Larry Chiang closes deals in rooms that he was not even invited into. He edits the Bloomberg BusinessWeek channel “What They Don’t Teach You at Business School”. After Chiang’s Harvard Law keynote, Harvard Business wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“ (its the same title as his NY Times bestseller. If you read his scandalously awesome “What a Supermodel Can Teach a Stanford MBA” and “How to Get Man-Charm”, you will like his latest post: “Top 8 Places to Close a Deal at TechCrunch Disrupt”.
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By Larry Chiang
Austin TEXAS — Austin City Limits, a 3-day music festival, shines a light on the capital of Texas and what I see sparkling is Austin’s technology and startup scene.
Aside from drawing the obvious Silicon Valley comparisons, Austin has produced stand-out tech startups and hosts a pretty large gathering of geeks annually in March.
Day-to-day, the view from the trenches has a HUGE dose of gritty real business. They don’t need any funding and they flower into lifestyle businesses.
I call these the Grind-It-Out-Cash-Flow business. I also see business accelerators / incubators and community forces augmenting Austin’s tech scene. I break down and do a deep dive on each component below
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The Grind-It-Out-Cash-Flow Businesses
Silicon Valley has some. The best example is Eventbrite. Remember, Keven Hartz did not get Sequoia funding until well after he needed it.
In Austin, I like Localiter. Sure it’s criticized as a Groupon clone, but I think it innovates enough in that it is loved by active Austin users. I also like the wordpress hosting company… yes it just hosts WordPress blogs. But it has been profitable since selling customer #1. Sure WPEngine might be a lifestyle business, but those get acquired too. More importantly they make sense on a money in-money out basis
And the core of Austin is the Austin Ventures characteristic, roll-up manuever. For example, HomeAway, CreditCards.com and WhaleShark.
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The Business Accelerators
Business incubation catalyzes the Austin community.
Texas Ventures
www.texasventures.com
Capital Factory
http://www.capitalfactory.com
Engineering at University of Texas
http://studentorgs.engr.utexas.edu/tes/links.htm
Texas Ventures Labs
http://tvl.utexas.edu/
Coworking Austin
http://www.coworkaustin.com/
The super-angel, Rudy Garza, who started G51
http://twitter.com/TexasSuperAngel
He’s a force of nature in helping startups become a real business.
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Tech Events in Austin
My rule of thumb for events is whether the quality is high enough for me to want to crash a tech event. The calibre of attendee and quality of content were high this past week. In addition to high frequency, there was a high quantity of events.
Four tech events on a random Thursday night
http://twitter.com/JacquelinesLife/status/26649224042
All Girls Hack Night
http://geekaustin.org/blog/elze/2010/10/06/all-girls-hack-night
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Austin has established tech firms
Zynga, Facebook, Google and Dachis group
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Interesting Startups:
Gowalla
Smarty Pig
I covered Smarty Pig in TechCrunch
http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/29/roundup-financial-startups-demo-their-dashboards-at-finovate/
Bank Vue
Bazaar Voice
www.austinstartup.com/2010/10/bazaarvoice-launches-social-commerce-insights/
OtherInBox
InfoChimps
*** BONUS ***
a party invite for you:
http://economist.eventbrite.com/
What a Supermodel Can Teach a Harvard MBA
If you liked this…
Larry’s mentor Mark McCormack wrote this in 1983. His own book came out 09-09-09. It is called ‘What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School‘
This post was drafted in an hour and needs your edits… email me if you see a spelling or grammatical error(s)… larry@larrychiang com
Larry Chiang started his first company UCMS in college. He mimicked his mentor, Mark McCormack, founder of IMG who wrote the book, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”. Chiang is a keynote speaker and bestselling author and spoke at Congress and World Bank.
Text or call him during office hours 11:11am or 11:11pm PST +/-11 minutes at 650-283-8008. Due to the volume of calls, he may place you on hold like a Scottsdale Arizona customer service rep. If you email him, be sure to include your cell number in the subject line. If you want him to email you his new articles…, ask him in an email
You can read more equally funny, but non-founder-focused-lessons on Larry’s Amazon blog .
Larry speaks on stuff they don't teach in B-school to help you get street smart in doing business. In college, he started a business that helps college students with their FICO score. He loves entrepreneurs, Ben and Jerry's ice cream and after parties. You can reach him at:
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