Austinpreneur

Dive into the up and coming Texas whiskey scene with Chris Seals, CEO & Founder of STILL Austin. As the pioneering distillery within Austin’s city limits since the days of prohibition, STILL embodies the spirit of innovation and tradition. In this episode of Austinpreneur, recorded for a live audience at Capital Factory, Chris Seals unfolds his unconventional narrative — a transformation from...

Explore optimal strategies for maximizing development funding through the utilization of offshore talent. In this episode of Austinpreneur, we are joined by Jacqueline Samira, the CEO & Founder of Howdy. Delve into the intricacies of assembling international teams for venture-backed startups as she shares insights from Howdy’s journey, from passing through Y-Combinator to joining the Capital F...

Presented by The Outpost , our guest for this episode is Brad Harrison, who is General Partner at dual-use venture capital firm Scout Ventures out of Austin. The episode was recorded at Capital Factory's Fed Supernova in August of 2023 . Brad is a graduate of West Point and MIT. He served the United States as an Airborne Army Ranger specializing in Air Assault. Today, Brad invests in top founders...

This episode peaks into how the United States Navy is working with startups to drive innovation in their capabilities, processes and culture. We recorded this episode back in August of 2023 at Capital Factory's Fed Supernova. Our guests include Graham Chynoweth and Diana Teel from the Navy's innovation network, NavalX. Also on the show today is Carol Ann Logue, who leads South Florida's efforts to...

The Chairman of the Central Texas Angel Network, Gary Forni, is our guest for this episode of Austinpreneur. The conversation was recorded for a live Austin Startup Week audience and spans Gary's deep experience in technology starting in Silicon Valley as a billion-dollar business builder for Intel. Since moving to Austin, Texas over 20 years ago, Gary has invested in, mentored and managed a wide...

On this episode of Austinpreneur presented by SXSW, we share a conversation recorded at Austin Startup Week with Claire Hansen, a recently promoted partner at Firebrand Ventures. Claire is a leader in the Austin startup community and has worked alongside startups and investors here since 2015. Claire's first role in venture was at Capital Factory and from there led the Central Texas Angel Network...

Listen to this Austinpreneur conversation presented by SXSW on the cybersecurity implications of artificial intelligence and machine learning with special guest Chris Sestito, CEO of HiddenLayer. Chris' background is in cybersecurity threat research, detection and response. When he was at Cyclance, Chris encountered one of the first adversarial machine learning attacks which inspired his vision fo...

Presented by SXSW, this episode of Austinpreneur features special guest Matthew Iommi who is the CEO of Fetii. Matthew and his co-founder started Fetii as undergraduates at Texas A&M University. After going through Y-Combinator, Fetii launched in Austin and joined Capital Factory. Fetii's group rideshare service has taken off and quickly become a beacon of Austin's nightlife and social engagem...

Get insights from the inventor of Ethernet, Dr. Bob Metcalfe, in this episode of Austinpreneur. In this conversation, Metcalfe talks about the early days of Silicon Valley, how he crafted "Metcalfe's Law" as well as the latest revolution in artificial intelligence. Joshua Baer, CEO and Founder of Capital Factory, interviews Metcalfe in this episode recorded for students of Longhorn Startup at The...

On a tiny hill in Afghanistan, John Goodson asked "Why does nothing work?" for the last time and set out to create the future of autonomous drones. As a U.S. soldier in the field, John went from excited to deploy drones to not even considering it due to the inadequacies of the drone platform he was equipped with. Today, John is CEO & Founder of Darkhive where they are building lightweight, aut...

On this episode of Austinpreneur we chat with Kristy Alballero who is Co-Founder of IOOGO. Kristy received three degrees from The University of Texas at Dallas which led to a successful career in a series of product ownership roles. In 2017, Kristy co-founded IOOGO to help ease the pain of tax and accounting for small businesses and startups. In their first year, IOOGO helped 12,000 people file ta...

One of the world's best venture capitalists in the world is our guest for this episode of Austinpreneur. Bill Gurley has been a General Partner at Benchmark Capital since 1998 where he led investments in Uber, GrubHub, OpenTable, Stich Fix and Next Door among others. Recently Bill retired from new funds at Benchmark and moved to Austin, Texas. He also earned his MBA at The University of Texas at A...

