Learn your Austin ABC’s and become a local super-connector
Here is your home page to get started and meet all of the people you need to know to plug into the Austin tech startup scene — the Connectors, Angels, Venture Capitalists, Founders, Professors, Hackers, Press… and the Legends.
Austin has been one the fastest growing cities in the country for the past 20 years that I’ve been here, but it feels like COVID-19 and California wildfires broke the floodgates already under pressure from high taxes and expensive real estate in landlocked coastal cities. I used to meet a high profile entrepreneur or investor moving here every month and now it seems it’s one or two a week.
Everyone is looking to plug-in and with COVID it’s harder than ever. Normally, you can literally just show up at Capital Factory and hang out in the kitchen. What do you do until we’re hanging out in person again?
Here is your COVID-friendly cheat sheet.
Find the Connectors, the Angels, the Venture Capitalists, the Founders, the Professors, the Hackers, and the Legends you need to meet and get some hints about the best ways to meet them.
How do you meet them?
I’d start by trying to follow them on social media to get to know them a bit, and then reach out with a relevant intro request through LinkedIn. Most people are surprised how effective cold outreach is. If I can help make a mutually beneficial introduction I’d like to… please think about why THEY would want to meet YOU and send me a forwardable email at josh@quityourjob.com. You can find a great example email in my post about How to Make Effective Email Introductions.
Check back regularly as the list will keep getting longer.
Follow the entire Austin ABC list on Twitter
The Connectors
Alex “STOIKY” Goldberg (Lt. Colonel) is the Director of the Texas Military Department Joint Innovation Unit, a DARPA and NSIN Fellow, and now leads the Defense Innovation Unit across Texas. Alex has helped bring more than $160 million in funding to Texas startups through SBIR, STTR and other government funding programs for companies like Essentium, ICON 3D, and LIFT Aircraft. STOIKY is his callsign. Follow the Texas Military Department on Twitter @TXMilitary #Army #AirForce #NationalGuard #DARPA #DefenseInnovation #TXMilitary
Amber Allen is the founder of Double A Labs and is the Queen of all things esports and gaming. Splitting time between Austin and Los Angeles, Amber is a whirlwind of energy and is always working on an exciting new project with some mega-brand using her latest tech. Follow Amber on Twitter @amberallen_aa #Gaming #Esports #VirtualReality #AugmentedReality #MixedReality #AmbersReality
Andy Tryba recently launched a new company with Donald Park from Vista Equity, called Ionic Partners, after almost a decade running companies for Joe Liemandt. Working with Joe, he founded RideAustin to provide ridesharing to Austin when Uber and Lyft were driven out by city council. Andy is a global thought leader in remote work, telecommuting, and distributed workforces having served as CEO of Crossover and Sococo and on the board of Texas Central, our new bullet train. Andy also spent time in the White House during the Obama administration. Follow him on Twitter @AndyTryba #RemoteWork #Ridesharing #HighSpeedTrain #TrilogyMafia #Obama
Ben Lamm packs more vision and passion into one person than I ever thought was possible as CEO of Hypergiant, where they are using artificial intelligence to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges in business, space, and sustainability. Ben previously co-founded Simply Interactive, Chaotic Moon, and Conversable leading all of them to successful exits. Ben lives the Texas Startup Manifesto having lived in Austin and Dallas and with Hypergiant offices in both cities plus Houston. He’s also on the board of the Planetary Society and the Arch Mission. Follow Ben on Twitter @FederalLamm #ArtificialIntelligence #CEO #Space #Science #TomorrowingToday
Brett Hurt is one of the most successful serial entrepreneurs in Austin. He was also born here and went to UT Austin before heading out to Silicon Valley for a stint. He’s been programming since he was a kid running some of the first online communities and networked games. He is an ecommerce innovator with first Coremetrics and then Bazaarvoice, a very active angel investor, and currently Founder and CEO of data.world. Follow Brett on Twitter @databrett #Ecommerce #CEO #AngelInvestor #BigData #AspenInstitute
