds awesome)

• Jan. 24: 5K Beer Run at St. Elmo

Meet Your Neighbors: Tim & Karrie League, Founders of Alamo Drafthouse

Okay, I’m stoked to share this guest post from Thomas Anzivino.

He’s a financial planner here in town, and has this excellent newsletter called Love & Wealth, where he interviews couples who have been married at least 20 years, and have $2M+ in net worth, then shares their lessons learned for the rest of us.

This piece is from an interview he did with Karrie League, co-founder of Alamo Drafthouse, right here in Austin. For more like this, make sure you connect with him here, and grab the newsletter here.

Without further ado, enter Thomas…

Karrie League starts at the beginning:

“It's fairly simple. First, we dated for 7 years before we got married, and in the last 2 years of that, we ran a business together. Running a business together is the absolute best way to know if a couple is compatible. Especially if the business failed, like our first venture did.”  

Through the business, the leagues learned that their financial discipline was similar. Their attitudes toward money, debt, spending and saving were all aligned.  

“In 1996 when we were building out the first theater, we spent a grand total of $5,000 for the entire year on personal spending - food and lodging and nothing else.  We couch surfed, and ate a lot of bologna sandwiches and ramen”

Building on a foundation of shared money sensibilities, Karrie highlighted two pillars of lasting love she practices in her marriage.

“There has to be absolute trust,” she said. “Unless a couple keeps their finances separate, they have to trust each other to stick to the plan.”

Without combining their finances and trusting each other deeply, the Leagues would not have been able to rebuild after an early failed venture and ultimately grow Alamo Drafthouse into my favorite collection of movie theaters.

Trust enables them to divide their labor and specialize, empowering each other in a virtuous cycle.

Karrie says, “In our case, I manage all the household finances. I am in charge of all the bank accounts and responsible for all bill payments, insurance, taxes, investments, real estate, bookkeeping etc.”

Despite the complexity of operating a multi-million dollar household, Karrie keeps their finances accessible and transparent for Tim. 

“Tim could look at it all if he wanted, but he doesn't have time for that, so he just has to trust me… he has access to loans and credit cards and cash, and I have to trust him to spend wisely.”  

The second pillar of lasting love is just as important to their relationship: Grace.

“Things always go wrong,” she said. “It happens over and over again, and sometimes it's out of your control. Sometimes you just miscalculate and misjudge, and suddenly a home renovation is twice as expensive… Or one spouse crashes the car a week after the other forgot to keep the car insurance paid.”  

(Hypothetical examples only - these things couldn't have possibly happened to the Leagues 😉)

Instead of blame and resentment, smoldering and causing division, the Leagues focus their efforts forgiving one another, bringing grace into their relationship. 

Karrie sums up the importance of separating financial ups and downs from love in a relationship, beautifully.

“The bottom line is, we've been very poor, and we've been very rich. And we've been happy both ways, and happy in-between.”

For richer and for poorer, right?

If you follow Alamo Drafthouse in the news, like I do, you’ll know that uncoupling finances and love was particularly important for the leagues when their movie theaters closed during the pandemic. 

“After Covid, we went back to in-between, with a moment there when we thought it might go back to very poor. We had to check in with ourselves to make sure that we would be ok with the adjustment, whatever it might be.”

My favorite part of this interview was how clear it became, that despite financial success and social accolades, the Leagues remain grounded and humble. 

“I think that the reason that we would have been ok (that we WERE ok with loss of 3/4 of our net worth) is that we have never changed our basic [financial] attitudes.”

Refusing to fall into the “lifestyle trap” and being true to themselves immunizes the Leagues against financial shocks. 

“We have never overspent our income,” Karrie said. “We have always put significant income towards savings, and we have always avoided personal debt as much as possible. Those attitudes… make it possible to build back up.”  

When times get tough, they also think back to early in their marriage 

“We had a nightly ritual of dinner at Taco Cabana, where we would buy one taco and tree extra tortillas for $1.75, and divide the contents of the one taco into four tortillas, then fill out each one at the salsa bar.”

When I bump into Karrie or Tim around Austin I always walk away with a smile. 

They lead by example, proving that married couples collaborating towards a shared vision are unstoppable.

You can get more stories of couples navigating the ups and downs of wealth and long-term relationships by signing up for Love & Wealth here 👇

That’s all for this week!

Email me here if you want to share any feedback, or let me know about an event you’re hosting.

Until next week,

-Ethan