One of our first stops in between meetings in Austin was to Rudy’s to receive an intro course to Texas BBQ. The atmosphere of Rudy’s was fun, relaxed, outdoorsy, and friendly. Everyone enjoyed our visit, even the veggie eaters could appreciate the stellar environment at Rudy’s. In our free time, we were also able to enjoy the varied landscapes of Austin, from the serene outdoors to the inviting cityscape, to the neighborhoods surrounding downtown.
One of my favorite places we visited was East Austin. This neighborhood had a colorful and eclectic feel that I was very attracted to. This neighborhood is filled with colorful buildings, hip shops and bars, schools, and residential homes (some more rundown than others). The quirkiness and diversity of this area are what make it so attractive. The coffee shop we visited, Thunderbird Coffee had a cool feel without the accompanying snobbiness that many coffee shops have. The baristas were friendly and helpful and the environment made me wish I could stay there all day. This really great neighborhood did have me thinking about our class’s ongoing conversation about gentrification. This neighborhood had a startling combination of broken down houses and rough areas with really cool shops, bars, and restaurants. Again I was wondering if economic growth is possible without pushing out poorer residents.
We also had time to stroll through the beautiful park of the Texas State Capitol. This area is a landmark in the city and makes it easy to find your way around, as long as you remember where you are in relation to the capitol building. The building is huge, as to be expected in Texas, and stunningly beautiful. It is a point of pride for the city. It is interesting that Austin in the capitol of Texas considering it is a very liberal city in a very conservative state. I think this adds to Austin’s ethos of tolerance. It seems that in Austin there is a relatively peaceful between different political parties which encourages tolerance and collaboration, two factors that are very important to the start up community.
Another great part of Austin is the plethora of food trucks! The food trucks add to the spirit of entrepreneurism not only because each food truck owner is an entrepreneur, but also because their presence encourages creativity, risk, and trying something new. They also tie different kinds of people together because everyone loves them.
Besides exploring the city, I also engaged in some start-up focused events. The first event I attended was the Startup Crawl happening during SXSW. At this event people traveled to and from different startup spaces in the city. I stopped at Capital Factory, where we had a forum the next day as well. The event was extremely fun and social. There were startups set up at tables all around the facility. It was a great way to see different startups but also to witness how the startup community gathers and socializes. Repeatedly we have heard that these meetups are vital to a thriving startup community so it was cool to be right in the middle of one.
On our last day to explore in Austin, Jill, Mackenzie, and I decided to take a long trek from the capitol building to the South Congress neighborhood. Thanks to SXSW our journey was crawling with entrepreneurs eager to talk about their companies. The first company we met was Anonabox. We spotted the team due to their matching t-shirts and approached them for a chat. We met the Founder and CTO, August Germar, CEO Marc Preston, and Director of Operations Matthew Forster. They were incredibly friendly and told us about how they have multiple other startups and how SXSW is a great opportunity to get the word out about their company and build new relationships. They also told us about some of the struggles they have faced, like receiving negative reviews before anyone had actually used the product. That the Anonabox team was willing to take time to talk to us about their company speaks volumes of the friendliness and openness that is important for startups.
As we got closer to our eventual destination of South Congress, we ran into another entrepreneur named Ryan who was lonesomely guarding his trailer while the rest of his team were off at lunch. Ryan and his team are from New Mexico and were in Austin for SXSW to share their app bounce, a local social sharing app. As illustrated by the two companies we met, I think social media and privacy are two really big areas for startups right now but I wonder if this will last for long or if people will begin to have social media overload.
The rest of our time in South Congress was spent exploring the “lifestyle businesses” that are important to a startup community, such as local boutiques, hip restaurants, coffee shops, street markets, and the overall feel of the neighborhood. The South Congress neighborhood was by far one of my favorite neighborhoods and a great place to spend my last few moments in Austin.
