Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory is bullish on Texas.

He wrote the Texas Startup Manifesto last year and has worked diligently since then to bring Texas’ major cities together: Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas.

The goal is to create a statewide strong and supportive ecosystem for startup companies and entrepreneurs looking to create the next Whole Foods or Dell Technologies.

On Friday, Baer took his presentation to the stage at South by Southwest and presented a slideshow and talk on why Texas is the nation’s second-largest economy, behind California, and it’s growing stronger every year.

Texas also shows no signs of slowing down, Baer said.

Baer moved to Austin in 1999 and worked at Trilogy Software. He has founded several startups and is an active angel investor and founder of Capital Factory, which is a technology accelerator, incubator and coworking space.

Capital Factory in Austin is the “center of gravity for entrepreneurs,” Baer said. It brings together entrepreneurs, startups, capital, mentors and other resources. Capital Factory has more than 150 mentors that donate their expertise to helping others through regular office hours.

Every day, there are a dozen different mentors doing office hours at Capital Factory to help people, Baer said.

The Kauffman Foundation consistently ranks Texas number one or number two for startup activity along with California, Baer said.

Austin, the 11th largest city in the country, gets the most attention in Texas as a hub for technology startups, Baer said. It’s also one of the fastest growing cities in the country, he said. The assets here make it a great startup community like the University of Texas at Austin, Dell Medical School, SXSW, Vista Equity Partners, and it’s home to big offices for Google, Microsoft, Dell, Facebook, Apple and others. It is also home to Dell Technologies and Whole Foods.

Texas has four of the largest cities in the country and four of the top startup hubs, according to a recent Kauffman Foundation study. The state has 50 Fortune 500 companies and lots of room to expand and grow, Baer said.

“Dell really helped establish the tech community here,” Baer said. It was started by Michael Dell in a dorm room at UT more than 30 years ago and has made a huge impact on Austin and the world, he said.

Other great Austin success stories include HomeAway, which sold to Expedia for $4.5 billion and Indeed.com, which sold to Recruit, a Japanese-based company for a rumored $1 billion. And most recently, WP Engine, founded in 2011, recently raised $250 million from Silver Lake Ventures to take the company to the next level, Baer said.

Overall, Texas’ economy shows no signs of slowing down, Baer said. In fact, Austin and Dallas are both on the list of the top 20 finalists being considered for Amazon’s HQ2, Baer said.

Texas is getting more transportation operations to travel among the major cities by car, bus or plane. And there’s a high-speed rail going in between Dallas and Houston, Baer said. Texas is one of the top places for the first hyperloop to go.

“It’s going to get easier and easier to get around Texas,” he said.

The biggest complaint in Austin and every other place that isn’t Silicon Valley is the need for more investor dollars, Baer said.

“Funding is the trailing indicator, not the leading indicator,” Baer said.

“People are the leading indicator,” he said.

A lot of people are moving here and that’s why there are so many startups here, Baer said.

“The companies have to go where the talent is,” he said.

A huge opportunity is to the unlock the money that is in Texas, Baer said.

Capital Factory has been taking monthly busloads of Austin entrepreneurs to Dallas, Houston and San Antonio to make connections between those communities, he said. Capital Factory has also partnered with each of those cities to give a $100,000 startup grant to an entrepreneur in each of those communities.

“It’s about connecting people together,” Baer said. Capital Factory does that online, through Union, a platform for entrepreneurs, and in person through the bus trips and other events.

Baer also showed Dell’s “Beginnings” ad during his talk, which shows the power of startups and their ability to change the world.

Dell Beginnings from Young & Rubicam Group on Vimeo.

By Laura Lorek
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

Business as a force for good, capitalism as the roots of inequity in our society stemming from slavery, the wealth gap and intentionally helping underserved communities.

Those are just a few of the hot-button topics discussed during the panel on the meta-topic “The Future of Capitalism and Everything Else.”

At the end of the first day of South by Southwest, when a lot of people start looking for a bar or a party, a packed house turned out Friday at the Hilton Downtown for the panel which featured Jay Coen Gilbert, founder of the B Corp movement, as the moderator and panelists: John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods, Brett Hurt, founder of data.world, and Kesha Cash, founder of Impact America, a $10 million venture capital fund with a focus on diversity.

Mackey, a Houston native, had a typical “Leave it to Beaver” upbringing and went to the same high school as Michael Dell, only a few years earlier. Hurt, an Austin native, taught himself to code at an early age and grew up in a supportive environment. Cash, grew up in poverty in Orange County, California, and lived in publicly assisted housing and relied on food stamps.

Mackey founded Whole Foods 40 years ago and last year it sold to Amazon. The company had $16 billion in sales in 2017.

“Whatever you read in the papers, I will state right now for the official record, the merger is going fantastically well,” Mackey said. “Whole Food sales are way up from pre-merger. We love Amazon, very smart, very creative, we’re going to do lots of cool things together.”

Mackey has written a few books: Conscious Capitalism and The Whole Foods Diet. And he’s working on a third book called Conscious America. He’s a vegan and believes in animal protection.

“I’m very much into doing good,” Mackey said. And he’s a staunch supporter of capitalism.

“I’ll be the first one to argue today that capitalism has already been a great source of good, but we just can make it even better,” Mackey said.

In a recent poll of 20,000 people worldwide, 77 percent thought that capitalism needed some significant reform or regulation, Gilbert said. He asked the panelists that if the majority of people think capitalism needs some major reforms what that says about the system of capitalism and their roles as business leaders.

“People need to study more history,” Mackey said. “Because people don’t understand where humanity was 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 150 year ago, 200 years ago. Two hundred years ago 94 percent of the people on the planet lived on less than $2 a day, 85 percent lived on less than $1 a day, the average lifespan was 30, the illiteracy rate was over 90 percent.”

“Capitalism has literally lifted humanity out of the dirt,” Mackey said. “Is it perfect, no. We can make it better.”

“But compared to all of the alternatives that came before it, it’s simply amazing,” Mackey said. “So, people don’t know that. Just pick your period of history, I’ll give you any other period of history, from the whole history of humanity and I will tell you it is not as good as right now today. Name it. There isn’t any period in comparison to this one.”

However, people don’t compare it to history, they compare it to the model in their mind of how there is inequality, how there is racism and how there are environmental challenges, Mackey said.

“They focus on the things that are not yet fixed and then they conclude this is bad.”

Poverty will be eradicated on the planet in the next 50 years and that’s a result of capitalism, Mackey said. It isn’t perfect, it has serious problems, but it has done a whole lot of good for people, he said.

“We should never be complacent,” Mackey said. “But realistically it’s a fricken amazing time to be alive.”

The globe is an evolutional journey toward increasing consciousness, said Hurt.

“That’s really hard to believe sometimes because we’ve had some really dark moments in history,” he said.

For example, Hurt said he’s Jewish and there’s been the Holocaust.

“But it’s better than it’s ever been for the Jews right now,” Hurt said.

Overall, people are getting more conscious about the meaning of their work and that’s evident in the Millennial generation, Hurt said.

“That’s a really, really good thing,” he said. “We all spend more time working than we do anything else.”

It’s a real shame if people are living a life like in the movie Office Space, which depicts workers dissatisfied with their jobs, which was made in Austin, Hurt said.

“We have one life to live, I believe, and the more you lean into meaning, the better life is,” Hurt said.

Things overall are getting better, although at times it is hard to see that and it is easy to focus on really depressing news, Hurt said.

Business is a mechanism for change, but it is important to step on the gas and accelerate some of the change, Cash said.

“What keeps me up at night is that this country is facing a serious bridge the wealth gap,” Cash said. “By the year 2040 it is projected to be a majority, minority country and today blacks and latinos have six to seven cents on the dollar for every dollar of white wealth.”

“What does that mean when you have a majority-minority population but no assets?” Cash asked.

Historically, in this country, there were trillions of dollars that were not paid to African American slaves, Cash said. And this country, exported cotton harvested by free labor and people can’t forget about that, she said. And minorities were not allowed to own homes, she said.

“There has been a system that has been built that in a way is not fair to everyone and doesn’t provide equal opportunity to access,” Cash said.

Businesses need to build in the DNA of their companies a focus on looking out for their stakeholders and paying a fair wage, being thoughtful of about the diversity of supply chains and not use slave labor in supply chains, Cash said.

“I do think business overall can be a driver for change but I don’t think we can be naïve to these other forces that have really created an unjust system,” Cash said.

Don’t make capitalism the “boogeyman” for everything that is wrong in society, Mackey said. Slavery, racism, homophobia, suppression of women, are ubiquitous throughout time, he said. It’s not capitalism’s fault, it’s human beings fault, he said.

If the modern form of capitalism began a couple of hundred years ago, it’s not coincidental that happened at the same time with some of the greatest land appropriation and slavery in history, said Gilbert.

“The American economy was built on free land and free labor,” Gilbert said.

And least 65 years of modern American capitalism did not operate under the free exchange of goods and services and it’s important to sit with that and acknowledge that as part of this country’s history, Gilbert said.

That “jump start” to the American economy bestowed burdens and benefits to certain parts of the U.S. population, Gilbert said.
Businesses need to practice intentionality in hiring and promoting diverse workers and they have to have a level of consciousness about their impact on society, Hurt said.

“That’s a beautiful thing,” he said. “You have a great burden as a leader to set that kind of tone and put those types of practices in place.”

Conscious capitalism and B-Corporations just help entrepreneurs on that journey, he said.

“They are increasing in prominence,” he said.

Impact America is focused on investing in companies helping under-served communities, Cash said. It has invested in a software company bringing transparency to the supply chain vendors for companies and in a startup providing transparency in the pawn shop industry, which serves 30 million people in the U.S., she said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of wealth blacks and latinos have in assets compared to whites. They have six to seven cents on the dollar for every dollar of white wealth.

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

The Westworld at South by Southwest experience provides an entertaining look at the wild west town of Sweetwater and a life of living “without limits.”

But it is a decidedly tame version of HBO’s Westworld hit television series. That series depicts a Wild West theme park run by robotic hosts that allow the visitors, who pay $40,000 a day to go there, to do whatever they please including killing, raping and more. HBO describes the show as “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin.” Eventually, the Westworld hosts gain greater intelligence and memory and retaliate against their oppressors. Season Two debuts Sunday, April 22nd on HBO. The series is based on the 1973 film “Westworld” written by Michael Crichton.

At the SXSW version, visitors gather at the Mesa Gold Station, also known as the EastSide Tavern, to be transported about 30 minutes outside of Austin to an undisclosed location. Hosts, dressed all in white, serve French 76 cocktails and appetizers like brisket tater tots because “even humans need to recalibrate.”

Guests also pick up a cowboy hat: either black or white, which are assigned based on the results of a personality assessment administered during the reservation process. I got a white hat.

Once on the bus, the host instructs the guests the only rules upon entering Westworld at SXSW is to not touch anybody or break anything. He also told us there were secrets hidden throughout the park.

An elaborate flier on the bus told us to “Escape this reality. Live without Limits.”

Upon arrival, all visitors enter through an old train car meant to resemble the “Black Ridge Limited” which brings guests and hosts into the fictional town of Sweetwater. A host greets visitors in front of a case filled with guns, knives and other weapons.

After leaving the railcar, visitors enter Sweetwater and see an old Wild West town filled with people dressed from the period. Cowboys and Cowgirls walk horses up and down the dusty street and the horses are real. The town also features landmarks from Westworld like the Mariposa Saloon and the Hotel Coronado.

At the Mariposa Saloon, bartenders served bourbon, a player piano pumped out tunes and a blackjack dealer hosted an active table of card players in the corner.

Ladies of the evening dressed in lavish gowns walked about asking patrons if they wanted to go upstairs.

Occasionally a fight broke out.

Touring the outbuildings and walking around takes about an hour. The Post Office had mail for every visitor. My mail had no words – just a drawing of the creature Delores, a character in Westworld, dreams about. It looks like a person dressed as an astronaut. Other people received letters from Roy Baggert, Sheriff of Sweetwater welcoming them to town or warning them. Other locations include the bank, the barber shop, the graveyard and the town square.

The flier also told us “in the midst of the action, guests often overlook the most nuanced details of the park. Take a minute to discover something you hadn’t noticed before.”

In the graveyard, a guest used a nearby shovel to dig up a fresh grave and in it, she found a wooden maze, like the one depicted in the show.

A building in the back had a red button that when pushed revealed a Westworld technician working on a giant human robot.

At the Coronado Hotel, bartenders served Tequila gimlets to guests and guests dined on brisket, sausage, beef jerky and beans.

During our visit, a giant fight broke out and townspeople ran everywhere. A gun went off and a guy, Mr. Frank Dellacourt, ended up dead. A guest started yelling gleefully that he had visited the park seven times and he had never been able to kill the guy. He got his picture taken with the dead body. Meanwhile, three people dressed in hazmat suits came out to take the body to be reprogrammed. A lady told the other hosts to cease all motor functions while the hazmat crew worked.

Overall, an entertaining experience and great work by the actors at Westworld SXSW and worth visiting if you can snag one of the remaining tickets. The advance tickets, which included half of the appointments to visit the park, sold out immediately, but HBO is releasing new tickets daily throughout SXSW for more information follow @WestworldHBO on Twitter and then register at DiscoverWestworld.com.

“In addition, fans who aren’t able to make an appointment online can follow @Lyft on Twitter for a special code that will unlock free Lyft rides to the park,” according to HBO.

HBO has previously hosted immersive theatrical experiences for Westworld at San Diego Comic Con and New York Comic Con in 2017. HBO began production on Austin’s Westworld park experience last November. “It took a 40-person crew five weeks to build the park onsite in Texas,” according to HBO. The cast features 60 actors, six stunt people and five bands, primarily from the local area and six horses.

HBO has five luxury Westworld shuttles, eight co-branded Lyft cars, and one Delta shuttle flight to transport guests to the park throughout the weekend.

Here’s a Facebook Live video I did from my visit:

By Susan Lahey
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

For the second time, an Irish Prime Minister will be coming to SXSW; only Leo Varadkar is a very new brand of Irish Prime Minister. Ireland’s youngest, and the first LGBT prime minister is leading a country that will soon be the only English-language country of the European Union and thus will have a new role in the world.

One of the world’s first LGBT leaders, in the first country, to legalize gay marriage by popular vote, Varadkar will be speaking on gender and diversity issues, as well as global change, and Austin’s relationship to Ireland, with Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune. The session will take place on 2 p.m. March 11 in Hilton Salon F, Varadkar will officially kick off the Irish Consulate’s celebration of St. Patrick’s week and the consulate’s third anniversary in Austin. Ireland remains the only European country with a consulate in Ireland.

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

International Women’s Day is the perfect time to highlight some of the fascinating events happening at South by Southwest focused on women, women’s rights, equality, inclusion, advancement and leadership.

It’s the era of the #MeeToo movement and #TimesUp. The hashtags for Women’s International Day are #PressforProgress and #IWD2018.

For International Women’s Day, Oksana Malysheva, co-founder of Sputnik ATX and two of the women founders in the Sputnik ATX accelerator program will be doing an Ask Me Anything or AMA on Reddit today at 2 p.m.

On Friday, there’s an event: Against All Odds: Chartering Your Path as a Woman that sounds fascinating. It features Emily Chang of Bloomberg and Kirsten Green, founder, managing director and partner at Forerunner Ventures. They’ll talk about strategies women can take to succeed in Silicon Valley. It takes place from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at the Hilton Austin downtown in Salon H. And it looks like the room will be at capacity and overflowing from the number of people who have already favorited it.

The media is another area where women are often underrepresented especially in leadership positions. Where are the Women How to Diversify Journalism is a panel on Saturday made up of four female print and multimedia journalists who will talk about the gender imbalance in journalism and their experiences. The discussion takes place at the JW Marriott, Salon H from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Also on Saturday, Dell Technologies is hosting: Supporting Women in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem through Public Policy from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Dell Experience at the Sunset Room at 310 East 3rd Street. Featured speakers: Hilary Rosen, Partner, SKDKnickerbocker; Meghan Buck, Co-founder, VEDA Data; Rep. Yvette Clarke; Rep. Will Hurd; Angela Roseboro, Head of Global Diversity, Inclusion & Equity, Dropbox; Julie Stitzel, Managing Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives, Chamber Technology Engagement Center (C_TEC); Linda Moore, President and CEO, TechNet.

At SXSW this year, the first ever Pitch Black 2018: The Future is Female competition will take place on Sunday at the JW Marriott, Salon 4 from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The event showcases four black female founders and co-founders who will compete for a chance to win a $10,000 investment from Silicon Valley-based VC firm Backstage Capital, an African-American female-led venture capital fund that invests in new companies led by women, people of color and LGBTQ founders.

And how can someone pass up a discussion with a title: Women Rule?

