The British are coming.
That’s British Airways. It will begin offering direct flights from London to Austin starting March next year. (Just in time for South by Southwest 2014).
The airline plans five flights a week initially and then plans daily flights starting on May 5th in its Boeing 787 Dreamliner with its three-cabin layout. Flights are on sale now starting at nearly $800.00 for economy to $5,600 for business class seats.
“The addition of the Airbus A380s and Boeing 787 Dreamliners to our fleet enables us to start new routes and increase services to a number of our destinations,” Lynne Embleton, British Airways’ director of strategy, said in a news release. “We’re excited to be the only airline offering direct flights from London to Austin. We believe it will prove very popular with both business and leisure customers and will be our third route to Texas, after Houston and Dallas. In the pioneering spirit of the Lone Star state, we are flying there in one of the world’s most advanced aircraft, the 787, to encourage more business with the scores of hi-tech businesses based in Austin’s ‘Silicon Hills’”.
The flight will connect Heathrow and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
“As the Mayor of Austin and a former pilot, I could not be more excited about this announcement by British Airways, one of the world’s foremost carriers,” Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell said in a news release.
Category: Austin (Page 234 of 318)
At most technology events I’ve attended in Austin during the last two years, I would see this tall handsome guy.
His name was Scott Robinson.
He was always impeccably dressed and extremely nice. Robinson, in addition to his job as vice president at USDM.net, served as the Austin Chair for The Startup America Partnership. He tirelessly championed the Austin technology startup scene. He was a huge supporter of RISE Week, the week focused on free entrepreneurial sessions put on by Claire England. He wrote this post on RISE for Startup America.
It came as a shock Tuesday to find out Scott Robinson suddenly died over the weekend. Few details are known at this time.
The visitation is Thursday evening from six until eight at Beck’s Funeral Home in Cedar Park and the funeral service will be Friday at 1 p.m. at Redeemer Lutheran on Anderson Lane.
A few weeks ago, I met Scott in his office and we talked at length about Austin’s startup technology scene. We were planning on collaborating on an event together. He had great ideas and vision. We were going to meet again on Friday, but when that didn’t work out, we were going to meet this week. It seems like everyone just saw Scott somewhere.
Scott also organized Steve Case’s visit to Capital Factory recently. And he organized an event with technology leaders at National Instruments to meet with Senator Ted Cruz. He always made sure to put me on the guest list.
Scott also served as a mentor and producer of TedXYouth@Austin, the first local Tedx event geared to kids, held last March in Austin. He told me he got involved because of his own kids. He had twins, Joshua and Sophie.
Scott will be missed immensely. He was a huge asset to Austin’s technology community. He was also a wonderful guy. And I am so saddened by the news of his death. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.
Scott’s obituary is listed on Legacy.com. His family asks that “in lieu of flowers the James Scott Robinson Memorial Fund located at Wells Fargo bank will be available for donations to benefit Joshua & Sophie Robinson.”
Still stunned to hear that @jsratx has passed away. He was a bullish champion of all things Austin and design.
— Michael McDaniel (@mcdanyel) September 4, 2013
We are extremely sad to learn of the passing of @jsratx. He was one of our biggest fans and local advocates in Austin. RIP friend.
— The Wire (@wireaustin) September 4, 2013
Scott Robinson, @jsratx, may you rest in peace. Lucky to have met you as soon I moved to atx. You will be missed by many.
— Brett Berman (@Brett_UMT) September 4, 2013
So sorry to hear of the passing of Scott Robinson, @jsratx. He was a good man, and a great advocate for Austin business. He will be missed.
— Dean Cruse (@deancruse) September 4, 2013
I'm so sad about this. Always a nice man. “@joeymcgirr: The world lost a great one. RIP @jsratx We'll see you on the other side.”
— ∞ Nicole Forbes ∞ (@livehappy8) September 4, 2013
The world lost a great one. RIP @jsratx We'll see you on the other side.
— Joey McGirr™ (@joeymcgirr) September 3, 2013
And one of Scott Robinson’s last tweets.
It takes 1 to know 1 “@thomsinger: I ran into Scott Robinson (@jsratx ) this week. He is a good person to know in Austin! He is a giver!
— Scott Robinson (@jsratx) August 29, 2013
Brett Hurt and Jeff Harbach have joined forces to found Hurt+Harbach, a seed-stage venture capital firm in Austin.
