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Ethan Brooks
September 04, 2025

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).

I’ve been working on some very slight design tweaks to hopefully make the email more readable. So gimme a shout and let me know what you think.

I’m not the only one busy with a redesign.

This week, rumors sprang up claiming that the image below is a new logo for the city of Austin, supposedly set to roll out Oct. 1.

I have no idea if this is real – as I write this, the city has neither confirmed nor denied –but it hardly matters because the comments are, as expected, hilarious.

Gotta love that Texas spice.

-Ethan

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

(But seriously… I want to know what Snap_Grackle_Pop knows about Chili’s)

Upcoming Events

🗓️ Sept. 5: LoneStartup Kickoff Party: One of my favorite podcasts here in town, Patrick Killoren is celebrating season three with pickleball & drinks for local founders

🗓️ Sept. 5: Wine & Watch Collecting: WSJ best-selling author, Justin Donald, will be there, along with a bunch of other founders and local execs who love watches

🗓️ Sept. 8: Notion Ice Cream Social: If your business runs on Notion, you need to know Sara Loretta. Join her for ice cream, and talk through the latest feature release

🗓️ Sept. 9: ScaleUp Speaker Series: Okay, this series happens once a year and it’s excellent. Each week, attorney Shannon Sibhold, and her guests talk through the nitty gritty of growing from 7- to 8-figures

🗓️ Sept. 10: How AI’s Transforming Healthcare: Dr. Jacob Childers is joining the Austin Chamber of Commerce to discuss the evolving role of AI in medical practices

🗓️ Sept. 11: Pitches & Poker: This sounds fun – $250 buy-in for investors. Five founders pitch, and whoever wins the chips picks a startup to split the pot with. Founders: If you want to pitch you can apply here

🗓️ Sept. 11: Future of Software Development: The Austin Forum on Tech & Society is hosting this 2.5 hour workshop guiding dev team leads and execs through AI adoption

🗓️ Sept. 11: 25 Years of Intense Competition: Emmy award winning choreographer, Stephen Mills, is giving a talk at Red Fridge about his time leading Ballet Austin to international fame in one of the most cutthroat creative fields on Earth.

🗓️ Sept. 12: Walk & Talk: This series brings together listeners of two great business podcasts – Pat Kiloren’s LoneStartup, and Sam Huntington’s Hill Climbers (for founders who love endurance sports)

🗓️ Sept. 12: $100M Offers Discussion Group: I’m hosting this for anyone working their way through Alex Hormozi’s $100M Offers – get feedback on your offer, and discuss the book with other founders

ONE MORE THING…

If you’re new here, a friend and I are organizing a sporting clay shooting event for local founders and investors, and it’s looking great. We’ve already got about twenty people signed up, and I’ve started making personalized introductions among attendees, so everyone knows at least one other person they should chat with before we even get there.

It’s beginner-friendly, and we’ll have instructors there, so if you’ve never shot, that’s fine! The whole goal is to get out of the office for a morning, do something a little adventurous, and make some great connections. So if that sounds like something you’d like to be part of, check out the details and join us here.

Other Fun Stuff Coming Up…

  • TONIGHT: Blancs & Francs, Wine of the Loire Valley

  • TONIGHT: Siptember - Wine & Food Pairing at Vintage Wine Storage

  • Sept. 5: Texas Wine Sunset Cruise

  • Sept. 5: Weird Art Tour & Moving Salon Discussion

  • Sept. 5: Austin Ikebana Group - Japanese Flower Arranging

  • Sept. 6: Austin Zine Fiends - Zine Making Meetup

  • Sept. 6: The 43rd Annual Moonlight Cruise (meets @ 1:30AM)

