I’ve just returned from Texas for the second time this month. It’s been a wild pair of trips – one with plenty of time to explore, and the other with one task at hand. Both trips were nice getaways from the cold weather at home. However, it’s nice to be back at home, even if it involves digging out from being gone for so long. There’s a lot to prepare for in the next couple of months, and there’s a lot to follow up on after these two trips. However, before we look ahead, let’s discuss the mother of all conferences: SXSW.
I invited two of my students to join me at South by Southwest this year – I’d wanted to go to this event for years now, but just couldn’t justify the time and expense to go on my own. As part of expanding our footprint throughout the United States, I was given the green light to take up to four students. I capped it below that number because I wanted to see how things went before I had an entire group with me. It was easy enough taking four students with me to the CEO Conference in Florida, as that event was completely contained to one venue. SXSW takes over a big chunk of a large downtown area, so the fewer elements in play, the better.
Before I departed for the trip, I really didn’t know what to expect. I did all of the things they suggested I do prior to arrival – I downloaded the conference app, starred a number of interesting events and sessions, and tried not to overbook myself. I figured that this was just a really big version of Denver Startup Week and did what I usually do there – find some things that look interesting along with a few things that look educational. In my pre-planning, I mostly chose sessions that would be good refreshers on topics I teach or sessions that would expand my offerings at the Undergraduate Incubator. I left my evenings open to decompress and explore Austin, as I’d heard about both Sixth Street and Rainey Street before arriving.
We arrived the day before the official kick-off for SXSW, so we had an extra day to explore Austin. One of my students flew down there with me, while the other was planning to drive himself down there so that he could join his family elsewhere in the state for the remainder of Spring Break. I spent part of my bonus day checking out the Cidercade, located a short walk from the hotel along the river that flows through the center of the city. You have to pay $12 to get in the door, but the games are free to play as long as you’re there. I sampled a handful of ciders by Bishop Cider, the owners of the establishment. A couple of the ciders I tried were fruit ciders, another was an orange creamsicle cider, and the fourth and final was an apple cinnamon cider. I played arcade games for a couple of hours while enjoying the first two beverages, and then enjoyed the nice weather on the patio while sampling the other two.
I also started my Austin barbecue tour with a visit to Terry Black’s, also a short walk from the hotel. Knowing I was in the middle of Texas barbecue heaven, I wanted to hit as many restaurants as possible during my trip and try a relatively standardized meal at each location. I went with cole slaw, creamed corn, a little bit of brisket, and some jalapeño cheese sausage – most barbecue restaurants should have most or all of this combination of food. The place was absolutely packed, and I was lucky to find a seat outside on the patio. Luckily, the weather was amazing the entire time I was there, so I didn’t mind eating outside.
I ended up sleeping in on the first day just a little bit – it’s been so busy since I returned to Iowa from CiderCon in January that I’ve not gotten a lot of good sleep over the past few weeks. The only things that I missed were the event kick-off and the first keynote at the convention center, as I didn’t plan to attend many early morning sessions during the time I was there because of the late nights I was planning to put in over four days. The only day I didn’t spend out until the early morning hours was the first day, forgoing the long lines at the Startup Crawl and the Interactive Opening Party.
The tough thing about the social and cultural events in the evening was the length of the lines. Unless you picked one specific thing you wanted to attend in the evening and got there early, there was a good change you wouldn’t be able to get in the door. For example: on Saturday evening, I wanted to check out some comedy. I saw that Robert Smigel and Conan O’Brien were going to appear at one of the venues on Sixth Street. The Upright Citizen’s Brigade was going to have a show at the same venue prior to that, so I showed up an hour before Upright Citizen’s Brigade to find the line down the street and around the corner for that show, and the line for Smigel and O’Brien had already started forming. I ended up spending three hours in line – totally worth it in the end – but surprising to someone new to the convention.
Most of the startup and tech sessions that I had marked on my schedule weren’t filled with new information for me but reinforced that I am indeed teaching the correct material in my class. I did take at least a few notes in each of the sessions I attended. While I may not have needed them, my students benefited from attending these sessions. I let both students build their own schedules, so they could take away as much useful information as possible and make those connections that will benefit their businesses in the future. I was joined by one of my students in a couple of sessions I attended, and I was glad to see him make some connections with others in attendance.
While there were a bunch of interesting sessions during the day, other events were taking place in and around the Austin Convention Center. On Sunday and Monday, the main floor of the convention center was taken over by the Creative Industries Expo, where entrepreneurs from around the world set up booths and demonstrated their products to a wider audience. Several countries had large presences at the expo, including Korea and Japan. I made sure to stop by the booth for The Agenda., a startup originally conceived here in eastern Iowa.
There were a number of entrepreneurs at SXSW with an Iowa connection. I talked with a couple of former students – had lunch with one who had not only gone through my program prior to my start as director but had also taken another idea through Startup Weekend Iowa City and is still pursuing that Startup Weekend idea even though she’s in grad school on the east coast. Another former student who wound up on Shark Tank a couple of years ago, Erica Cole, was there with her No Limbits team at an Innovation Expo – I made a point to get over there to give her team my vote, as they were in the running for some prize money. I know there were a few other Iowa alumni floating around, but I wasn’t able to find them among the sea of humanity in Austin.
You really don’t understand the scale of SXSW until you’re in the middle of the event. The Creative Industries Expo was so large, I only got about halfway through before the two hours I’d set aside between other sessions had passed. Also, trying to get to all of the sideshow events and “houses” in one day is absolutely impossible. I really do wish that some of these events had been open the day prior to the official kickoff of SXSW, as they had their own programming, much of which looked interesting. Also, some of the sideshow events didn’t require a SXSW badge to enter – they had their own ticketing. I wound up with two lanyards and nametags on Monday when I visited the Capital Factory – I’d heard about this coworking space prior to SXSW, and I always love checking out workspaces like this when I’m in other startup communities.
I had the best experiences of the event when I just let life take me wherever it wanted. The only evening when I was dead-set on seeing something particular was the Conan O’Brien-Robert Smigel talk on Saturday evening. On Sunday evening, I had some barbecue at Stubb’s, just a couple of blocks away from the majority of the action, when I bumped into a guy who ended up giving me his extra VIP wristband for a documentary launch party at a punk club. Needless to say, my blazer and dress shirt stood out a bit in a room full of studded leather jackets and mohawks. However, there were a lot of creatives in the room who wanted to learn how to make money doing what they love, so I ended up hanging out on a couch in a VIP area giving business advice and drinking cider until about 1 am.
Monday evening was even more unplanned – in my pursuit of visiting as many sideshows and “houses” as possible, I wound up at the Australia House on Rainey Street just as they were starting an elevator pitch competition plus Australian wine tasting. This was my sixth “house” that I’d visited, fourth that was offering beverages. I’d been to the Houston House first for an educational session, then to Capital Factory, followed by the Inc. Founders House, the Fast Company Grill, and the Arterie House to sample the manliest beverage ever, topped with a flower. About half of the elevator pitches were very well done, and the wine was delicious.
After the pitches concluded, I ended up chatting with a handful of people at Australia House for a while, enjoying another glass of Australian wine left over after the tasting. I’m usually not a red wine guy, but they had a red blend that was exceptionally good. As the activity was starting to wind down, I went and had dinner with some folks in town for the SXSW music festival and then saw a couple of shows – one was a folk-rock act from New York, and the other was a British act at the British Music Experience, which unfortunately at the end of the night was a good mile and a half walk from my hotel. Both shows were really great, and I wish I’d planned to stick around Austin a bit longer to enjoy more of the music showcase.
The flight back was the only black mark on an otherwise fantastic trip – the first leg of the trip from Austin to Dallas was delayed about 45 minutes due to a mechanical issue. When we landed, the plane sat on the tarmac for at least 15 minutes, which completely exhausted our remaining layover time. We ended up having to spend the night in Dallas and caught the next flight back to eastern Iowa the following morning. Of course, my clothes were in my checked bag, which spent the night somewhere in the bowels of DFW airport.
In all my years of flying, the only airport that causes me any trouble is DFW. I’ve never missed a connection in O’Hare or Denver. The biggest problem with DFW is the way it’s set up – the whole thing is a set of giant semi-circles which, if you’re unlucky enough to arrive at the middle of one of the semi-circles, you have to walk forever to either catch the train to another terminal or walk the incredibly long distance through the walkways to other terminals. Also, my flights never end up in the same terminal – I’m either jogging from terminal C to A, or A to C. The only time DFW is great is if you’re ending your trip in Dallas – exiting the airport is the fastest thing you can do.
Ten days later, I was back in the air, returning to my favorite airport with another group of students attending the TCU Values and Ventures Competition. The student team competing this competition is building a fast, cheaper way to convert vegetable oil into biodiesel. They started out last year as freshmen working on converting algae byproducts to jet fuel but found that was not nearly as easy as their current idea, so they pivoted away from that for the time being.
Due to a quick three inches of snow the morning we were to depart, our flight was slightly delayed leaving Cedar Rapids. Combined with heavy traffic between DFW Airport and Fort Worth, we weren’t able to catch the keynote at the beginning of the opening ceremony. We were able to meet the group at the dinner after we checked into the hotel and grabbed our badges. We weren’t the only team arriving late – there were still quite a number of badges on the check-in table. My students had a chance to network with other students competing that weekend, and I found several other faculty members by the table with the adult beverages and got to know them.