On Monday, at the Fairmount in the Wisteria Room, Politico’s Anna Palmer will do a live taping of her Women Rule Podcast with Milk Bar CEO and Founder Christina Tosi and Wendy Davis, former Texas State Senator and founder of Deeds Not Words. They will talk about their accomplishments and advice for other women looking to lead.

There’s a big focus on VC and capital and getting it into the hands of female founders this year.

On Tuesday, Ingrid Vanderveldt will present a session on Empowering a Billion Women with $1 Billion by 2020 at the Hilton Austin Downtown, Salon H. The event takes place from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Also on Tuesday, catch Women + the Power of Community with Audrey Gelman. She co-founded The Wing, a New York City-based co-working and community space for women. She’ll be interviewed by Alyssa Mastromonaco, former Deputy Chief of Staff of Operations under President Obama.

On Wednesday, Movement Building, Women are Changing the World panel addresses the #MeToo movement and other recent pushes for equality. The event takes place at the Westin Austin downtown, Continental 1 & 2, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

South by Southwest is a place where startups launch and get major traction. That’s why it’s also home to many pitch events. Here’s the top seven for your consideration.

Release It Sessions 1 & 2
Release It at SXSW Interactive Festival is a place for startups to launch a product or service and a panel of judges picks the winner.
WHEN: Friday, March 9: 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Hilton Austin Downtown, Salon D

SXSW Accelerator & Demo Day
The 2018 SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event features 50 startups from the U.S. and worldwide. They compete in 10 categories from March 9th to March 11th in the Hilton Salon AB. All 50 will be at the Demo Day on Monday, March 12.
WHEN: Monday, March 12: 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Hilton Austin Downtown, Salon C

Sound Ventures Presents: PerfectPitch
Sound Ventures, founded by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary, is hosting PerfectPitch featuring five startups competing for $100,000. Judges include Matthew McConaughey, Marc Benioff, Melody McCloskey & Gary Vaynerchuk
WHEN: Saturday, March 10: 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
WHERE: Hotel Van Zandt, 605 Davis St.

Hatch Pitch Competition
Four finalists will pitch at the Hatch Pitch event before a panel of community, corporate, angel and VC judges.
WHERE: Capital Factory
WHEN: Monday, March 12 at 9:30 a.m.

Food+City Pitch Competition: Food Systems Innovations, Sessions 1-3
The fourth annual Food+City Challenge Prize is an international competition among early-stage business startups encouraging innovation in the urban food system. Finalists addressing issues such a storage, distribution, packaging, waste, and more will compete for up to $50,000 in prizes.
WHEN: Tuesday, March 13: 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Hilton Austin Downtown, Salon C

PitchTexas: Graduate Startup Pitch Competition
Student-led startups from across the United States will compete for cash prizes in front of a panel of judges.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 14: 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Hilton Austin Downtown, Salon A

SXSW Gaming Pitch Competition Finals:
The pitch event features guest judges David Eddings (Rooster Teeth), Elizabeth Howard (Aspyr), Nigel Lowrie (Devolver Digital), and Jared Epicpower (Muxy). It will spotlight some of the most innovative ideas in gaming.
WHEN: Friday, March 16: 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
WHERE: Austin Convention Center, Gaming Expo, Discovery Stage, Exhibit Hall 2

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

South by Southwest is about to begin.

That means anxiety is at an all-time high. Because fear of missing the panel or keynote or meetup, movie, band, party that everyone is talking about is real. But the great thing about SXSW is that you will miss some great stuff. No doubt about it. No one can do everything that is cool at the Interactive, Film and Music conference that runs from March 9th to March 17th at venues throughout Austin.

And guess what? That’s OK. Just go with the flow. Right now, I have favorited more than 500 panels, talks, book signings and meetups on the SXSW Schedule app. And I will make it to a fraction of them. But the fact that there is so much going on at SXSW is what keeps people coming back year after year. And the people that you meet in chance encounters. The people make the event. They are highly creative, energized and inquisitive. Try to make as many connections as possible.

There are so many fabulous speakers this year including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Co-Chair Melinda Gates, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Bestselling Authors Ryan Holiday Tim Ferris, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Daniel Pink, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Gayle King, Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe, Strangeworks Founder and CEO William Hurley, known as Whurley, to mention a few.