  • Sept. 7: Lagers & Literature - Book Fair at Meanwhile Brewing

  • Sept. 7: Make A Candle That Looks Like A Succulent

  • Sept. 9: Jeff Goldblum, Live at the Bass Concert Hall

  • Sept. 10: Stroller-Friendly Drop In at Laguna Gloria

  • Sept. 10: Cooking & Baking with Honey at Zilker Botanical Garden

  • Sept. 10-14: Louis C. K. Live at The Moody Theater

  • Sept. 11: Grand Opening of Pop Strokes - Elevated Mini Golf

  • Sept. 11: Eat Your Flowers - Cookbook Launch with Loria Stern

  • Sept. 13: Women’s Art Gallery Party & Relaunch

  • Sept. 13: Start Your Own Plants From Cuttings

  • Sept. 13: Pilates & Picnics at Skyline Park

  • Sept 13: Capital City Cup - Luxury Golf Tournament

ONE MORE THING…

Every month, my buddy Zac Solomon and I co-host a mastermind dinner for local writers. It’s called A Moveable Feast, and the topic of the evening is making money while making art (a.k.a. “Don’t die broke”).

They tend to draw writers of all types – from attorneys-turned-novelists, to professional copywriters, and tech founders who use writing to grow their business. The conversations are excellent.

Our next one is Sept. 20, and there are a few spots left, so if you’d like to join, check it out!

ONE MORE THING (MORE)…

This one’s a bit further out than I typically share, but it’s cool, and I want you to be able to snag tickets before they disappear. Matthew McConaughey is coming to the Bass Concert Hall Sunday, September 21st, for the final stop on the tour for his latest release, Poems & Prayers.

Tickets include a copy of the book, which will be given out at the event, and you can get ‘em here.

Word On The Street

A roundup of cool local opportunities to grow your business, wealth, or personal brand

🤝 Community Builders: If you organize a recurring event in town, check out Matt Burns’ new community for ATX community-people.

💸 Central Texas Angel Network is hosting an info session Sept. 9th about their upcoming funding cycle, and how to maximize your odds of closing an investment

📍 New in town? The Red Fridge Society, an incredible founder club downtown, just launched Austin Fresh, a welcome program for mature founders relocating to ATX

💅 Mentorship: Austin Women in Tech is kicking off a six-month mentor program, designed to foster connection and knowledge-sharing

📣 Austin Tech Week is coming up Oct. 20-24. Surprisingly, event submissions have already closed, but… Plan something anyways? People are going to be out, about, and looking to mingle

Insights

Thought-provoking ideas and stories published by founders in ATX

1. The Philosophic Turn for AI Agents: This paper, recently shared by multi-time AI founder, Brendan McCord, gets at the heart of a fascinating issue: How do we design AI to maximize human agency and autonomy? (e.g., not turn our brains to mush)

2. Creating Tech That Matters: Unicorn founder, Brett Hurt, did a deep dive on this new book from Pablos Holman, and it sounds fascinating. Holman was a founding member of Intellectual Venture Lab, launched by Microsoft’s Nathan Myhrvold, and has designed everything from nuclear reactors to “hurricane suppression machines.”

3. In Defense of Inequality: This was the speech that took Twitter by storm this week. Dr. Carlos Carvalho, the new president of UATX, gave this convocation to the class of 2029, and it was absolutely worth a read.

Local Artist of the Week

It’s been a while since I’ve featured an artist of the week, but I saw this story over Culture Map, and thought it was great.

Christina Davis is a local designer and art director, who recently launched Stick Around, a rentable vintage sticker machine for weddings, showers, conferences, and other group events.

When Desnudo opened their newest location over at Frond Plant Shop on S. Lamar, Davis was there with custom stickers to mark the occasion.

I love this. It’s so Austin.

The crazy hook is that she custom-designs the stickers for each event personally by hand. Every client gets a mood board, and six different stickers, all done the old fashioned way (by a human being and her iPad) – no AI whatsoever.

I think that human touch is what’s standing out to me. I’ve never cared about a sticker in my life, but somehow these feel more like collectibles; Each one tied to a specific time and place here in Austin, and I like that a lot.

“As soon as the demand becomes too great to maintain that on my own, the solution will always be to hire artists rather than using AI,” she told me when I reached out via email. “The purpose of this whole product is to provide a human, tactile experience, I want that to always be reflected in the business and the art itself.”

Follow Christina on IG here, and if you want this puppy at your next event, you can find all the details 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