Austin Next

Austin Next is still on the road and today we are visiting another point of the Texas Triangle. Houston has been on a tear the last few years growing from $400M in annual startup funding in 2018 to crossing the $2B threshold last year.  There is the Texas Medical Center, the Ion, Rice University, and many more influential and growing institutions.  Today we dive into the Houston innovation ecosystem with Lawson Gow and Chris Buckner the forces now behind Houston Exponential.   

What's next Houston?

Episode Links:

• Houston Exponential
• Houston Exponential Twitter

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Today we continue our visit to San Antonio and working to discover the unique innovation ecosystem here in the Alamo City. And no discussion would be complete without talking about the investors here. Juan “Sebastian” Garzon serves as Executive Director for Alamo Angels and Programs Manager for VelocityTX. In these roles, Sebastian supports early-stage companies by providing them access to funding and resources to accelerate their growth. The growth of this angel network is impressive and their future even more so. 

What's next San Antonio? 

Episode Links:

• Alamo Angels
• Velocity TX
• Juan Sebastian Garzon

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

A lot of conversations today talk about the competition & cooperation between San Antonio and Austin. Two growing cities separated by a strip of Interstate 35. Cities with very different histories, different experiences…but both growing innovation systems. For our San Antonio visit, we start with Port San Antonio, It’s the Alamo City’s large and dynamic technology and innovation campus. A 1,900-acre platform just southwest of downtown San Antonio and a place that provides connected solutions in an increasingly connected world.

What's next San Antonio?

Episode Links

• Port San Antonio
• Port San Antonio Twitter
• Jim Perschbach LinkedIn

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Lately, we've been talking and writing a lot about networking. Why is it so important to us? People are social animals. And no matter how much we can get done remotely, we need a connection with other people. But just as important networking groups are where the creative collisions happen. These collisions are critical to an innovation culture like Austin's, these collisions are often where we find our business ideas, our collaborators, and sometimes even our employees. So today, we wanted to celebrate three organizations that foster great networking and take a different approach.

Episode Links:

• Ambition in Motion
• Ambition in Motion Executive Mastermind Group Page
• Garrett Mintz
• Austin Forum on Technology and Society
• Jay Boisseau
• Jay Boisseau Twitter
• Austin Medtech Connect
• Jawad Ali

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

The US and perhaps the world’s economies seem to be headed for a rough patch. Given the growth of the Austin/Central Texas area over the past couple of years, the question is how resilient is the Austin economy, and are we ready for what comes next? Today, we’re joined by Roland Pena, Senior VP Global Technology & Innovation with Opportunity Austin at the Austin Chamber of Commerce and we dive into the data to see how Austin might respond to this downturn.

What's Next Austin?

Episode Links

• Roland Pena
• Austin Historical Job Growth and Unemployment
• Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce Ecosystem Dashboard

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

A lot of things have changed since we last had Thom Singer on the podcast. We talk about Thom's new role, what the networking environment looks like now, and how that impacts the creative collisions between the foundations of Austin.

What's next Austin?

Episode Links

• Our first conversation with Thom Singer
• Austin Technology Council
• Austin Technology Twitter
• Thom Singer
• Thom Singer Twitter

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Today, the Austin Next team and the Boom ATX podcast team get together. Lee Snedaker and Glenn Hart have been talking about Austin for about as long as we have. And they have the advantage of much deeper knowledge about Austin’s history and culture.

We had a wide-ranging discussion, from real estate to startups, from music to restaurants, and much more.

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

The growth of our ecosystem and the critical mass of startups coming to Austin leads to unique opportunities to experiment with support infrastructure. One of those experiments is the Draper Startup House, a global entrepreneurship ecosystem including a network of co-living houses and a pre-seed “pop-up” accelerator program. Today we are joined by the co-founders Katie Russel and Daniel Wiegand to talk the mission, the importance of storytelling for startups, and why Austin.

What's next Austin?

Episode Links:

• Draper Startup House Accelerator
• Draper Startup House Co-living
• Draper Startup House LinkedIn
• Draper Startup House Instagram
• Draper Startup House Twitter

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

We are back with Part 2 of our discussion with Brett. In this episode we cover the expanding Austin region, identifying talent, the intersection of philosophy, politics, and innovation, and of course what comes next.

What's Next Austin?

Episode Links:

• Brett Hurt
• Brett Hurt Twitter
• The Entrepreneur Essentials
• data.world
• data.world Podcast Catalog & Cocktails
• Don't Mess with Texas Innovation
• Texas Startup Manifesto

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Brett Hurt is a serial entrepreneur, launching Bazaarvoice, Coremetrics and now data.world. Over that time, he's learned a lot about software, people, software and soul. His latest company, data.world, is a B Corp, or as he calls it, Capitalism 2.0. Brett invited us to his home to talk about growing up in Austin, and the tension between the creative and the capitalist class. 

Episode Links

• Austin Next SXSW Panel Picker Voting
• Brett Hurt
• Brett Hurt Twitter
• The Entrepreneur Essentials
• data.world
• data.world Podcast Catalog & Cocktails
• Don't Mess with Texas Innovation 

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack