How to Build Communities that 10x Your Business in Austin

This week's Founder Friday is about a founder building more than just events. With Young Professionals Network, Alec Rios is creating a space where ambitious people can grow their careers, build real relationships, serve their community, and actually enjoy the process. For business owners, the lesson is simple: community gets powerful when you build it intentionally, hold a high standard, and bring the right people into the room.

What are you building and who is it for?

Yeah, so it's called Young Professionals Network.

There are three pillars to what we're building.

Number one is events: hosting the best events in Austin for young professionals. You were at our last one, so I'd love your feedback. Eventually, I'd love to scale that into business conferences. I think it would be great to have Young Professionals Network pockets across the country in all the major cities, funneling into the hub here in Austin and the business conferences we host once a year.

Second, we want to operate like a media company. We're putting a huge effort into our newsletter, launching a podcast, and documenting as much as we can on social media.

Third is the nonprofit side. Every month we have some type of pop-up where 20 or 30 of us go support a local cause and be boots on the ground for amazing groups out here. Last month we partnered with the Best Day Ever Foundation and helped bring 100 customers to a struggling restaurant. We've also helped run a gala, and we've done food drives and toy drives.

What makes Austin special?

Everyone's heard of Silicon Valley: how innovative it is, how growth-oriented it is, how much capital flows into startups there. I lived there for some time, but I also lived in Fresno, the agriculture hub of the country. I think something like 75% of agriculture is grown in Fresno or the Central Valley as a whole. It has more of a farm-town feel, more Southern hospitality, very friendly, family-oriented, community-focused.

Austin felt like a blend of that community-oriented feel and the innovation, growth, and capital flowing here. It made for a really good place for what I was interested in, and for attracting people like myself.

In terms of attracting other people like yourself, what made this impossible for you to ignore?

It's like what you talk about in a lot of your podcast episodes: AI is coming. It's here. So I asked myself, what's something I can do that bets on the next wave?

I missed out on Bitcoin. How cool would it have been if 15 years ago I'd invested in that? Same with Tesla and Nvidia.

When I look at community building, I see something that's still very much in its foundation. For the longest time, it's been dominated by institutional organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. They're a net positive and they do great things. But there are a lot of entrepreneurs I know in their twenties to forties who have never been to a Chamber meeting, let alone heard of it.

So I saw an opportunity. Maybe there's a way to connect the creator economy and entrepreneurs who've become successful through social media, who never needed the Chamber, but still have that same yearning for community.

I don't know how many run clubs there are in Austin, but a new one pops up every day. And even a brand new one can be successful because people just want to be connected.

So my idea was: how can we bridge the institutional side of community that's been around for a long time, like the Chamber of Commerce, with these newer pop-up community builders creating spaces for people like us?

What are some of the things that are working really well that you're surprised about?

The quality of people showing up to our events. A lot of that has to do with how intentional we are about getting the right people in the room.

It's funny. Every time we've run an event, right before launching it, part of my mind goes, maybe we can scale back. Maybe we just go to a restaurant instead of doing the bigger format. You've been to our big quarterly event where we provide food, alcohol, wine, cocktails, and vendor booths.

Part of my brain goes, can we scale back and just provide an appetizer? There's nothing wrong with that. But that's almost my fight-or-flight response trying to retreat. Then all of a sudden I'm like, no, we want to make this big. We want Young Professionals Network to host the best events in Austin.

What's also working is our focus on leadership and developing a great team. Whatever I do, I do through the lens of leadership. We have a team of eight running Young Professionals Network together, with three people helping with marketing, promoting, and scaling our events. That's been huge because we've gotten a lot of traction from organic social.

Our team is also out in the community. We're at events, talking to people, shaking hands. That helps us see the types of people we want to attract.

It's also about maintaining a high standard. When someone comes to our event, we take seriously the fact that they're taking time out of their day, time they could be spending with family, building their business, or at another event. So we want to make it an experience and make sure the right people are there for them to meet.

How seriously we take community building is what's working for us, and why good people keep coming.

Is there a specific Austin resource, a person, a community, that's been particularly valuable for you?

I've been to quite a few Chamber of Commerce meetings, which has been helpful. I like what they're doing.

There's another community called The Table Network that I've been going to for the last few years. It's mostly Christian entrepreneurs connecting, with a lot of nonprofits involved. The person who runs that, Zach Tinney, is incredible. He ran a South by Southwest event that had 2,000 or 3,000 people come out, and he's been doing that for three years.

And there's a gentleman named Matt Worthington. For the longest time, they ran a group called Riser. He's been someone I've learned from by watching the events they've run over the last five years and implementing bits and pieces of what they've done, along with bits and pieces of what the Chamber does.

What types of advice would you have for any aspiring entrepreneurs or business owners in Austin that might help them get to the next level?

You really have to get connected with people in person.

There's a quote I heard once: whatever price it takes to be in the presence of great people, it's worth paying.

I went to an event that cost $100 for a ticket, and I was not trying to spend $100 on a ticket. I'd done that for business conferences, but for a local meetup I was like, I don't know if I want to go. But a lot of people had recommended it (it was something Matt Worthington hosted), so I tried it.

What I've found is that the events you don't want to go to often end up being some of the really good ones.

Get yourself out of your comfort zone, even if you don't know who's going to be there. Go and be willing to get uncomfortable. But also, go with the mindset of how you can serve the people around you. If you go in trying to take, take, take, you're going to get the reputation of someone who's all in it for themselves.

Everything I do is through the lens of: how can I add value to the person across from me? I may not know them, but there's probably something I can do, or someone I can connect them with, that could benefit their life. And you have to be intentional about it, because people who add value to others don't do it accidentally. They do it with intention.

So my advice: really try to add value to the people around you and serve.

What are you guys looking for right now? How can the Austin community help?

What we're looking for is continuing to bring in the right people — people who want to grow and who are serious about relationships, business, and taking their life to the next level.

One of the things that took pressure off me when I was first launching Young Professionals Network was realizing that if you just get the right people in the room, magic happens.

So we've been very intentional about getting the right people in the room and continuing to get the message out.

Right now, it's really just getting involved with what we're doing. And if you know of any great service projects or nonprofit organizations that could benefit from having 20 or 30 people come help and support, we have a good group that would be willing to get behind different causes.

So yeah, those are probably a couple of the main things we're looking for right now.

It's Young Professionals Network. Is there an age limit?

Twenties to forties is the most common crowd at our events, but at the end of the day (and I know this might sound cheesy), it's really about being young in spirit.

My dad just turned 60, and when you meet him, he has more energy than anyone else in the room. He's on the dance floor more than people half his age.

It's about being someone who comes in wanting to serve and add value to others. That's what we ask for: put your best foot forward and contribute more than you try to take.

Are there any questions that I should have asked that I didn't?

I want to come back to your earlier question about advice for entrepreneurs.

Whenever you go into something, you want to have a mid- to long-term outlook. If you chase quick wins or cut corners, success can disappear just as quickly as it came.

I heard Alex Hormozi say this once: the fastest way to get to $10 million isn't necessarily the fastest way to get to $100 million.

If you have a five- to ten-year outlook, it's going to require a different style of work. You may also not get results as quickly as you'd like. Thankfully, we're only about seven months into launching Young Professionals Network, and we already had our biggest event a couple of weeks ago with around 120 people.

But our very first event, where we were trying to get 100 people there, is only now starting to feel worth it. It's stacking, it's compounding.

If you're going to build something, build it with the right values and the right character, because that's what sets the foundation. You can make a lot of money in the short term by cutting corners, but you'll get a bad reputation, and people will find out what you're really about.

If you want to build something long term, the only way is with those values. That's where you see real scale happen.

Where can people learn more?

You can learn more about Young Professionals Network and upcoming events at austinypn.com, and connect with Alec on LinkedIn.