We finally made our way to Austin, Texas after spending five days in the mountainous and rocky Boulder, Colorado. As expected, it was a lot warmer in Austin and it felt good to know that we could finally wear shorts after some months of really cold weather in Michigan. Austin had a different feel to it, it was a lot bigger than Boulder and also seemed to be more lively and active.
On Thursday March 19th, Eric, Adam and I made our way to the SXSW Startup Crawl at the Austin center. The event was being hosted by Capital Factory (an Austin based accelerator, incubator and co working space). The building was packed with entrepreneurs exhibiting their demos and products and large crowds of people looking at these demos. The only time I have seen so many people at one time is at mass crusades and musical concerts. We made our way through the stands interacting with the entrepreneurs, learning more about their products and how they came up with these ideas. All in all it was a great networking experience coupled with some awesome local beer.
My two favorite start ups were Honest Dollar and JamFeed. Honest Dollar wants to eliminate the hurdles associated with setting up and maintaining employee retirement accounts for small businesses and reduce the fees workers are hit with through typical 401(k) programs. It just raised $3million in seed funding led by Expansive Ventures. JamFeed is a music app that keeps you up to date with all your favorite artists bands and festivals. The app feeds personalized music news everyday so that you can keep up with all the music you love, and tune out the rest to create the best experience possible.
After Startup Crawl, we then went to the heart of Austin, that is 6th Street, to get a taste of the culture. While on 6th Street, we got to stop by a few bars and listened to some great live music. I had no idea that live music had such a relaxing and soothing effect on one’s body. I also got to try out some delicious Indian food from a food truck and felt like I was in heaven.
On Saturday, Fareed, Ethan and I decided to tour the city and spent most of the day, walking around , meeting people and visiting stores. We started off with some yummy food from a food truck business which started five years ago by the name of Gourdough’s. What I found fascinating of the set up is that although it has a nice sitting area with tv’s and stuff, all the food is cooked in a food truck outside. Also all the burgers were made with doughnuts and not buns! We also went to the park, following the trails. Along the way we met a lot of people and we could tell that being active was part of the lifestyle.
I really enjoyed my time in Austin. It is a big city with a lot going on. I also noticed that Austin was more diverse than Boulder. Austin-weird, since always!
