Everything Your Austin Library Card Gets Your Business for Free

Howdy, Austin.

Welcome to Austin Founders Feed, your weekly rundown on the people, companies, events, and opportunities shaping one of the most exciting business scenes in the country.

This week, we’re looking at the free tools for prospecting, company research, competitive analysis, market sizing, investor diligence, and more included with your Austin Library Card.

Here’s everything that’s happening this week:

Let’s get to it.

— Ken & Warren

This edition is sponsored by Newsletter Mogul.

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B2B prospecting tools can cost businesses north of $15K a year.

The Austin Public Library provides access to tools used for prospecting, company research, competitive analysis, market sizing, and investor diligence: the same categories of tools used by sales teams, consultants, investors, and researchers.

And the benefits extend beyond databases.

Here’s a complete guide to getting the most out of your Austin library card.

(Not sponsored by the Austin Public Library)

AtoZ contains 65 million U.S. business profiles and 240 million consumer records. You can filter businesses by industry, ZIP code, employee count, revenue, and other criteria, then download the results.

For a founder building an outbound sales list, it can replace a large part of what expensive prospecting platforms are used for.

One limitation: downloads are capped at 1,000 records per search. But that is still enough to build a highly targeted prospect list.

Factiva provides access to more than 32,000 sources across 150 countries, including newspapers, newswires, magazines, and television and radio transcripts.

It’s the kind of diligence tool investors and consultants use to research a company's history, leadership, announcements, controversies, and media coverage before a meeting.

Library access includes Austin Business Journal reporting and its annual Book of Lists.

That means searchable rankings of Austin's:

Instead of searching for companies one at a time, you can begin with a ranked list of the most significant players in a market.

SizeUpAustin helps you benchmark your company against similar businesses in the region.

You can compare local revenue, costs, salaries, and other operating metrics, then map where competitors, customers, and suppliers are located across the Austin metro.

You don’t even need a library card for this one. The tool is provided separately by the City of Austin.

Check out our previous top story on SizeUpAustin here.

Gale Business: Insights provides detailed company and industry profiles, including:

For founders researching competitors, writing a business plan, or supporting the assumptions in a pitch deck, this may be one of the most valuable tools in the entire collection.

Texas Legal Forms provides access to thousands of customizable, state-specific business, personal, real estate, and litigation documents.

It can help founders understand the documents involved before paying someone else to prepare or review them.

The library also provides access to:

One important caveat: SOSDirect is only available on library computers, and a staff member must log you in. Most of the other databases can be accessed remotely with a library card or eCard.

Cardholders can redeem a code every 72 hours for full remote and app access, including the Times archive dating back to 1851.

Redeem, read, repeat.

Cardholders receive access to thousands of on-demand courses across business, technology, design, languages, and other subjects.

Shared Learning Rooms at the Central Library and the Carver, Terrazas, and Ruiz branches can accommodate small groups and be reserved online for free.

You don’t even need a library card to reserve one.

The rooms cannot be used to sell products, solicit money, or advertise services, but they can work for small team meetings, workshops, and founder discussions.

Larger branch meeting rooms are also free, but they’re limited to non-commercial gatherings that are open to the public and include three or more people.

The Central Library's digital makerspace provides hardware and software for producing:

Its equipment includes Apple and Windows computers alongside tools such as Adobe software and Audacity.

Anyone living within the Austin Full Purpose, Austin 2 Mile ETJ, Austin 5 Mile ETJ, or Austin LTD jurisdictions qualifies for a free library card or digital eCard.

Not sure which zone you're in?

Check your address on the city's Jurisdictions Web Map.

Residents can apply for a digital eCard online by uploading a photo ID and proof of residence. Applications are typically processed within two to three business days, without requiring a branch visit.

Texas residents who live outside the eligible Austin jurisdictions can purchase a digital eCard for $46 per year.

Explore Austin Public Library's full collection of business resources.

In 7 months, Austin Founders Feed went from zero to:

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The result: an audience you own, earning from your first subscriber.

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One of Austin’s longest-running local businesses is officially back.

After gradually restarting service in June, Texas French Bread fully reopened its dining room in early July at 2900 Rio Grande St., returning to the same West Campus property where its bakery and bistro burned down more than four years ago.

The January 2022 fire was caused by an accidental mechanical failure and resulted in an estimated $1.6 million in damage. What remained of the structure was eventually demolished in June 2025, clearing the way for the business to rebuild on the site.

In the meantime, Texas French Bread continued serving customers from an Airstream trailer in the garden next door. Community support also played a major role in its recovery, with a fundraiser for displaced employees raising more than $200,000 following the fire.

Now, customers can once again eat inside the neighborhood bakery. Texas French Bread offers breakfast and lunch counter service from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. daily, along with dinner from 5 to 9:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

The reopening marks the return of a local institution that has served Austin and the University of Texas community for more than four decades.

Supporting independent businesses like Texas French Bread helps grow the local business scene and culture that make Austin such a special place to live. So, the next time you’re looking for coffee, fresh bread, lunch, or dinner, consider stopping by.

Austin’s startup economy is becoming increasingly concentrated around AI, as investors direct more capital toward companies building software, infrastructure, robotics, and other AI-powered products.

The numbers:

AI is becoming one of the central forces shaping Austin’s next generation of companies. That creates opportunities beyond AI startups themselves, as the funding flows into hiring, office space, manufacturing, cloud infrastructure, legal services, marketing, and other parts of the local economy.

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