The Story Behind Austin Founders Feed

Howdy, Austin.

Welcome to Austin Founders Feed, your weekly glance behind the scenes at the fastest growing entrepreneurship community in the country.

As you know, last week we launched this Friday edition where we interview Austin business owners. We thought it would be fun to share a little about ourselves, our vision, and why we created Austin Founders Feed.

Let’s get to it.

— Warren & Ken

This edition is sponsored by Wishbone Advisory.

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

Building in Austin is exciting.

Keeping up with everything happening in Austin? That’s the hard part.

We built Austin Founders Feed to solve that problem: a local newsletter for founders and entrepreneurs who want the best events, resources, and business stories in one place, without having to dig for them.

We (Ken and Warren) met through LinkedIn, bonded over our backgrounds in data analytics and love of newsletters, and we decided to build something together. A little over 3 months after launching Austin Founders Feed, we’ve already grown to 2,500 subscribers, brought on 6+ sponsors, and started becoming a real connector in the city’s founder ecosystem.

In this interview, we break down:

Here’s the full conversation…

Austin Founders Feed is a newsletter for Austin local founders and entrepreneurs sent on Monday and Friday mornings at 7am CT.

On Mondays, we share relevant news and local success stories. We also include relevant economic trends and updates from city hall that could impact your businesses.

On Fridays, we share interviews from local founders (like this one).

Warren: We both have backgrounds in data analytics and we originally met through LinkedIn. Ken was my very first podcast guest. We both happened to be a little obsessed with newsletters, and Ken came across the concept of a local newsletter and it struck him as a great way to get involved in the Austin community as well as hedge against the risk of AI taking jobs.

He wanted to start one, but with everything else he was doing, he felt he needed help. Ken pitched me on the idea of starting a newsletter together a little over 3 months ago, and I loved the concept: a local newsletter for business owners in Austin, Texas.

We created a notion page and started brainstorming the very next day, and we haven’t stopped since!

Ken: I own a digital media business in the tech space. I’ve seen the impact that AI is having there. It feels like we are very close to a world where we won’t be able to tell what is AI and what is real online.

One of the few places that I think we will still be able to trust is our local community. I believe that local in-person meetups are one of the places that business will thrive in the next few years. We created Austin Founders Feed to make local community news and events accessible to everyone that wants to be a part of it.

Selfishly, this newsletter is also a great way for me to meet other business owners, learn what is going on in my city, and make new friends.

Ken: Austin is the perfect place for this because of the small business and tech culture that is thriving here. I’ve never met so many like minded entrepreneurs scaling their local businesses in one place before.

Warren: Austin attracts ambitious entrepreneurs many times bootstrapped and looking to scale. Starting your own business is seen through a different lens here. It feels like the natural thing to do when you’re living in Austin, not something out of the ordinary.

Ken: Facebook/ Instagram ads and word of mouth. Growing a newsletter is notoriously hard, there is very little organic growth compared to platforms like instagram or YouTube.

We have had good success with paid ads where we share the very clear value of what we are providing here. Our growth has been very consistent and we are grateful for every one of you!

Outside of digital growth, I’ve been making an effort to attend as many events as possible. I love meeting you all, and if you see me out at anything, please say hi! I will also usually have some free gifts from our sponsors when I’m there (another little added incentive).

Warren: Our curation of resources and events. It started with a weekly social calendar for founders looking to network to plan their weeks. We’ve since doubled down, creating a complete free founder resource guide, a networking guide, a SXSW guide, and a LinkedIn guide coming soon!

We’re able to drive clicks to events at a great rate, and we’re actually able to get people to show up to these events for sponsors as well!

Have you checked out our Networking Guide? We decided to give 5 more away for free! Get access code AFFNEXT5

If you’re not one of the next 5, you can still get a great early access discount with the code NETWORKING

Warren: Right now Austin has this huge small local business scene. What happens when these small businesses mature? Over the next 5 to 10 years Austin is going to be home to some of the largest and most successful new businesses in the world.

Ken: Two pieces of advice come to mind:

1) Get out there. There are thousands of people out there that could be your customers or who could help your business. While events can be intimidating, some of my best friends, business partners, and customers have come from putting myself out there at in-person events.

2) Leverage the resources. There are tons of free and cheap resources available to Austin founders. These come from the city, the state, nationally, and from companies.

You can find our free guide and our networking guide here.

Follow us across all platforms — LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

Feel free to reach out to us by replying to one of our emails or sending us a DM on one of our social media accounts. We’re always happy to chat.

Escape the hustle and bustle of SXSW and join Wishbone Advisory for a revitalizing happy hour.

ATX Marketing Innovators Series is a casual, in-person networking event for Austin founders, operators, eCommerce leaders, investors, and marketers.

Join some of Austin’s most forward thinking operators and swap notes on what’s actually working (and what isn’t): GEO strategies, eCommerce listing automation, workflow acceleration, AI-powered marketing operations.

Walk away with actionable tactics you can put to work the very next day.