Austin's Cuvée Coffee takes coffee culture to the bean
Editor's Note: This is the first installment of a new continuing series that highlights Austin innovators and entrerpreneurs. Mike McKim loves coffee. He loves drinking it, yes, but his passion goes...
View ArticleBiometric matching in the cloud: Tactical Information Systems can find you
Jumping out of airplanes — and landing safely on the ground — demands some level of perfection: The chute must be packed right, the rigging strong, the techniques practiced. Failure is not really an...
View ArticleHealth bling: Rapper Paul Wall touts health as the ultimate status symbol...
When you think hip hop, let’s face it, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t health. But if Houston based rapper and innovative serial entrepreneur Paul Wall has his way, it soon will be. Wall has...
View ArticleEllie Scarborough of Pink Kisses: Building bombshells one woman at a time
It's often a crisis that prompts a person looks for his or her larger purpose in life. For Ellie Scarborough, CEO of Pink Kisses (PK), it was a devastating break-up that set plans for a...
View ArticleMaking local news relevant: Community Impact brings the local paper back...
Nobody thought John Garrett could possibly succeed. In a new media environment — a revolution in media really — Garrett planned to bring back a dinosaur, a weekly newspaper. "I was convinced that the...
View ArticleRoll with it: Record-breaking Cinetics puts cameras in unexpected places
“It’s really easy to have an idea,” says founder and CEO of Cinetics, Justin Jensen, of entrepreneurialism. “But it’s the act of putting everything aside and saying 'Alright, I'm going to do it.'"...
View ArticleFun for all and all for fun: Toy Joy teaches Austin how to play
Where do you go if you really need a strong hit of nonsensical pleasure? Here in Austin, there is a place dedicated to the weird, fun vibe we've come to love. The store is Toy Joy, and its mission,...
View ArticleCreative collaboration as a business model: Arts + Labor film, video and more
Creating art has never been easy business. The creative process takes time, it takes risk and it becomes personal. None of those attributes suit the building of a profitable business. But one thing...
View ArticleTake me away and make it easy: HomeAway innovates to provide new travel apps
HomeAway’s hard-to-miss headquarters at the intersection of Lamar and 5th Street became a 24/7 entrepreneurial boot camp over the last weekend and the companies that were invented are quite likely to...
View ArticleTim League and the accidental drive home that became Alamo Drafthouse
Tim League drove home using the same usual route from his two year-old engineering job at Shell Oil in Bakersfield, California. It was 1993, League was 23 years old. The Shell job was his first out of...
View ArticleVacationing with HomeAway: Success depends on the people
New businesses sprout from ideas born a myriad of ways, the consistent source of success though is passion and there are few things we all get more passionate about than a good vacation. But HomeAway,...
View ArticleEntrepreneurship in Austin, Texas: Where fulfilling a dream is possible
In the current Wild West days of start-ups and micro-entrepreneurs anything is possible, and there is no place more practicing of that ideology than Austin, Texas. Having lived in Los Angeles for a...
View ArticleTabbedout: A business based on getting you out of the bar faster
Great ideas grow from the seeds of small problems. "Wouldn't it be great if...?" moments happen all the time, but occasionally someone with a passion for work and a love of finding solutions decides...
View ArticleOne sweet ending: How Tiff's Treats evolved from an unlikely place
When stood up for a date, Leon Chen couldn't have expected the sour evening would be the impetus for a booming, state-wide business. But when he saw the apologetic gesture of freshly baked cookies...
View ArticleThe restaurant grower: Luby's COO Pete Tropoli focused on raising the bar...
In a way, Luby's chief operating officer Pete Tropoli has been connected to Luby’s since birth. “I was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital and we actually have that food services account now," he says. A...
View ArticleMarsha Milam makes the Texas music business sing
When your Dad's a wildcatter in Texas, your path can be set for you quite early in life. "My father was in the oil business, so I was brought up by a person who was self-employed. I never wanted to...
View ArticleHow Do You Roll? Fast, casual and made to order with a generous dash of ambition
"An entrepreneur is somebody that has a vision of what the future is before it exists… and then has the drive, need and desire to make that vision a reality," says Yuen Yung, CEO and co-founder of How...
View ArticleBeau Theriot's Oasis: Creating Austin's iconic lakeside retreat
When you think of exchanging Austin city life for a nearby retreat, there’s likely one spot that comes to mind without fail: The Oasis. A lakeside slice of Heaven for over three decades, The Oasis has...
View ArticleFrom fine food to mad music, Michael Hsu leaves a balanced architectural...
Michael Hsu's success as an architect doesn't come from an inkling for power; rather, it's born out of a simple predilection to do what he loves. In fact, if anything, Hsu says he felt reticence to...
View ArticleIngrid Vanderveldt: Empowering women and future entrepreneurs as Dell's firstEIR
In her impressively diverse career, Ingrid Vanderveldt has established herself as a true entrepreneur — and a missionary for the human spirit. As the first ever Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at...
View ArticleBazaarvoice founder Brett Hurt on overcoming fears and initiating conversation
It all started with a baby stroller. A Peg Perego Pliko P3 Stroller, to be specific. Brett Hurt, a new father and burgeoning entrepreneur, was reading an online product review of the stroller by a...
View ArticleCelebrating screenwriters: Barbara Morgan's Austin Film Festival
The Austin Film Festival is different. When Barbara Morgan started the festival in 1994 with her friend Marsha Milam, they did so as entrepreneurs. In other words, they loved film and a festival fed...
View ArticleBuilt from scratch: The 30-year legacy of Michael Angelo's Gourmet Foods
It all started in a 400-square foot kitchen in a bad location, where “the Pac-Man machine grossed more in a day than the restaurant did,” recalls Michael Angelo Renna of the humble beginnings that...
View ArticleSweet Leaf Tea and Deep Eddy Vodka founder Clayton Christopher on taking...
"The greatest rewards come to those that embrace risk and drive forward with passion to achieve their goal,” says Clayton Christopher. As the founder and former CEO of Sweet Leaf Tea, Clayton...
View ArticleKendra Scott goes to Houston: "Like Build-A-Bear for grown women"
Kendra Scott's success story is one for the books: Pregnant and confined to bed rest, with a recently-unemployed husband and a meager bank balance, she began creating custom jewelry. Once she was...
View Article