Judge at the Freed Family Pitch Competition

The Freed Family Pitch Competition, previously known as DisrupTexas, is an annual pitch competition for undergraduate students at The University of Texas at Austin. This competition is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for experiential learning and a chance for student teams to walk away with some serious cash.

The Freed Family Pitch Competition seeks to create a legacy of successful student entrepreneurs and empowers the leaders of tomorrow to innovate and attain their full potential. During the competition, students have the opportunity to hone their business strategy, get professional feedback on their pitches, and form lasting relationships with mentors in the Texas entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The Freed Family Pitch Competition offers the opportunity to judge during application, semi-final, and final rounds. 

Judge at the Forty Acres Founders Pitch Competition

The Forty Acres Founders Program is a semester long practicum offered by the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center designed to help student founders establish product-market fit for their ideas and launch businesses from a position of strength, increasing the number of successful and scalable businesses launched from The University of Texas at Austin.

After an intense semester of honing their concepts, founders submit their pitch to earn a spot in the Forty Acres Founders Pitch Competition to compete for $20,000 in grant funding. During the competition, students have the opportunity to hone their business strategy, get professional feedback on their pitches, and form lasting relationships with mentors in the Texas entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The Forty Acres Founders Pitch Competition offers the opportunity to judge during application reivew, Finalist pitches, and elevator pitches. 

About the Forty Acres Founders Pre-Accelerator Program 

Launched in Spring 2020, the Forty Acres Founders Program at the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center offers undergraduate student founders the opportunity to study potential customers, improve their product, establish product-market fit, and position their product for success within the marketplace.

Students learn to vet their ideas, develop skills for researching and understanding customer needs, and develop tools for building a product and service that appropriately fit a market need.

Learn more about the Forty Acres Founders Program here. 

Mentor a Forty Acres Founder

The Forty Acres Founders Program, hosted each spring semester, offers undergraduate and graduate student founders the opportunity to study potential customers, improve their product, establish product-market fit, and position their product for success in the marketplace.

Mentors provide guidance to participants as they work to discern if a need exists for their startup concept in the market. Mentor meetings can occur in person or remotely and will be scheduled based on the availability of the founder and the mentor. By participating, mentors agree to provide 1 hour of support to their founder match each week for 10 weeks.

Lead a Forty Acres Founders Seminar

Guest speakers in the Forty Acres Founders Program will lead a one-hour seminar on a topic related to establishing product-market fit. Some guest speakers may also be asked to attend an additional “check-in” session, where they will provide feedback to undergraduate founders on their progress through the customer discovery process.

Examples of weekly seminar topics include: Customer Discovery, Interviewing, Analyzing Findings, Customer Segments, Pricing, Prototyping, Customer Relationships, and Storytelling.

This recurring speaker series features entrepreneurs from across different industries, enabling students and the community to experience live insights into how to launch an idea into a startup. Speakers are invited to share their entrepreneurial journey and are also invited to network at a post-event reception.

Recent speakers include Tim League, co-founder of Alamo Drafthouse, Vanessa Ogle, Founder of Enseo Tech, Jared Simon, co-founder of HotelTonight, and Julia Cheek, founder of Everlywell.

Watch previous speakers in our event archives. 

Ignite Startup Workshops help aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators develop practical entrepreneurial skills. Workshops are one-hour in length and provide greater insight into topics related to entrepreneurship.

Previous topics include: “Hypothesis Driven Entrepreneurship: Using Feedback from the Market to Define Your Startup Success,” “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch: How to Establish the Right Company Culture,” and “Pitchology: The Art & Science of Persuasive Speaking.”

Watch previous workshops in our event archives. 

Since 2017, members of the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center Advisory Board have utilized their expertise to provide strategic advice on programming to the board chair and the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center.

Board members are instrumental in launching and shaping programs that contribute to an entrepreneurial mindset in future innovators in all majors at the university. Membership provides additional opportunities to engage with students as mentors, guest speakers, and competition judges.

Learn more about our Advisory Board’s impact here.