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Entrepreneur's Guide to UT Austin

🏫 Admin/School Led Resources

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Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship
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:

UT Austin’s premier entrepreneurship-fostering hub that provides a wealth of inspiration, resources, and opportunities for aspiring and established founders alike. The Herb Kelleher Center offers several resources and programs for students.
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Entrepreneurship Minor
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:
A comprehensive academic program that fosters venture creation and intrapreneurship students.
Requirements: Students must complete 15 hours of coursework on a letter-grade basis, and at least 9 hours must be non-major courses.
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Forty Acres Founders
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:
Pre-accelerator program that offers undergraduate student founders the opportunity to study potential customers, improve their product, and position themselves for success within the marketplace. The program cycle is outlined below:
Identify a problem worth solving.
Define the target customer and develop a discovery strategy.
Get out of the classroom and meet your market.
Validate product/market fit.
Prepare your idea to become a venture.
Contact Information
amanda.golden@mccombs.utexas.edu
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DisrupTexas Undergraduate Pitch Competition
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:
Annual pitch competition for undergraduate students across Texas.
The mission is to create a legacy of successful student entrepreneurs by allowing them the opportunity to hone business strategy, get professional feedback, and form lasting relationships with mentors in the Texas entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Applications for this competition are open to all students at UT Austin, and founders across all industries are encouraged to apply.
Prizes are mainly cash-based, with first place taking $8,000 second taking $4,000, third taking $2,000, and fourth taking $1,000.
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McCombs Entrepreneur Summer Fellowship (MESF)
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:
A fellowship funded by alumni donors and the Herb Kelleher Center that enables students to continue building their startups throughout the summer.
Applicants working any stage of a startup from ideation to scaling are eligible to apply.
MBA students can receive up to a $5,000 fellowship stipend and undergraduates can receive up to $3,000.

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Austin Technology Incubator (ATI)
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:

A deep technology incubator that serves student and faculty entrepreneurs to explore deep technology solutions that address the world’s challenges. ATI offers a multitude of programs for students at UT Austin.
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Blackstone LaunchPad
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:
Multidisciplinary program that enables participants to access one-on-one mentoring, grow their network, and access resources for their success.
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Student Entrepreneur Acceleration and Launch (SEAL)
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:
UT Austin’s selective summer accelerator that picks the most promising startups and helps them through their next market-driven milestone. To date, SEAL companies have raised $100M and generated over $400M in valuation. This is a 9-week program that includes:
Mentorship: participants learn from field experts, who offer their experience and insight.
Lunch and Learns: Tutorial lunch get-togethers that focus on the basics of building a scalable company.
Fundraising Pitch development: Teams pitch their products on the first day and continue improving on them throughout the program.
D-Day: The hallmark decision day, where a board of judges decides whether or not the project can survive in the real world based on research and advice.
Relationships: A lasting network with entrepreneurs and mentors in the Austin ecosystem.
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FASTForward Austin
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:
10-week training program designed for Austin-based small businesses to accelerate growth and maximize profit.x
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3-Day Startup
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:
72-hour learning-by-doing workshop that teaches entrepreneurial skills in a hands-on environment.
Orientation: Participants meet and learn how to get the most value out of the 3-day experience.
Day 1: Facilitators help lead students through brainstorming, pitches, and team selection.
Day 2: A heavy emphasis is made on generating business models, and activities from day 1 are continued and improved on.
Day 3: Wrapping up experiences from the past 2 days and leading into the final pitches and demos to an esteemed panel of mentors and investors.