Hurt, co-founder of Bazaarvoice and formerly with Austin Ventures, and Harbach, former executive director of the Central Texas Angel Network, plan to invest primarily in Austin companies.
“I discovered that I really enjoy being a VC. Helping entrepreneurs is the next phase of my career, and this is a natural evolution for me,” Hurt wrote in a blog post announcing the new venture. “Co-founding a new venture capital firm is the ideal way to express my passion for building extraordinary companies.”
Hurt has also invested in several Austin startups as an angel investor. In the last 10 months, he has met with “around 300 entrepreneurs.”
And he saw a need for more seed-stage investment firms.
Harbach, a serial entrepreneur and a Kauffman fellow, also saw the need.
“During my time with CTAN I saw first hand the need for more early stage capital in Austin,” Harbach wrote in a blog post. “With the blessing of the CTAN Board of Directors, I started to devote some time to researching how to get more early stage capital flowing in Austin. Those efforts culminated in Hurt+Harbach.”
The new firm held a meetup last week at Lola Savannah in West Lake Hills.
The Austin Technology Incubator’s summer-long Student Entrepreneur Acceleration & Launch, known as ATI SEAL, culminates next Thursday with a Decision Day event.
The event, on Sept. 5th, kicks off at 6:30 p.m. and runs until 8:30 p.m. at the Blanton Museum at 200 E. MLK Blvd. It features nine student-run companies showcasing their startups.
The public is invited. Please register for the free event here.
During the ATI SEAL Program, the startups decide whether to continue to pursue their startup ideas or to kill them. This is the sixth class to go through the program. To date, more than 30 companies and more than 100 students have participated in SEAL.
Among the success stories is Ordoro, a member of the 2010 SEAL class, which has since raised nearly $2 million in funding and works with Amazon, BigCommerce, eBay and others.
The 2013 ATI SEAL class includes:
AdBm Technologies: Developing high-performance, low-cost, and easy to deploy noise abatement technologies for marine environments.
OnSite Control: Providing portable wildlife access control solutions with a focus on the oil & gas industry.
Beyonic: Aggregating mobile payment networks to allow businesses to connect in emerging markets.
Clay.io: A platform for HTML5 games-helping developers distribute and improve their games with high-level social features, and helping consumers discover great cross-platform games.
Favor: Anything you want delivered in Austin
Guava: The fitness coach for the personal finances of the American worker.
nCarbon: Commercializing the novel material graphene to focus on the development of the next generation super capacitors.
Intelligent Menu: Offering consumers an intelligent way to dine, while also allowing restaurants to understand and connect with their customers to make data-driven decisions.
LifeM: Making highly flexible pressure sensors for cardiovascular
applications to revolutionize the catheter pressure sensing industry.
E.J. Lawless, who formerly worked as senior director of online marketing at indeed.com, has launched a vertical search engine called FurnitureNear.Me focused on helping consumers find furniture near their houses to save people time from going to store to store and searching on multiple Internet sites. The site is currently available for consumers to search in Austin, San Antonio and Houston.
The industry is large and highly fragmented and Lawless saw an opportunity to bring some order to the chaos with his startup. Lawless recently answered some questions, via email, about FurnitureNear.Me.
Q. Can you explain your product in the simplest language possible?
A. FurnitureNear.Me provides one site to search all the available products and store locations of top furniture retailers near you. Eventually it will include not just top retail chains but every furniture store.
Instead of driving store-to-store, shoppers can go to FurnitureNear.Me to see what stores have styles and prices they’d like, and then plan where to shop–saving time and frustration.
Q. What’s your secret sauce? What differentiates you from the competition?
A. FurnitureNear.Me focuses on having the most complete index of furniture items from retailers both big and small. It will also focus solely on furniture in order to have the best furniture search results.
Q. Who are your competitors?
A. There are a limited number of competitors. Google Product Shopping Engine has a small number of furniture retailers because furniture stores have to pay to be part of the index. There are a few other price comparison engines with limited selection as well.
Q. Are you Bootstrapped, or do you have Venture Capital or Angel Investment?
A. Bootstrapped
Q. Who makes up your team?
A. Currently, I’m the only founder, though I’ve been able to reach out to people I know for help on a variety of areas.
Q. Who are your customers?
A. People looking for furniture, whether that’s consumers looking to buy a new piece for their home or professionals like interior decorators searching for unique finds.
Q. What is your business model?
A. Right now the focus is on just building the product, but there are a few business model options for a vertical search engine like FurnitureNear.Me.
