Bijoy Goswami

The state of tech entrepreneurship in Austin

The state of tech entrepreneurship in Austin

SXSW has long come and gone in this beautiful city - that was, like, weeks ago! Like years past, it reached more epic heights this year and companies and investors were spending more on gaining attention than ever before. And with SXSW, the typical, "how is Austin doing at tech entrepreneurship?" question was asked again and again. But out of all of the articles written, the one that I personally heard the most about was this one by PandoDaily: "Will the Austin startup ecosystem ever live up to its promise?"". It stirred me up to read it, no doubt. And it lead me to write this post to share my own thoughts - as an insider - on the state of tech entrepreneurship in Austin.

Bootstrap or VC?

I'll explain why I named my blog Lucky7 on a later post and why I started blogging in this new phase of my life, as an entrepreneur now dedicated to helping other entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. For now, I woke up around 4:30am today thinking about the roots of Bazaarvoice, what I want to teach entrepreneurs, and the debates I used to have with a group that I am indebted to - Bootstrap Austin, started by Bijoy Goswami. The original Bootstrap Austin was truly special and Bijoy did an amazing job bringing together some terrific entrepreneurs. It was there that I met Eric Simone (one of the first investors in Bazaarvoice) as well as Josh Baer (one of the first investors in Bazaarvoice through his team building our first solution and getting paid primarily in equity versus cash).