Tuesday’s Entrepreneur Hours in Austin reminded our venture team why this town is a great place to start a business.  We met with 12 early stage companies driven by creative local entrepreneurs.  Some of these entrepreneurs have peeled off from other ventures, recently quit a more stable job, or are still “moonlighting” while collecting a consistent paycheck.  Regardless of the situation, all the folks we met with were determined to get to the next level and were looking for some practical advice.  The fun part for us was that each group had their own unique questions and challenges, which kept the daylong event fresh and exciting.  Here is a snapshot of a few of our conversations:

  • Talked with an expert in the web analytics space about measuring social media ROI
  • Discussed go-to-market approach for a digital media distribution platform
  • Offered fund raising advice for a consumer web play that recently went live
  • Relayed the challenges that we are witnessing in the complicated Healthcare IT space
  • Debated the sales distribution options for a fledgling SaaS B2B software application

The one thing that AVEH wasn’t short on was candid feedback.  We definitely are not experts in every space, but if there was an opportunity to relay an experience or message from what we are seeing in the start-up world, we made sure we passed on to the entrepreneur.  If we thought someone was headed down a difficult path we didn’t try to sugar coat it.  Our goal is to reach out to the local entrepreneurial community, offer applicable advice and identify companies to keep on our long-term radar screen.  Tuesday accomplished all of those and more.  We can’t wait for the next event and we look forward to hearing updates from all the past participants.

As you may have noticed, we have started “conversation” tabs for each of our AVEH cities.  All participants (and any entrepreneurs for that matter) are encouraged to join the discussion.  We would love for these conversations to serve as a forum for participants to offer feedback on AVEH and for the general entrepreneurial community to ask questions/give comments.  Go ahead, take advantage of it.  Click here for the Austin Conversation.

Thank you Austin