Bob Metcalfe is a Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UT Austin since 2011, most recently with a big focus on geothermal energy. Bob invented Ethernet, founded 3Com (revenues of $5.7B), was the Editor of InfoWorld magazine, and was a venture capitalist at Polaris in Boston. #UTAustin #Geothermal #Innovation
Chelsea Collier is the founder of digi.city, focused on creating more connected, innovative, and inclusive cities and communities. She’s been part of the Austin startup scene forever, running the RISE conference which was kind of like Austin Startup Week before there was Austin Startup Week and also involved in policy at Texans for Economic Progress. She’s a co-founder of Impact Hub Austin and is passionate about social impact and inclusion. Follow Chelsea on Twitter @ChelseaMcC #Policy #SmartCities #EisenhowerFellow
Cindy Lo, the CEO of Red Velvet Events, was one of the first people I met in Austin in 1999 when I came to work at Trilogy Software. She’s one of the best strategic event planners in the country and is who I turn to for any really important event, personal or professional. Cindy is super plugged into every big event going on in Austin from SXSW to Formula 1 and everything in between. Follow Cindy on Twitter @cindywearsred #SXSW #Formula1 #EventPlanner #EventProfs #TrilogyMafia
Colin Guinn is one of the pioneers of drone technology, serving as CEO of DJI in the US through their rapid expansion before launching Guinn Partners, a startup studio focused on anything that rolls, swims, or flies by itself. There are a bunch of amazing autonomy and robotics startups in Texas, and most of them are working with Guinn Partners in one way or another. #Autonomy #Drones #FlyingCars #Robots
Craig Cummings is an Army intelligence Veteran turned serial entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. He launched his first startup to bring the first cell phone technology onto the battlefield in Afghanistan. I met him when he co-founded RideScout with Joseph Kopser (also on this list) and moved to Austin. Now he is a VC at Moonshots Capital, focused on investing in early stage tech companies with a special focus on backing military veterans. Follow Craig on Twitter @unleashcraig #Investor #VeteransInTech #AspenInstitute
Dan & Lisa Graham run Notley Ventures, an umbrella group that brilliantly combines for-profit investing with non-profit and social impact philanthropy. Notley also serves as a powerful resource platform for scaling innovative nonprofit organizations. They operate multiple investment funds focused on industry verticals like Real Estate, Consumer or CPG and on under-represented founders such as Women and People of Color. Follow Dan on Twitter @maharg #Nonprofit #SocialImpact #Investor #CPG #RealEstate #DEI #WomenInTech #BlackInTech #AspenInstitute
David Altounian is the Associate Dean of the business school at St. Edwards University and one of the godfathers of the Austin tech ecosystem. He was an early executive at Compaq, Motorola, and Dell before founding one of the early tablet computing manufacturers Motion Computing. An angel investor and board member, he spends most of his time these days teaching at St. Edwards University. David collaborated with Stephen Straus to create a comprehensive report of funding sources in Austin and update it annually. #HigherEd #Ecosystem #FundingData
Damon Clinkscales is the one of the most prolific community organizers and startup advisors in Austin, having started some of the first big meetups such as Austin on Rails, Cafe Bedouins, and Open Coffee. He’s a “programmers programmer” who has worked at many of the top tech companies in town over the past 20 years. He’s one of the first people many execs in town call when they are looking for a key technical hire. You can follow Damon on Twitter @damon #TrilogyMafia #Programmer #MeetupOrganizer
Eugene Sepulveda has long operated at the intersection of business, government and nonprofits. According to the Austin Business Journal, “Sepulveda’s deep connections to the machinery of City Hall are not newly acquired. By mining his deep political connections, this longtime friend to entrepreneurs has become a linchpin within an economy that’s taken odd beatings lately.” Eugene is the CEO of the Entrepreneurs Foundation, co-creator of the Culturati Summit, and works closely with Capital Factory, Notley and Mayor Adler. Follow Eugene on Twitter at @EugeneAustin #CityHall #Politics #NonProfit #Culture #Obama
Evan Loomis is hard to put a label on. He’s an entrepreneur, investor, and author — seamlessly weaving between the roles. He’s spending most of his time these days on ICON, printing the first 3D printed houses on Earth and also working on building the first houses on the Moon. But he’s also got his hands on numerous other deep technology and high growth startups. Follow Evan on Twitter @EvanLoomis #3DPrinting #PropTech #SpaceTech
Evan Smith is the most respected, most experienced, and most incredible journalist in Austin. He’s also an incredible convener of thought leaders across both sides of the aisle. After leading Texas Monthly for many years he co-founded the Texas Tribune, one of the most innovative and successful non-profit news organizations of all time. If there is a really important conversation, you want Evan to moderate it. Follow him on Twitter @evanasmith #TexasPolitics #Journalist #Moderator #Convener
Fernando Vigil is an Austin-native who recently moved back from NYC. Fernando was one of the first people I met in Austin when I moved here to work at Trilogy Software in 1999 and we had both just graduated from college. After Trilogy, he was an investor at Bain Capital for 15 years before launching his own fund, Teca Partners. #Investor #PrivateEquity #PublicEquity #Consumer #EnterpriseSW #TrilogyMafia
Gordon Daugherty is one of the best startup mentors in the world, and in my opinion the best in Texas. He’s the President and co-founder of Capital Factory where he spends his time mentoring our most promising startup founders after decades working in every stage of technology business from software to hardware, local to global, and startup to IPO. Gordon is the best-selling author of Startup Success — Funding the Early Stages of Your Ventures. Follow him on Twitter @GordonDaugherty #Startups #Entrepreneurship #Mentor #Funding #Author
Hugh Forrest is the face of South by Southwest (SXSW) and has been in charge of all of the content since almost day one — more than 30 years! Hugh is an active leader in the Austin technology community, frequently supporting the efforts of the Austin Chamber and many other organizations. He brings in many of the biggest names in the world to Austin each year for SXSW including Melinda Gates, London Mayor Sadiq Kahn, Elon Musk, and Michelle Obama. Follow him on Twitter @Hugh_W_Forrest #SXSW #Speakers #Community
Ian Clarke is a brilliant computer scientist and entrepreneur, born in Ireland. He is the creator of The Freenet Project, the first open-source, peer-to-peer, anti-censorship platform. He’s founded multiple startups including Revver and OneSpot and is an advisor and consultant to many of the top companies in town who are trying to leverage machine learning in their businesses. Follow him on Twitter @Sanity. #FreeSpeech #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning #BigData #Cryptology
Ingrid Vanderveldt is Austin’s international woman of mystery — constantly globetrotting in her mission to Empower One Billion Women but always tying it back home to ATX. I met Ingrid when she was the first Dell Entrepreneur-in-Residence and creator of the Dell Center for Entrepreneurs, after selling multiple companies and creating the CNBC show “American Made”. Ingrid has her MBA from UT Austin McCombs. Follow her on Twitter @ontheroadwithiv. #Diversity #SHEconomy #Entrepreneurship #Emcee
Jacqueline Hughes has been the co-organizer of Austin Startup Week with me since it started in 2011 and has held roles operating Techstars Austin and the Kauffman Fellows. Jacqueline is one of those incredible people who usually doesn’t want to be the center of attention on stage but is working her ass off backstage to make sure everybody on stage looks good. Follow her on Twitter @JaquelinesLife. #Community #Events #StartupWeek #KauffmanFellows
Janice Omadeke is a startup founder who is passionate about the power of mentorship and inclusion and her startup The Mentor Method helps companies who mix up the two, after learning about it firsthand at BAE Systems and PwC. Janice is part of Capital Factory, DivInc, Mass Challenge, and Notley Fellows and is the creator of the Austin Mosaic Awards to honor diverse founders and allies. #Diversity #F500 #Mentoring
Jason Dorsey is the man who just keeps getting younger. When I met him he was the world expert at Millenials, then Generation Y, and now Generation Z… basically he’s always hanging out with the cool kids and he advises the biggest companies in the world on how they can be cool, too. He’s the author of Zconomy: How Gen Z Will Change the Future of Business — and What to Do About It and a Venture Partner at Next Coast Ventures. Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonDorsey. #Millenial #GenY #GenZ #Author
Follow the entire Austin ABC list on Twitter
Who are your super-connectors? Leave a comment with your own paragraph about them in a similar format to mine.
