Awareness emerged as an early theme as would-be, fledgling and established entrepreneurs gathered for San Antonio Startup Week on Monday morning on the 24th floor of Frost Tower, with its 360-degree views of downtown and beyond.
For all its recent strides and wins, San Antonio still suffers from a lack of awareness, said Jenna Saucedo-Herrera at the conference’s opening session — awareness of the story it has to tell about itself and awareness around what kind of support is available for companies looking to launch and grow here.
Saucedo-Herrera, president and CEO of Greater: SATX, San Antonio’s regional economic development organization, joined former mayor and U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro on stage to discuss past and current efforts to position the city as a place worth investing in.
San Antonio is often overshadowed by Texas’ other major metros, especially Austin, which has long garnered more investment. But Austin’s success has also put pressure on its affordability and livability, things that San Antonio retains.
The issue for San Antonio is “an awareness problem,” she said. “We need to do a better job of telling our story — and that requires time and investment. It’s not just as simple as saying, ‘Here are the ideas, funders — now come to San Antonio.”
She listed a catalog of efforts underway to raise that awareness, within Greater:SATX and beyond, including a nationwide advertising campaign. She acknowledged that the work happening now will take time to bear fruit.
Castro turned it back on the crowd.
“Y’all are the best ambassadors to venture capitalists, to getting more funders interested in what’s happening here,” he said. “Your success … acclimates those folks to the idea that it’s possible here, that something’s going on here.”
The eighth annual free conference, organized by Geekdom, will run for the next six days, with dozens of panels, interactive workshops and pitch contests aimed at bolstering San Antonio’s growing startup sector.
Geekdom CEO Charles Woodin, in his opening remarks, described creating an audacious goal during Startup Week two years ago: to help launch 500 startups over the next 10 years, with 75% of those based in San Antonio.
Geekdom, which began 12 years ago mainly as a co-working space downtown, now serves as an incubator, not just for tech startups, but for anyone with a business idea. The company also recently won the contract to run Launch SA, San Antonio’s longtime small business accelerator.
That expansion appears to be paying off. In just the past two years, Woodin told the assembled to applause, “we have already helped launch 279 new startups in this community.”
And just as Startup Week is aimed at connecting entrepreneurs to the resources they will need to be successful, at least one panel acknowledged how difficult it can be for founders to navigate among the dozens of organizations in San Antonio that offer various types of business and financial support.
A session on how to engage with entrepreneurial support organizations to “strengthen your business” included LiftFund, UTSA’s Small Business Development Center and a co-founder of the San Antonio Business Calendar, a subscription-based calendar of business-related events in the city.
During the course of the panel, several other business development organizations were mentioned, including VelocityTX, Capital Factory and Launch SA. Dozens more were not.
Alma Valdez Brown, a senior business development officer with LiftFund, which makes loans to small business owners who don’t qualify for traditional financing, suggested that those who don’t know where to turn begin with UTSA’s small business development center.
Richard Sifuentes, who directs the center, acknowledged that each organization has a slightly different focus. “But we’re never shy about referring a client to another one of our organizations.”
For time-pressed entrepreneurs, figuring out where to get help can be overwhelming, said Amy Lynn Johnson, founder of The Dog Guide San Antonio. When you don’t know what you don’t know, it can be difficult to figure out which organization can meet your needs, she said.
“It’s a lot of trial and error,” she said. “And I learned that I might not have gotten the thing that I thought I was going to out of different [organizations] at different times, but I always met somebody new. But I kept showing up for myself and for my business.”
Showing up has paid off for Johnson, who has been attending Startup Week for the past five years. This year, she has transitioned from attendee to moderating a panel she pitched to organizers: Navigating the Intersection of Motherhood and Entrepreneurship.
She said Saucedo-Herrera’s morning message about awareness resonated with her.
Living in San Antonio since middle school, Johnson said she didn’t hear many conversations when she was younger about what kinds of opportunities might be available to her.
“I came to my career very creatively,” she said. “So it’s so great to have places like this now, and weeks like this where everyone can come together. The energy here, the connections you make, they’re going to lead to something.”
