Austin Startup Week 2018

Wake Up! is a new, casual meetup for people interested in the Austin Consumer Packaged Goods Community.

Austin-area Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands, retailers, service providers and local enthusiasts are welcome to join us for a lively discussion about the CPG scene and helping each other grow our businesses and community.
 
A HUGE thanks to our sponsors:

Egan Nelson - https://www.egannelson.com

Egan Nelson is a boutique law firm specializing in private equity, venture capital and real estate transactions.  The Firm consists of 28 lawyers and its principal offices are located in Dallas and Austin, Texas with satellite offices in Seattle and New York City.

Egan Nelson was formed to provide a lower-overhead and flexible platform for our attorneys to continue sophisticated legal practices, while offering more efficient, responsive, “hands-on” services to our clients.  

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Moss Adams - https://www.mossadams.com

Moss Adams is a fully integrated professional services firm dedicated to assisting clients with growing, managing, and protecting prosperity.

With more than 2,900 professionals and staff across more than 25 locations in the West and beyond, we work with many of the world’s most innovative companies and leaders. Our strength in the middle market enables us to advise clients at all intervals of development—from start-up, to rapid growth and expansion, to transition.

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Justworks - https://www.justworks.com

Justworks takes the busyness out of running a business. Founded in 2012, Justworks, the fastest growing HR technology company, helps entrepreneurs and businesses grow with confidence by giving them access to big-company benefits, automated payroll, HR tools, and compliance support — all in one place. Justworks does this by combining the power of a certified Professional Employer Organization (PEO) with expert 24/7 customer service and a simple and friendly platform. With Justworks, teams of all sizes can work fearlessly, pursue their passion, and do more of what matters. To learn more about visit www.justworks.com, follow us on Twitter @JustworksHR and Instagram @Justworks_HR.  

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Silicon Hills Lawyer - https://www.siliconhillslawyer.com

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Texas Squared Startup Newsletter - https://www.texassquared.com

Learn more about Wake Up! at www.bitly.com/wakeupcpg

Natures Collective Organization is a Non-Profit Alternative to the For-Profit Anaerobic Digestion Systems and power plant systems. We accept many types of organic material from excess logging and agriculture waste too food scrap biomass from our local community vendors to process through our future AD System Which and steam turbines creating methane and steam powered energy that can be turned into Kilowatt hours for use by the citizens of our community. We then create Carbon Rich Soil by mixing the organic bio char created from the heating our Steam turbines with the by product Soil from Our AD system. This Carbon Rich Soil retains nutrients better than the average chemically enhanced Soil due to cation exchange capacity. We sell a portion of the Carbon Rich Compost to local distributors. And farm the remaining soil to grow produce for our members allowing us to feed our community as well as harvest energy from their fusion.

In our session we will discus what we need in order to grow our organization further and our expected date of Energy generation.

This panel will bring together startup founders, food investors, and experts in the startup and food industry to discuss the best way for food startups to attract funders.  Acquiring investors is more than a numbers game, and a very small percentage of startups that pitch VCs actually end up with funding. This panel will discuss the many strategies and pathways towards funding, and the most important items to have in place before pitching to investors.

Join us for a panel with companies just out of the beginning stages of starting a CPG company and learn more about the challenges faced getting something going from nothing.  We'll guide attendees through the steps and hurdles that we all took launching in the Austin market, landing our first paying customers, getting into our first retail store, and growing our businesses to $100,000 and beyond. 

A deep dive into the marketing strategy and tactics Kettle & Fire used to scale from a bootstrapped startup to a CPG juggernaut. Kettle & Fire (kettleandfire.com) is one of the fastest growing co's in the CPG space and the category leader for bone broth. The company has a unique founding story in that it solely grew their customer base through digital marketing. This helped fuel their retail push in the past year (6,000+ locations including Whole Foods and HEB).