Q. What is the biggest win you’ve had to date?
A. I’ve taken a fairly lean approach to this idea working on validating key pieces in small steps. Each validated step, from whether it was possible to do the idea or if users would like it, has been a meaningful win.
Q. What are the most helpful Austin startup resources that you’ve used?
A. The network of people I’ve met over the past few years working at various startups in Austin.
Q. What are the advantages of being in Austin for launching your startup?
A. Austin is great for FurnitureNear.Me because of the local talent with experience in vertical search engines.
Q. What are your plans for the future?
A. Continue to focus on building and improving the product; specifically, including more furniture retailers in the search and improving the quality of results.
Q. Anything else you would like to add or say that I haven’t asked you about?
A. Furniture is a great market for disruption right now. It’s a large market at approximately $60 billion in sales in the U.S.; ecommerce is the fastest growing segment of the furniture businesses; and there have been new entrants recently, like One King’s Lane, that have gained significant traction.
The basic shopping process has been the same for decades, though. People get a catalog in the mail or see an ad and then drive to the store, and hope for the best. If they don’t see what they like, they drive to the next store, and so on.
FurnitureNear.Me is trying to make the buying process simpler and faster by providing one site to search across all of the furniture inventory in an area to let shoppers know what stores they like and where to go.
Makexyz is a global online marketplace that connects people who want to get a product made with a 3D printer to people who have them in their neighborhoods. Nathan Tone, the company’s co-founder, spent some time Thursday morning chatting with Silicon Hills News about the startup, which launched in January and has quickly grown both locally, nationally and internationally.
Q. What is makexyz?
A. It’s a 3D printing marketplace that links people who need something made with 3D printers in their neighborhoods.
Q. Who are your customers?
A. Our customers are consumers making things like iPhone cases and toy robots, businesses prototyping their next products. And people with 3D printed products, like a watchband, that are producing hundreds of units through makexyz.
Q. Who is on your team?
A. My co-founder, Chad Masso, and I met working at indeed.com. He comes from an engineering background. I come from the product side. Our team of four is rounded out by two other awesome developers.
Q. Why are you guys the ones to do this startup?
A. We’re here because we like making things ourselves, and makexyz is a really great opportunity to help other people make stuff at a significant scale. That perspective, in combination with our history of building great products, has proven successful so far.
Q. What challenges do you face bringing your startup into the marketplace?
A. It’s still a very new technology for a lot of people, so the education challenge is significant — helping people understand what’s possible with the technology. We’re lucky because we have a network of over 1,000 3D printers in 45 different countries who know their subject matter and who are more than willing to share their knowledge with customers.
Q. How do your acquire customers?
A. To date growth has been completely organic and referral driven. On the printer side, the community has proven very tight-knit, where printers who have made money and met interesting makers through makexyz are more than happy to tell their friends about makexyz. On the customer side, if you use makexyz, you end up with a really interesting and unique object, which your friends and family will ask: “where did you get that?” Through makexyz.
Q. What is the business model?
A. We add a charge on top of every order. Think: airbnb for 3D printers.
Q. How are people using makexyz?
A. Once you have a distributed network of 3D printers, there are some really interesting applications that you can build on top of it. For example, with printers in 45 different countries, makexyz makes it possible to produce and deliver a product to a customer anywhere in the world in less than one day.
Q. Are you bootstrapped or do you have angel or VC financing?
A. We’re bootstrapped. We’re not actively looking for funding, but if the right opportunity came along we’d consider it.
Q. What Austin resources have you found most helpful?
A. Austin’s community of very successful revenue-oriented entrepreneurs who are happy to help out in any way they can. That has been a huge help for us along the way. It’s a great town to start a company in.
Q. What has been your biggest win so far?
A. Starting out, our original goal was to start in Austin only. But as soon as we launched, printers were signing up all over the U.S. And we were receiving emails every day saying “I’d love to list my printer, but I’m not in the U.S.” So we opened everything up internationally. So we’ve been international pretty much from day one. It wasn’t a pivot as much as a fast-forward for us. When we said: this makes just as much sense globally as locally.
Q. What is your long-term vision?
A. Our goal is to help people make things. And in service of that goal, we’re willing to take the business in any direction that makes sense. In terms of long term vision, through makexyz’s global network, you will be able to produce and deliver any product to a customer anywhere in the world, for free and in less than one day. That’s a big enough mission for now.