I hadn’t had a chance to hear their pitch prior to our trip, so I worked with them for a while on Friday evening. Originally, the students were told that they had 10 minutes to pitch, but a couple of weeks before the competition, that was shortened to seven minutes, which meant things had to be cut and consolidated in the pitch. They had worked with a couple of our incubator coaches to clean up their presentation and strengthen their pitch. The team has come a long way since Innovation Challenge in spring 2023. Around 11 pm, I told them to wrap it up for the evening and get to bed – Saturday was going to be a long day.
We weren’t able to see any of the other pitches, as my students were the last team to present in their group. There was some nervousness during practice, but the three of them absolutely nailed their pitch in front of the judges. I thought they had a really good chance to make it into the top 2 for their group, but the judges had other ideas – the two businesses that made it were a text message service for hospital employees that served as a back door for HR to spy on those employees and two women making granola in their mom’s kitchen. This should have been our first sign that the judges they picked were easily snowed under by trendy technology and charisma. Three great technology companies in our group alone, and none of them were picked to continue.
Four of the seven teams in the final round had “AI” in their name, and all of them were some iteration of ChatGPT with a shiny wrapper. The team that won first place weren’t even using their actual business name – they were just amazing smokescreen artists. Their idea was ChatGPT in brainstorm mode. The second-place team was OCR technology plus machine learning for law firms who didn’t seem to have a solid grasp on their customer base. A pool cleaning technology won third place – they should have done better than that, since they actually had a working prototype and pre-sales.
The trip to the rodeo at Billy Bob’s Texas on Saturday evening was a nice break from the competition. I’d watched bull riding on television before but had never seen it in person prior to this trip. The sheer size of Billy Bob’s was mind-blowing – between the bull riding area, dozens of pool tables, and a massive dance floor with a live band, you could spend all day there. As with most of my trips, I picked up a coffee cup from the gift shop before the group loaded back onto the bus to return to the hotel.
We weren’t able to stick around for the awards ceremony since we had a flight to catch. My students did make some great connections with other students, I got to know some faculty from other institutions, and the judges gave the students a few names of people who could help them as they continue to develop their technology. We’ll see if any changes are made for next year’s competition, especially among the judging panels, which seemed to be the only weak spot in an otherwise well-run event.
So now, I’m back in the office putting the final touches on a handful of things. Startup Weekend Iowa Online is returning this Friday and Saturday, April 5 and 6. We already have a good number of people signed up for this free event, but we’re always looking for more participants. I’ve also opened up the opportunity for my students to participate for some extra credit. If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, you should join us! Go to http://swiowa.online for tickets and more information.
I’m also finishing up the last few things for the Undergraduate Incubator Summer Track, including making the last picks for the student cohort. I’ve received nearly 25 applications for the program, and like last year, I can only take 16 student businesses. There are so many amazing ideas this year. Due to our efforts with the Women in Entrepreneurship section in the Undergraduate Incubator this semester, I’ve had a surprising number of women apply for the Summer Track. We’re going to be incredibly close to gender parity this summer for the first time in the program’s history!
The Innovation Challenge takes place April 15-16, with the undergrads pitching the first day. Those applications closed a few days ago, and it was my job to whittle the field down from approximately 50 applications to 20 finalists. I’m looking forward to seeing how many of last semester’s winners end up winning some money again this semester. I also want to see how the couple of new businesses I chose come through the process – I always try to let a couple of promising outsiders into the competition each semester and then heavily emphasize after the fact that they should join our incubator program the following semester. This is tougher to do in the spring with the long summer gap, but with our open-door policy each Friday, sometimes they start joining us on Fridays right after the Innovation Challenge.
Shortly after the Innovation Challenge, it will be time to gear up for the Undergraduate Incubator end-of-semester pitches on May 3. Now that we have over 50 businesses in the Undergraduate Incubator Program, I’m going to have to find multiple teams of judges to look at the initial elevator pitches. We’ll see who ends up making the group of 5 who give full investor pitches at the event on May 3. Most of the teams who make it to the group of 5 are totally expected, but there’s always one unexpected team that makes it. You never know who the first-round judges will pick!
It’s hard to believe that the summer session is only a few weeks away. This semester has felt like a blur with all of the traveling and all of the meetings I’ve had with students, both inside and outside our program. My annual report numbers are going to look much more impressive this year, with six times as many students participating in the incubator and associated events as last year. These next few weeks are going to be a blur with all of the student activities plus a long-awaited return to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in May to steward at GLINTCAP for a couple of days in between spring semester and the summer session.
There’s so much going on that it’s hard to keep track of everything. It’s a good problem to have. I hope your year is moving along quickly and productively as well.
You must be logged in to post a comment.