Big trends to look out for this year include blockchain and cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence and robots, diversity and inclusion and lots of focus on startups looking for the next breakout technology and company.

SXSW is a melting pot of cultures and people from all over the world. Make sure to attend some of the special events put on by the European Union, China, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Scandinavia and so many more.

And if you’re wondering what to wear, check out this article in Forbes about six inspirational style guides for the conference.

New this year is the Fairmount Hotel, which opens just in time for SXSW and is home to the Brands & Marketing” track at SXSW 2018.

Also, there’s a new beer in town for the event. The Oasis Brewing Company in cooperation with Hackney House and London, will be launching a craft beer called the Cockney Cowboy at the Cockney Cowboy Calling Event.

HBO is also creating a special set of the town of Sweetwater from its hit series Westworld, a Wild West theme park filled with robotic hosts that let guests do whatever they please, on a ranch outside of Austin. Reservations to visit the attraction have sold out in advance but HBO promises to release batches throughout SXSW to people who follow its social media feeds.

Here’s a roundup of some of the best SXSW lists by topic. Check them out. (And if you want to get together and talk about lessons learned and inspirational content, companies and people coming out of the conference, join us at Galvanize later this month for a SXSW Recap.)

Also, be sure to subscribe to our podcast, Ideas to Invoices, which we launched last year at SXSW. We’ll be interviewing special guests throughout SXSW. And visit our SiliconHillsNews.com website daily for our stories.

INTERACTIVE

8 All Important Links for SXSW 2018 by Hugh Forrest, SXSW programming director. (Check out his numerous posts on Medium highlighting various speakers at the event)

The Austin Chronicle’s Guide: The AC Inside and Out Guide to SXSW.

Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory, wrote The Austinpreneur’s Guide to SXSW 2018 Panels & Parties

Marc Nathan put together a 2018 SXSW VIP Insiders Guide

UT at SXSW

National Public Radio’s Your Guide to NPR at SXSW2018

Best of SXSW 2018: Marketer’s guide to talks, networking events & more by Blast PR
FILM

Rolling Stones’ 20 Movies We Can’t Wait to See at SXSW 2018

Insider’s Guide to SXSW Film Festival 2018
ART

Austin Monthly’s SXSW 2018: 5 Art Installations to Check Out

MUSIC

The Music Bloggers Guide to SXSW 2018

Maxim’s Guide: Where to Eat, Drink and Party Down in Austin for SXSW 2018

If you have a guide that should be on this list, drop an email to LauraLorek@gmail.com and we’ll update it. Thanks.

DivInc, the Austin-based accelerator focused on helping minority and women entrepreneurs, announced Wednesday its latest cohort with 11 startups.

The program is set to launch April 2nd and will be based at Capital Factory. It is the fourth class of entrepreneurs that DivInc has coached and mentored. In 2016, Preston James, Ashley Jennings, and Dana Callender founded DivInc to bring greater entrepreneurial diversity to Austin’s technology industry.

The startups include:

BidCrane, founded by Brandon Matthews and Xavier Madison,

Fire Spike, founded by Anthony James,

Game Time Giving, founded by Detrick DeBurr,

Intervene.io, founded by Aaron McCloud and Mehul Shah,

JuiceBox Hero, founded by Laurie Felker Jones,

Kinn, founded by Tarica Navarro,

LAMIK, founded by Kim Roxie,

Omaiven Health, founded by Jerold McDonald and Ani Bagepalli,

Oros Messaging, founded by Amit Patel

ProMama, founded by Jessica Gaffney and Ariele Rosch,

Search Party, founded by Meredith Sanger and Andrea Sanger,

The program involves training and mentoring and culminates with a Demo Day on June 22.

“To date, DivInc has graduated 3 cohorts made up of 34 diverse founders and 26 companies,” according to a news release. “Its alumni have gone on to top accelerators like Sputnik and Mass Challenge, and have raised a combined amount of $1.8 million, created 57 jobs and generated about $1 million in revenues.”

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

Launching a startup involves all kinds of paperwork and technical details that can bog down an entrepreneur.

Gabe Wilcox, founder of MineralSoft, an automated revenue management system for mineral rights, not only had to deal with bringing his idea to life but the nitty gritty details of paperwork.

Early on, Wilcox turned to David Perez, founder of Lumen Insurance Technologies, for advice on what insurance policies he needed.

