Austin's startup scene has come a long way in the past decade or two.
Now, the ecosystem is continuing to mature, which means there are more startups that have graduated to acquisitions by private equity firms, have gone public or have transitioned into profitability.
In other words, Austin is no longer a small tech hub showing signs of promise. It's now consistently a top 10 metro for startups, and, through the pandemic years, it also has become one of strongest magnets for tech headquarters relocations.
Austin Startup Week was founded by Jacqueline Hughes and kicked off in 2011. It started as a relatively small group of founders and venture capitalists sharing insights with fellow entrepreneurs through a week of programming.
Now, Hughes and her co-hosts at Capital Factory are rebranding startup week as Austin Tech Week. It will look and feel mostly like it has in the past, including panel conversations and presentations, as well as a ton of networking opportunities. It all culminates at the end of the week with Startup Crawl, where local tech companies open their doors for big crowds to enter and enjoy free drinks, snacks and games.
Most of that will continue.
"We don't see it as a huge change in the actual programming or content. That's always changing. It's always evolving," Capital Factory founder Joshua Baer said. "But we just feel like the tech week brand, nationally, has become a little bit more prevalent and more current and has a slightly different feel."
Many other cities have a tech week, including Seattle, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, many of the Austin startups that helped make startup week a thing over a decade ago, such as WP Engine, are now mature companies.
"Our intent is just keeping it fresh and current and continuing to be relevant," Baer said.
The rebrand, already visible on the Austin Tech Week website, comes just as organizers have opened the window for founders, VCs and other innovators to submit ideas for panel discussions and to develop themes for each day of the event. For example, there's typically a day focused mostly on AI or diversity or venture funding. And members of the community can propose more specific discussions, as well as suggest which founders or leaders would be the best speakers for them.
This year's tech week will kick off Oct. 28. The organization is accepting pre-registrations on its website, as well as suggestions for speakers and session topics.
While Austin Tech Week functions as a place to share new ideas and learn, it's also one of the most powerful networking events on the local calendar. Hughes, who has led events for Kauffman Fellows and Techstars, said connecting people will still be a primary focus.
"We're continuing to think more and more intentionally about how to connect the people in the room," she said. "Coming out of Covid in particular, there's been a trend of people going to events to connect with people. And so, it's the little things like our facilitators asking people to walk up to someone they don't know and meet them during those breaks we have between sessions. We're thinking a lot about how to how to connect to the audience members."