One of America's breakout toy entrepreneurs joins us for this episode of Austinpreneur. Colin Guinn is CEO of Gel Blaster which can be found on the shelves at 20,000 retail stores in 65 countries. On top of Gel Blaster, Colin launched DJI North America and won The Amazing Race with his wife Christie. Listen now to learn about growing consumer brands, battling with legacy competitors like HASBRO an...

Look back on how two entrepreneurs jumpstarted their careers through a film production startup in the early 2000s. Chris Hyams, CEO of Indeed, and Meetesh Karia, CTO of Earnest are the special guests who share insights on building companies in Austin. We discuss topics such as Trilogy University which brought top computer science talent to Austin in the late 90s. You'll also learn how to manage yo...

Part 6 of our special season on defense innovation is with Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux, Managing Partner of Global Space Ventures which invests in critical technologies, and was an early-investor in SpaceX. Laetitia is also an advisor to the U.S. Department of Defense and NATO, and a board member of the XPRIZE, which launched in partnership with Elon Musk a $100M Carbon Renewal XPRIZE. Topics cove...

Part 5 in our special season on dual-use defense innovation is with cybersecurity expert Charles Henderson. After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, Charles dove into the world of information security. Today Charles is Global Managing Partner and Head of X-Force at IBM. In this episode, we discuss the evolution of cybersecurity from the early days of DEFCON and BlackHat into modern...

Part 4 of our special season on dual-use defense innovation is with guest David Rothzeid from Shield Capital. David is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force where he oversaw highly classified programs in side the Department of Defense. He also spent time at Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) developing acquisition pathways. David now invests in dual-use startups through Shield Capital with a focus on cyberse...

Part 3 in our special season on dual-use defense innovation features Natasha Ahmed who is Vice President at dual use venture capital firm, Disruptive. Natasha brings insights on ways to access government funding, how the startup ecosystem in Hong Kong works as well as her outlook on the space economy. Natasha's background includes roles as Program Manager for the U.S. Department of Defense, Govern...

Part 2 of our special season on dual-use defense innovation focuses on recently acquired Capital Factory portfolio company, Hypergiant. Quentin "Q" Donnellan, President of Hypergiant, shares insights on winning government grants, participating in a program of record, and growing their company to a meaningful private equity acquisition. Listen in to learn about breaking into the Department of Defen...

Part 1 in our special season on dual-use defense innovation features guest Dave Dewalt, CEO of NightDragon. Dave is no stranger to modern cybersecurity threats and how they evolved due to his time as CEO of McAfee, role as a Board Member at Delta Airlines and many other experiences. In this conversation, explore the reality of cyber warfare and international IP espionage. We'll trace the cybersecu...

The Mayor of Austin, Texas gets interviewed by Joshua Baer, CEO of Capital Factory, in this special edition of Austinpreneur. This conversation about innovation and society, particularly innovation in Texas, was recorded live for Capital Factory's All-Access community and the highlights are featured in this episode. Listen to now to hear Mayor Kirk Watson share insights on how Austin's culture has...

The United Kingdom's top tech diplomat, Joe White MBE, stopped by Capital Factory during SXSW and recorded this episode of Austinpreneur. Learn about the new Tech Envoy position created at a critical time for The UK's tech industry. We also discuss Joe's entrepreneurial journey as a Founder as well as General Partner at Entrepreneur's First. Sign up for the best Austinpreneur updates at www.capita...

Brought to you by HubSpot , get an inside take on the race to establish sustainable life on the moon from the CTO and Co-Founder of Intuitive Machines, Tim Crain. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) is the most NASA-awarded commercial lunar program. The company has three missions that will deliver NASA and commercial payloads into orbit and on the surface of the Moon...

Brought to you by HubSpot , this episode dives into the journey of Dug Song, unicorn founder and cybersecurity expert. Dug shares invaluable insights into crafting the right company culture as a startup. From helping manage his father's convenience store in Baltimore, MD, to co-founding Duo Security, one of the world's fastest-growing cybersecurity startups, Dug's journey is nothing short of remar...

Tune in to learn how BodySpec is making preventative wellness easy and pleasant. In this conversation with Elaine Shi, Co-CEO of BodySpec, we cover topics from hardships in entrepreneurship to the day Kim Kardashian used BodySpec. Try BodySpec for yourself here !