“I think David has really slotted in from the get go as more of an advisor to us,” Wilcox said.

In 2016, MineralSoft began working with Perez and Lumen Insurance and at every stage of the company’s growth, Perez has been able to advise Wilcox on the kinds of policies the company needs like directors and officers’ liability Insurance, general liability and commercial property insurance.

“It let me focus on the core business stuff,” Wilcox said. “David is someone we can trust.”

Perez launched his startup, Lumen Insurance, based at Galvanize in downtown Austin, two years ago. He caters exclusively to technology startups companies.

One of the clients that inspired him to start his company was Honest Dollar, which later sold to Goldman Sachs.

“David understands the constraints startups have,” said David Cardona, who worked as general counsel at Honest Dollar and is now working on another stealth startup.

In the beginning, Honest Dollar didn’t have revenue, had raised a seed stage funding round and needed a lot of basic insurance like general liability, workers compensation, and cyber liability, Cardona said.

“We needed quite a bit of stuff,” he said. “We wanted one resource that could help us get the best quotes. Dave was good at finding us policies at a low cost that we could afford.”

Perez also got to know a small startup at the time, Opcity, which had offices at Galvanize. Opcity only had a handful of employees when Perez began working with them. Today, the company has more than 270 employees and has leased an entire office building.

Other clients include Hanger Technology, Student Loan Genius, Telestax, SchoolLinks, Olono and others.

For Perez, the startup is born out of his mission to be of service to others. A Houston Native, Perez graduated from Texas A&M where he served in the Corp of Cadets, a student military organization. He comes from a family with a military background. His dad served in the Army in Korea and both grandfathers served in WWII. The horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11 happened when Perez was in college and that spurred him to join the Air Force after graduation. He served six and a half years in the Air Force stationed in California and Wyoming.

In Wyoming, he was a nuclear weapons operator at a missile alert facility. He later earned his MBA at Colorado State University.

When Perez left the Air Force in 2010, he returned to Texas. He had married his college sweetheart, Bethany, who was also from Texas. They had family in the insurance industry. His uncle was an insurance underwriter and his father in law was an agent. He went to work for a small regional firm headquartered in Austin that only targeted companies that had revenue of $10 million and up.

“I felt like working for the middle market there – we couldn’t bring clients on unless they were a certain size,” Perez said. “It was a little bit more of a mismatch with my general network and the opportunity for their growth. I had a bunch of friends who were starting technology companies. That was not a target market for us.”

But Perez started getting opportunities to work with tech companies and that’s when he launched Lumen Insurance in 2016.

“I’m investing my time and energy in people when most of the other folks – especially the big firms – they are not going to touch anybody until they are paying $100K in premiums,” Perez said.

His main competition comes from online firms, but he doesn’t have a lot of local competition for the startup business, he said.

This year, Lumen is looking to do business with tech companies in Austin, San Antonio and throughout Central Texas. He also plans to build his team and bring more people on in Texas. Lumen Insurance has clients in San Antonio, Dallas, and the United Kingdom and Australia.

Startups need insurance during the formation, funding, expansion and high growth stages, Perez said.

“I’m not going to sell someone something they don’t need or don’t want,” Perez said. He’s all about developing long-term relationships with the entrepreneurs he invests his time in.

“I want to take care of people,” he said. “I was in the service because I want to serve others.”

Perez is very much a facilitator in the Austin startup community, Cardona said.

“He likes to bring people together to make connections,” he said. “It’s not really about him getting business, but it’s about helping people meet each other and expand their network.”

Perez chose to locate his startup at Galvanize because of the opportunity to network with others and the buzz around the coworking environment and the startups based there. He also likes where Galvanize has its other campuses: Boulder, Denver, New York, Seattle. He wants to be in the tech hubs when he scales Lumen Insurance nationally, he said.

Lumen Insurance is like the David to the Goliath tech insurance companies, Perez said. There are better-funded resources and organizations out there, but they are not going to send someone from on high to deal with startups, Perez said.

“I see things through a different lens,” Perez said. “When people start their company, I want to be a part of their team from the beginning.”

Perez chose the name Lumen because it’s all about shedding light on what is going on in the insurance business for emerging technology startups. He wants to be helpful and to educate tech startups and be a resource for them throughout their journey.

“We help them see things that are beneficial for their business,” Perez said.

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