Courses offered by UT Austin:

MIS304: Programming and Problem Solving
ES 177: Longhorn Startup Seminar
OM337: Product Development
MAN336P: Social Entrepreneurship 1
ME266K: Mechanical Engineering Design Project
CHE 379: Entrepreneurship
CHE 380: Entrepreneurship
EE364E: Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurship
ITD350: Women in Entrepreneurship
UGS303: Entrepreneurship UGS
DES 340C: Identity Systems
ADV 332: New Media Entrepreneurialism

Bridging Disciplines Programs (BDP):

These are course programs offered by the university that combine courses from several different departments to give students the entrepreneurial and creative skills to turn ideas into ventures. There are two main programs that the University offers.
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Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship
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:
BDP with a focus in business, communication, engineering, fine arts, and liberal arts. A complete description of the coursework requirements can be found on the website linked in the program name.
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Social Entrepreneurship & Non-Profits
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:
BDP that brings students who are interested in the public service sector and expanding their involvement in the community together. A complete description of the coursework requirements can be found on the website linked in the program name.

🌱 Undergraduate Led Resources

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Genesis
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:

A student-run, alumni-backed venture capital fund working to transform entrepreneurship at UT Austin by providing equity-free funding, mentorship, and investing experience for student-led startups.
Genesis performs on-campus deal sourcing and encourages student founders to apply for funding, helping them along each step of the way (NOTE: Any company can apply as long as at least one student on the founding team is registered at UT Austin).
After applying, students will be invited to pitch and greenlit for due diligence. Companies that make it through this stage become part of the portfolio and are offered funding and mentorship.
Genesis also hosts office hours for aspiring founders to get reliable advice on their startups and other forms of mentorship.
Contact Information
leadershipteam@genesisprogram.org

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Texas Convergent
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:

An interdisciplinary application-based organization that focuses on bringing together technology, business, and design to build/further entrepreneurial products and drive innovation. Convergent is split up into an incubator and build program.
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Build Teams
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:
Semester-long program that challenges students to bring a prototyped idea into a functional startup. Teams of roughly 8 from tech, business, and design backgrounds work to create a full stack application. Build teams are further split into Foundational and Case-based build teams.
Foundational Build Teams: A project-based program mainly geared towards newcomers wanting to learn how to code.
Case-based Build Teams: Students work on cases throughout the semester to build products from the ground up that provide a solution to their respective cases.
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Incubator
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:
Semester-long program that startups apply to in order to help scale their product on both technical and business sides. Students can also apply to be the engineers and designers that help these chosen startups scale.

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Longhorn Entrepreneurship Agency (LEA)
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:

An arm of the Student Government that is dedicated to fostering and supporting entrepreneurship on campus by building a culture for potential founders and giving them the resources to start their companies and succeed. LEA runs several programs for aspiring entrepreneurs.
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Freshman Founders
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:
Application-based program designed for and limited to freshmen interested in entrepreneurship that is split into two main sub-programs, Accelerator and Fellowship.
Accelerator:
Year-long program that gives students the knowledge and resources to turn their ideas into companies.
Build your own startup from the ground up with help from mentors and expand your entrepreneurial skill set with pitch competitions and other events.
Network with other Austin founders and get access to outside resources.
Attend weekly meetings with Austin’s top entrepreneurs and mentors.
Fellowship:
Year-long program that introduces students to entrepreneurship by exposing them to startup environments.
Learn the fundamentals of entrepreneurship through exclusive events in the Austin community.
Collaborate with other talented students to learn from their ideas, perspectives, and experiences.
Contact Information
utsglea@gmail.com
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Founder's Table
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:
A community of Longhorn startup founders within the LEA ecosystem that is open to any UT student working on a startup.
Members meet biweekly to discuss obstacles they are facing, provide feedback, and share progress with each other.
Contact Information
utsglea@gmail.com

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Social Entrepreneurship Learning Lab (SELL)
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:

An 8-week interdisciplinary fellowship for passionate undergraduates who want to create meaningful social ventures for their community.
How it works:
Get “good” people: recruit people who are invested in social causes and want to make a significant impact.
Show them it’s possible: Students will come to understand and pursue social entrepreneurship through workshops, mentorships, etc.
Give them good tools: The fellows have access to SELL curriculum and resources that will benefit them greatly
Find them friends: SELL is a lifetime community that allows all fellows to continuously support each other in their endeavors.
The goal: SELL aims to invest in these good people by making them into changemakers who will have huge positive impacts on their community.
Contact Information
sellfellowship@gmail.com

