Funding in Austin — Stop Your Bitching and Just Hustle

I rarely write blog posts, but I felt compelled to do so because I keep seeing so many entrepreneurs in Austin complaining about the lack of funding in Austin and I am frustrated.

Funding comes down to a few major things. Who you are, what your background is, what your record or success has been, the traction your startup is getting, and the potential size of your business. If all of those things are good, you will get funding. If they aren’t, maybe you don’t deserve funding…

Don’t get me wrong, funding for RoverPass (my most recent venture) has not been a cake walk. We have struggled just like any other startup to get our funding rounds. I am not writing this sitting on a 5M bank balance right after a Series A round. I am in the stage where most of the tech entrepreneurs in Austin are at — Seed Stage.

Many startups are complaining about getting funding here in Austin because it’s hard. WAKE UP-its supposed to be hard. You are an entrepreneur because you do the things that are HARD. Other people don’t do them because they are too hard to do. Your hustle is unlike that of others. That is the essence of being an entrepreneur.

I keep hearing that there is no funding in Austin — you have to go to New York or San Francisco to go find the big bucks. This is true and an undisputed fact so get up, book a plane ticket, and go do the road show like so many of us have. In fact, as I write this, I am motivating myself to do the same thing.

The reality is that this city is significantly more sustainable than places like SF and NYC. The sheer number of busted startups is HUGE there. When a bubble pops, they get hit much harder than a city like Austin. Take a look at the recent Tech IPOs out of SF. At the first sign of market turbulence all the SF tech companies stocks are in the shitter (Twitter, Square, GoPro, the list goes on and on). The scarcity of funding in Austin forces only the best to survive. We don’t see huge market corrections like other places with money flowing out of their eyes, ears, and mouths.

In essence, stop complaining and just keep hustling. This is how we making Austin a great city and an amazing place to live.