Jack will discuss how they got their first 1,000 customers with a tiny team, how they identify and prioritize new marketing channels, what they did to scale to 7-figure monthly revenue, and all the learnings and mistakes they've made along the way. The goal with this presentation is for everyone to come away with at least 5 actionable learnings they can implement for their CPG business.

 Join us and a panel of disruptors across CPG, Agriculture, and the Wellness industry to discuss the intersection of technology, health, and customer experience. Learn more about consumer trends, sustainability, and the innovative ideas around marketing and product development that are shaping today’s path from farm to consumer.

Follow this link to check out Austin's Liquor Startup Scene

Twenty years ago Austin became home to the first craft liquor brand from Texas, Tito's Vodka, which recently became the highest selling liquor in the United States. Since then, a diverse group of entrepreneurs have introduced an even more diverse array of products, making Austin one of the top locations in the country for launching spirits brands. Some have even called Austin the Silicon Valley of booze. Join us for a panel discussion with Austin-based entrepreneurs in the spirits industry. The discussion will be followed by a casual tasting and networking session where guests can meet the panelists and taste their products, including Austonian Whiskey, Tubi 60, Emerald Absinthe, Tequila Sheela, and more.

Consumers crave and expect exceptional experiences when choosing where to spend their money. Online or in person customers want to be valued, heard, satisfied and wowed. Customer experience is the differentiator. Join the The Human Experience Group, SupportNinja and a few of their own customers for a panel discussion on creating a great customer journey and experience model that will scale with your startup.

Powerful media relations can be a boon to any startup. Whether promoting a new product, catching attention from potential investors, or even recruiting talent, media exposure will help acquire a mass audience in ways that very little other channels can. This panel will offer a deep dive into the startup story - how to package it for the media and what to do when they bite. Austin Business Journal representatives will share tips on how/when to pitch, what reporters and various media outlets look for, etc. Thom Singer, host of "Cool Things Entrepreneuers Do" will represent the podcast perspective on how to package and leverage content. And Jo Detavernier will talk about how to create synergies between owned (website, blog, etc.), earned (media) and paid (advertising) media. Each panelist will speak for 10 minutes on their topic, followed by 30 minutes of discussion moderated by Jo Detavernier and concluding with 15 minutes of audience Q&A.

PrideBites started as a group of dog loving college friends on a path to bring customization to essential pet products, eventually winning big with their personalization idea in the Shark Tank. Favor started out just five years ago as an on-demand delivery company based in Austin and has now expanded to more than 50 cities in Texas and merged with H-E-B as a wholly-owned subsidiary. In this fireside chat, founders Steven Blustein and Zachary Maurais come together to reflect on the similarities and differences in their startup paths, how brand marketing has factored into their companies’ successes, and look ahead toward what’s on the business horizon.

With the youngest Millennials just getting out of college, they are the largest generation present in today’s workforce and represent huge amounts of purchasing power. Often characterized as “image-obsessed,” they are confident, ambitious and experience-oriented. On the other hand, Gen Zers are driven by cool products rather than a memorable moment. Creating a brand that resonates and connects with both generational groups early on is key to foundational growth. This panel will discuss strategies and channels for pursuing Millennials and Gen Zers to win over their brand love. 

This session will give Austin Startup Week attendees more information about the 2019 SXSW Conference. Particularly, we will talk about the two new tracks for next March ("Blockchain & Cryptocurrency" and "Cannabusiness") and the two tech-related tracks that we have created for 2019 ("Entrepreneurship & Startups" and "Tech Industry & Enterprise"). We will also cover the best ways for founders to get involved with SXSW Pitch, formerly known as the SXSW Accelerator Pitch Competition. Light food will be provided.

This session is sponsored by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.

EverlyWell grew 4x overnight (and then kept going) after appearing on Shark Tank. Want to learn about scaling in hyper-growth mode? Come learn about the effect of massive PR exposure on all areas of our business and how we survived.