Howdy, Austin.

Welcome to Austin Founders Feed, your weekly cheat sheet for everything happening in the fastest growing entrepreneurship community in the country.

Here’s everything that’s happening this week:

Top Featured Events - Special events and discounts for our community

  1. Thursday, April 30th: Conscious Builders ATX
    6:30–11:30 PM · 207 San Jacinto St STE 100
    Brings together people who care about growth, contribution, curiosity, and conscious living. Paid. (Use our discount code AFF20 for 20% off any ticket).

  2. Tuesday, May 5th: Mexico de Norte a Sur: A Cinco de Mayo Celebration
    6:30–9:30 PM · Vuka North Loop
    This marquee event brings together Austin’s Latino professionals, creatives, and allies for a relaxed, culture-forward networking experience featuring food, drinks, Lotería, music, dancing, and hands-on activities. Paid.

Let’s get to it.

Ken & Warren

This edition is sponsored by Austin Founders Feed’s LinkedIn Guide.

Interested in sponsoring Austin Founders Feed? Take 30 seconds to fill out this form and tell us about your business.

What To Do This Week
Our Top Events For You

  • Monday night: The Rising Trend of One-Person Businesses Meetup
    6:00–8:00 PM · Capital Factory
    Best for solopreneurs, freelancers, and founders building lean. Free.

  • Tuesday night: AITX Monthly Meetup (Special 3rd Birthday edition)
    5:30–7:30 PM · Antler VC
    Best AI room of the week. Strong fit for founders, engineers, and operators who want to meet the people building and exploring AI in Austin right now. Free.

  • Wednesday night: From RAG to Agents: What Every Product Leader Needs to Know
    6:00–8:00 PM · Productside @ Victory Plaza
    Great for product-minded founders and PMs who want a clearer understanding of where AI products are headed and what that means for their roadmap. Free.

  • Thursday midday: The Austin Pitch Arena for Early-Stage Founders
    10:00–12:00 PM · Travis County Exposition Center
    Highest-leverage event of the week if you’re fundraising or want serious investor feedback. Even if you are not pitching, it is a useful room for seeing how founders present and what investors react to. Free.

  • Friday morning: Austin Open Coffee Club
    8:00–9:30 AM · Houndstooth Coffee
    Classic Austin founder room. Low-pressure, high-signal conversations with entrepreneurs and investors before the workday starts. Free.

Keep on the lookout for our weekend picks in this upcoming Founder Friday issue delivered to your inbox at 7 AM CST.

Top Story
Austin Just Approved Digital Kiosks with Free Listings For All Local Businesses

City Council just approved a network of interactive digital kiosks on March 26. And every Austin business gets a free listing.

A new network of 100+ interactive digital kiosks is coming to downtown Austin and other high-pedestrian areas after City Council approved the program at its March 26 meeting. The kiosks will offer way-finding, real-time transit info, event listings, free Wi-Fi, and a directory of every local business in town.

Here's what Austin builders should know:

  • Every Austin business gets a spot in the directory. Listings are sorted by proximity to the kiosk.

  • If you want to advertise on the kiosk screens, the program is offering discounted rates for small businesses.

  • Ad revenue gets shared with Austin and reinvested in city services.

You’ll interact with it by tapping a kiosk, and sending directions or a business listing straight to your phone.

Initial deployment focuses on downtown, but the City says it'll engage with community stakeholders and downtown partners in the coming months before installation begins.

Free downtown distribution is rare. When listings open, claim yours. If your business is in a high-foot-traffic zone, the discounted ad option is worth consideration.

A Resource From Austin Founders Feed
Coming Soon: How to Grow Your Business with LinkedIn

Most LinkedIn advice is either painfully generic or written for full-time creators chasing virality. Neither helps if you're a founder, operator, or small business owner trying to figure out what to post, how to talk about what you do, and how to turn the platform into an actual sales pipeline.

So we wrote the guide we wish we'd had.

How to Grow Your Business with LinkedIn is a step-by-step playbook covering profile optimization, the 2026 algorithm, content strategy, cold outreach, Sales Navigator, LinkedIn Ads, and a 90-day execution plan — built specifically for Austin builders.

It drops in 1 week. Join the waitlist for early access and an exclusive launch-day discount.

Economic Outlook
📰 Austin ranked #1 among the Top 50 U.S. metros for job growth

According to Opportunity Austin's April 15 update, using newly-released BLS benchmark revisions, Austin ranked #1 among the Top 50 U.S. metros for job growth in 2025, beating the runner-up by a full half-percentage-point.

The preliminary BLS data had Austin at just 1.0% growth trailing the Texas average, and was being used to reinforce the "Austin's tech run is over" narrative.

These benchmark revisions flipped the story:

  • Professional & Business Services (white-collar): revised from −0.4% → +2.3%

  • Construction & Natural Resources: revised from 0.7% → +4.2%

  • Education & Health Services: revised from 3.1% → +4.2%

What it means for Austin builders: The talent pool is growing and white-collar, construction, and healthcare industry growth all outpaced the country last year. Bottom line: Austin is the best big-metro economy in America right now, and that's a strong tailwind for any business building here.

Local News
📰 How Austin’s Chapter of eWomenNetwork is Building Bigger Rooms

Austin is home to more than 60,000 women-owned businesses, and many local founders still haven’t heard of one of the biggest networks designed to help them grow.

eWomenNetwork is a 500,000-member community spanning 118 chapters, with a stated mission of helping one million women each reach $1M in annual revenue. The Austin chapter is led by Sara Chevere, who also runs her own advisory practice, She Builds Empires.

Her angle is less stage-and-spotlight, more small-room-and-warm-intros. She hosts what she calls Strategic Business Introductions — curated gatherings of women founders (and a few aligned men) where the goal isn't pitching, it's connecting people who can actually move each other's businesses forward.

The events normally have a ticket fee. She's offering AFF readers a free seat for the next one. Reach out to Sara and mention Austin Founders Feed, she'll cover your seat at the next SBI gathering.

Last Week’s Poll Results

If you got a 0% loan for your business tomorrow, what would you use it for first?

The answer wasn't even close, Marketing topped the list. And it matches our experience. Most Austin businesses we talk to don't have a product problem. They have a nobody knows we exist problem.

If that's where you're stuck… we can help.

AFF has built one of Austin's most engaged founder audiences, and we run sponsored content, newsletter placements, and directory features for local businesses who want to reach this exact crowd. It's something we're genuinely good at.

Want to talk? Hit reply to this email. We'll get back same day.

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Until next time,
Austin Founders Feed

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