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Texas Product Engineering Organization (TPEO)
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:

Fellowship for students of all majors that teaches how to build modern technology products. TPEO accepts Engineering, Product, Design, and Operations fellows.
Teach full-stack engineering, UI/UX design, and product management in semester-long designed courses.
Provides fellows with hands-on entrepreneurial experience through impactful projects and work at local startups.
Foster a community of innovators and builders within the UT ecosystem.
Contact Information
team@txproduct.org

🐂 Graduate Led Resources

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John Brumley Texas Venture Labs (JBTVL)
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:

A campus-wide initiative that aims to transform graduate students into entrepreneurs and business leaders through hands-on startup experience.
Accelerator:
Seeking Austin startups.
JBTVL Accelerator is a zero-cost, zero-equity program that connects Austin startups with graduate student consultants for up to 300 hours over a semester.
In addition to consulting, JBTVL Accelerator also provides resources, talent, and connections to keep the startups growing.
Startups from all industries are encouraged to apply, since graduates in MBA, MSTC, and MS students come from all kinds of backgrounds.
Practicum:
Connecting local startups with talented graduate students from UT Austin.
Students participate in semester-long consulting projects that solve important problems alongside respective founders.
Since 2010, 775+ Masters and PhD students have gone through the JBTVL Practicum, each serving 200-300 hours of quality consulting work.
Investment Competition:
A biannual competition where UT graduate students get the chance to pitch their startup ideas to a panel of investors and entrepreneurs.
Past participants have gone on to do great things after launching their startups. Notable names are
uShip
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,
BeatBox Beverages
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, and
Odoro
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.
Winner of the competition will receive $15,000, a seat in the newly-founded Company-in-Residence Program, $10,000 in AWS credits, a free 3 months at
Capital Factory
⁠
, and access to
LeanStack
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tools along with a personalized coaching session with its founder. There are also notable prizes for second and third place winners.

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Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic (ECDC)
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:

Provides transactional business law representation to entrepreneurs, non-profits, and community groups.
Clients are strengthening their communities by helping create jobs, preserve affordable housing, and provide valuable goods for their communities.
Notable cases and projects that ECDC has worked on are:
Multicultural Refugee Coalition: An Austin non-profit working to create opportunities for refugees through training and employment.
November November Films: A startup film production company that ECDC helped prepare music and license contracts for, among other legal needs that had huge benefits for the company down the line.

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Social Innovation Initiative (SII)
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:

UT Austin’s hub on campus for innovation in social and environmental impact.
SII’s mission is to prepare future leaders to address societal and environmental challenges through any career path and nurture the possibilities of purposeful businesses that may stem from these.
Their vision is a world where profits and purpose meet to drive positive change.

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Venture Fellows:
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⁠

UT McCombs Venture Fellow program is a robust, year-long program for a selected group of MBA students. The fellowship consists of working with some of the best private equity and venture capital firms in the nation and engagement with a variety of experts to provide value for the community.
Fellows provide analytical and financial analysis, deal sourcing, and ops support.
Engagement in boardroom conversations with experts in VC, PE and successful entrepreneurs.
Networking opportunities traveling the country, meeting with top-tier firms.

✨ Relevant Off-Campus Resources

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Capital Factory
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:

A well-known hub of entrepreneurship that aims to connect Austin entrepreneurs with their first customers, employees, mentors, and investors. Capital Factory partners with top tech and consulting companies along with universities to provide a productive working environment for entrepreneurs and startups in their network

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Congress Avenue Ventures
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⁠

A smart, simple way for UTexas alums and friends of the community to add venture capital to their portfolio. We are also…
A full-time alumni investment team
An Investment Committee with with broad professional, investing, and entrepreneurial experience
Fast growing community of 11k subscribers and community members
Private, for-profit, and not officially sanctioned by the university

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