Ben Dyer, UT Entrepreneur in Residence, photo courtesy of the University of Texas at Austin.
But during the last year, Dyer took on an even bigger role in assisting Bob Metcalfe, professor of innovation and Joshua Baer, specialist of computer science, in running the class.
Now Dyer, an Atlanta native, has officially been named a new Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering.
And tonight, the latest crop of student-run startups will gather at the first class of the Longhorn Startup Program, previously known as One Semester Startup. Dyer will be there to mentor them.
Dyer founded Peachtree Software and he also writes a popular entrepreneur blog called TechDrawl, which promotes technology startups and innovation in the South.
In his role Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Dyer will serve as a mentor and resource for students and faculty members who are exploring and creating early-stage technology ventures throughout UT Austin.
“The Cockrell School is proud to have Ben as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence,” Gregory L. Fenves, dean of the Cockrell School, said in a blog post on the UT School of Engineering’s website. “Ben brings a strong background in technology entrepreneurship and expertise in starting companies around breakthrough technology solutions. His experience and business acumen have been invaluable in the advice and assistance he’s provided to UT students in the Longhorn Startup Lab.”
Dyer, a graduate from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a member of its hall of fame, has focused on education throughout his career. He continues to be involved in both the Atlanta and Austin technology communities. Both of his children graduated from UT and he moved here in 2011.
Another California company has put stakes down in Austin.
Auction.com, based in Irvine, Calif. with 1,000 employees, announced Wednesday plans to open an Austin office on Sept. 3 and hire up to 40 people.
The office will focus on customer relations and business development. It will located in 7,000 square feet at the Stone Lake Office Park at 4030 West Braker Lane.
Downs Deering, senior vice president of VIP operations and Michael Dean, vice president of residential sales, will lead the Austin office.
The company has already hired several sales and business development executives.
“Building and scaling a high-quality sales and business development team is a key driver to our continued success as a business,” John Hood, executive vice president of C2C Inside Sales for Auction.com, said in a news release. “Austin was our first choice as a location since it offers an excellent talent pool of professionals from leading technology companies who have the experience to help us better serve our customers, and enhance the current teams in our Irvine headquarters.”
Auction.com is an online platform that lets people sell and buy real estate.
“We are pleased to welcome Auction.com to the Austin region, the company will be a wonderful asset to our growing technology community,” Gary Farmer, Chairman of Opportunity Austin; a five-county economic development initiative of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce said in a news release. “Auction.com’s expansion to Austin is further evidence of Central Texas’s attractiveness to companies who have chosen our city because of the access to talented workforce, entrepreneurial spirit and high quality of life.”
By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
Diane Kenyon, Whurley, Stephen Elkins and Melissa Richter
The panel discussion featured Whurley, founder of Chaotic Moon Studios, Austin City CIO Stephen Elkins, Melissa Richter, IT Executive with General Motors and Diane Kenyon, Senior VP of IT at Harden Healthcare. The session was moderated by Nathan Green, VP of SureScore. The consensus: Other than advanced technical skills, the most important skills are being able to write and communicate, to get along with a team and to innovate.
Most of the panel agreed that the pace of change in tech makes it impossible to find Lego-style matches for jobs. No matter how cutting edge the school is, it can’t keep up pace with technology, so by the time students graduate, they’re already behind. And tech people may have skills that were all the rage when they took a job several years ago, but the job description they once filled no longer exists, or the skills are obsolete.
“It’s impossible to prepare core content that’s updated enough,” said Whurley of universities. “When I worked at Apple all we had to do was develop for iOS. And every year there are 3,500-to-5,000 APIs that next year are useless….” By contrast, he said, people he hires from artistic backgrounds, who are closet coders, do really well.
By contrast, Kenyon said the people she hires who have college degrees can: “Write a memo, write a business letter, communicate with my customers…. There’s no longer the ‘nerd’ section at any shop that says ‘You don’t have to be able to talk to people in a language they can understand. I’m looking for people who have skills and an understanding that their skills are transferable to my needs and if there’s something you don’t know how to do and understand that you need growing and training on communication and you understand boundaries, these people I can train.”
And, Whurley said, people have to be able to work in teams. That doesn’t mean they won’t fight, if they’re passionate about what they’re doing. But “it’s like with your spouse, it’s what you do after a fight that’s important…. We need the right person, in the right job, in the context of the team we’ve built. We’ve got to be 100 percent on all three of those.”
