Real Talk On Founder Shame

PLUS: Avoidable Startup Blunders... Local Book Shop of the Month... How To Not Feel Awkward At Events... And more...

Author

Ethan Brooks
April 04, 2024

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

My name’s Ethan and I’m the one writing this (holler at me here!).

This week, we’ve got a few things going on:

  • 📅 Upcoming Events

  • 📣 Word On The Street

  • 🤠 Local Shop of the Week

  • ❓ Question For You (at the end)

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

-Ethan

PS Orca is offering $100k in venture funding to a female-led B2B SaaS company. There are a few days left to apply, and as of this writing, only 62 applicants.

Upcoming Events

Running a business is tough. Here are a few great places to meet cool people going through the same sh*t you are.

Fun Stuff Coming Up

…because if you’re anything like me, you work too much already. So here’s some fun stuff to do around town that’s not necessarily related to business.

  • Apr. 5: Homemade Filled Donut Class

  • Apr. 5: Rooftop Pickleball

  • Apr. 6: Fly Fishing Film Tour

  • Apr. 7: The Universe in Verse with Maria Popova

  • Apr. 8: Solar Eclipse

  • Apr. 10: The Fragrance of Ink - Chinese Calligraphy Class

  • Apr. 10: 32 Sounds - A Profound Sensory Experience

  • Apr. 11: CultureMap Tastemaker Awards

  • Apr. 11: Live Fire - Spicy Food from Texas’ Top Chefs

  • Apr. 13: Tequila Templo - with 200+ agave spirits to sample

  • Apr. 13: Cars, Coffee, and Cannolis - Ferrari Edition

  • Apr. 13: Second Saturdays at the Blanton Museum

  • Apr. 5-28: Pup Crawl - Drinking to Support Austin Humane Soc.

  • Apr. 5-28: Born With Teeth – The Truth About Shakespeare

Word On The Street

Thought-provoking ideas, opportunities, and stories published by ATX founders

1. Real Talk On Founder Shame: If I were to recommend you read one thing this week, it’d be this post by Adam Robinson, about how it feels watching his company lose $800k in ARR in four months.

It’s not so much about failure (the company still kicked off $1.67m in free cash this quarter) as it is about the negative stories we tell for ourselves as business owners, and how they risk crushing our mind-state, even when things are going well.

“I’m dreading posting this, filled with guilt/shame about our performance,” he writes. “…So much of my identity is tied to that topline ARR number.”

We need more real talk like this.

2. You Should Do This: I’ve mentioned Paris Bland in this newsletter before. She’s the founder of Digital Executive, and hosts a bunch of great business events all over town.

This week, she opened up time on her calendar to Zoom with anyone who’s trying to get tapped into the local business scene. If you’re new in town, or just starting to get connected here, definitely check it out.

3. Recordings from SaaSOpen: Tickets to SaaSOpen were $600+ but you can get the recordings and slides for free just by interacting with this LinkedIn post. I haven’t reviewed yet, but there are some great names on the docket, including ATX founders, like…

  • Adam Robinson, bootstrapping to $22m+

  • Jason Cohen, 2x unicorn founder of WPEngine

  • Jeff Cotten, who talked about growing from $300m to $500m+

Side Note: This is a really smart event marketing tactic – offer the recordings free, in exchange for social engagement.

4. How To Not Feel Awkward At Events: Events are a big part of this newsletter. If you’re trying to get connected here in ATX, and aren’t comfortable chatting with strangers yet, check out these tips from Catherine Meyer, founder of The Collective, a networking group for female founders here in the city.

5. Avoid Blundering: Maybe you’ve heard of Charlie Munger’s “inversion” framework – about how 90% of success is simply avoiding the things most likely to lead to failure. In this piece, Jason Cohen takes it further, drawing on everything from chess to tennis to illustrate the principle, then breaking down 14 preventable blunders that tend to kill companies.

A lot of them center around product-market fit, and the avoidable ways that we get that wrong, either through ambition or self-denial. Great read.

Local Book Shop of the Month

For years I’ve harbored a private desire to run a bookshop-slash-bar. Something that’s open late, with plenty of tables, and no rush to leave; Where you can grab a drink, break out your laptop, and get some work done after the world goes to bed.

Well, ladies and gentlemen… We’ve got one! (sort of)

Started by Jean Buckner, Vintage Books and Wine Bar is exactly what it sounds like. Beautiful book shop and wine bar built into one of Austin’s most important historic buildings.

Unlike a lot of indie book shops, the shelves here are stocked with titles you’ve actually heard of and want to read. Don’t ask me to recount which ones though, because I was maybe a little too focused on the wine bar during my visit (which you can enjoy until 10 or 11pm, every night but Monday).

There’s more to this place than the books and the wine, though.

The building itself should hold a special place in the heart of any Austin transplant for reasons that I wrote about here… Definitely recommend dropping in to check it out.

Question For You 🫵

Some readers are looking for an M&A attorney. Do you have one you use and recommend? If so, please drop me a line here. I’d love to have a few that people vouch for.

That’s all for this week.

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

Until next week,

-Ethan

Thank you to all the incredible local founders and leaders who share great insights and events. You can follow and connect with them here…