Geekdom’s 9th annual SA Startup Week event features five days of free panels, workshops, pitch competitions and oodles of networking opportunities for entrepreneurs and those who want to be.
Organizers expect as many as 2,000 people will attend the conference this year, which runs Oct. 14-18, whether dropping in to individual events or following one of the several tracks Geekdom developed to cater to attendees’ various interests or types of events.
That includes tracks for women and Latinx startups and founders, which still capture a lagging share of investment funding — at all stages — compared to those launched by white men.
Geekdom made “a very conscious decision” to create programming aimed at these two populations, said CEO Charles Woodin. San Antonio is a majority Latino city, and women make up half the population, he said. Yet nationally, both groups receive about 2% of the overall investment pie for startups.
Latino-owned businesses made up roughly half of all small businesses launched between 2007 and 2017, according to management consulting firm Bain & Company, but garnered just 2% of venture capital as of 2021.
The number of women-led businesses also continues to rise, but they are also not accessing capital proportionate to their numbers.
Local women- and Latino-owned startups in the San Antonio region are doing better than the national average, Woodin said, but it’s still incumbent on organizations like Geekdom to “lean in” and support pathways for success.
The Latinx track includes panels on cross-border collaboration; near-shoring, or moving supply chains closer to a company’s home, which is becoming an attractive strategy in markets near Mexico; Latinx in Tech; Empowering Latinos to Participate in Y Combinator (a tech startup accelerator and venture capital firm) and more.
Tuesday evening’s Puro Pitch competition, sponsored in part by Hispanics in Philanthropy and Inicio Ventures, offers Latinx entrepreneurs the chance to showcase their business idea or startup, competing for a grand prize of $35,000.
Some panels tick both boxes, like Leading with Vision: Building a Foundation for Inclusive Success, a panel that features Sharon Gutierrez, CEO of Pretty Simple; Christina Olivarez, a founder, CEO and business executive coach; and Mari Zavala, Geekdom’s director of partnerships.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Invest In,” and Woodin says the conference tackles that theme as broadly as possible, such as investing in your startup’s team, but also more traditionally, connecting startups to the investment community. That includes panels on connecting to capital via the Small Business Administration, community funds and San Antonio’s growing small business ecosystem.
Each day of the conference includes a pitch competition or demo, with local entrepreneurs vying for funding and other goodies. On Monday evening, seven participants in Geekdom’s pre-accelerator program will vie for a $20,000 investment.
New this year is a daily social media-based “Pitch It to Win It,” contest, where entrepreneurs can pitch their business ideas to the Startup Week social media team for a chance to win $1,000 each day of the conference.
Panels and workshops on creative businesses, restaurants, retail, beauty and of course technology are peppered throughout the conference. With more than 90 sessions over five days, Woodin said there’s something for every entrepreneur, as well as those “interested in what’s happening in this ecosystem.” There’s no deadline to register.
“I recommend people dig into the schedule and find those sessions that excite them,” he said. Geekdom’s goal is for everyone who checks out a workshop or even just hits a networking event, “walk away with what we’re calling a gold nugget of information, something they can put into action.”
The conference is free, and those interested in attending are encouraged to register.