There are, however, some specific skill sets IT employers need. For example, a knowledge of big data and 3D printing. Those are key, said Richter, for moving GM forward with its idea that the car will be the new cellphone: a mode of transportation and data center all in one that consumers will engage in a whole new way. 3D printing, she said, will “take the humans out of what we’ve all been doing for the last 30 years and free us up to innovate.”
Austin has one of four GM Innovation Centers to bring the company’s tech development in-house.
Elkins joked that the skill set he needs is whatever’s on today’s “vacancy report.” But generally, he wants to hire people who understand the tech side and the business side and can communicate between that space. He also said that data security issues would be a crucial growth area in the future as data continues to grow.
Kenyon also mentioned data, asking if she could post a job for a “dataholic, because that’s what I really need.” As a healthcare company, she said, her biggest challenge will be moving her company through the phases of Obamacare. And that will take a lot of innovation. “I can’t sit in my fifth floor penthouse across the street and decide ‘This is how workflow should be for the nurse.’ We have to maximize the information at their fingertips and minimize the feeling of doing data entry.”
It boils down, she said, to “Can you do the job? Will you do the job? And can we put up with each other?”
By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
Julie Huls, CEO of the Austin Technology Council
“Getting tech organized has been crazy difficult,” Huls said. “It’s not in an entrepreneur’s makeup to be a joiner. It took awhile to understand how to get everyone pointed in the same direction. How to get everyone engaged. The way we finally figured out to do it was to ask ‘Don’t you guys want to be involved in making investment decisions about how money is going to be allocated to resources…?’ It’s time for us to articulate a new vision.”
While much of Huls’ talk, at Startup Grind Austin at Capital Factory, referenced vague “high level conversations” ATC was having with “C-Suite Executives,” she did give some concrete insights as to the direction ATC will be pushing in coming years.
9,000 jobs by 2027
One of the biggest needs, locally, is for people with high-level technical skills. In the next 10 years, she said, tech-related jobs are projected to increase by 9,000. Most executives would prefer a “grow your own” approach, recruiting people out of the University of Texas and other area universities and tech programs. But, for one thing, there aren’t enough highly skilled people coming out of those programs to meet the demand, Huls said. So recruiting from other regions will be crucial. Secondly, she said, many Austin graduates are being recruited by companies on the coasts and they jump on the chance for an adventure and a higher paycheck. The good news is, many of them return to Austin after a few years.
ATC, she said, was started by some heavy hitters like Pike Powers and Laura Kilcrease. But there “hasn’t been a very clear roadmap for growth and success. My concern is that if we don’t articulate that and create that map ourselves, we lose our competitive edge.”
“My hope is that Austin can do a better job of branding Austin tech,” Huls said. “We’re about 20 years out of date. There are lots of people who still believe that Austin is still about (semiconductor) chips and we kind of haven’t been all about that for quite some time. Our Austin tech brand is not current.”
In fact, Austin’s tech is very diverse, a reality that has to be communicated to the world. She also weighed in on other issues people identify as problems in Austin’s tech growth.
“I’ve reversed my position on the need for capital,” Huls said. At this point, she said, organizations like CTAN and investors from both within and without Austin are providing ample capital. Capital’s not a big issue. Scaleability has been an issue, in terms of entrepreneurs building great small companies and then selling them rather than growing them to be strong elements of the local economy. But, Huls said, Austin is at a tipping point with that, as evidenced by IPO activity in the last year or two.
“We have some awesome executives who stay here after they make it big…mentoring informally or formally. What I hear from investors is that Austin entrepreneurs need help with some of the fundamentals like business development skills and pitch skills.”
Getting the Word Out About Austin Tech
To that end, she said, ATC is actively seeking executives, investors and tech leaders who want to help foster growth in the community, whether that’s volunteering on a think tank or visiting a school to inspire kids toward STEM education.
“We’re not doing enough,” Huls said. “We’ve been on the top of every list for the past five or ten years but that’s not going to last forever. We’re taking for granted the amazing array of assets we have here…we have real assets that are marketable and make us truly competitive. We’re not doing enough to get that information out there nationally.”
Huls, who studied marketing and communications, became president and CEO of ATC in 2009, chosen for her ability to build a bridge between what was happening in the tech world and the rest of Austin.
Next month’s Startup Grind on September 23 will feature Erine Gray, CEO of Aunt Bertha. Organizer Andi Gillentine said the group has features thought leaders and investors over recent months but will head into the fall with a series of entrepreneurial CEOs and founders.