About this Event
COME FOR THE COFFEE.
LEAVE WITH SOMETHING TO BUILD.
Start Thursday of San Antonio Startup + Tech Week twenty-five floors above downtown San Antonio.
Espresso pulled fresh. Brunch on the table. A DJ easing the morning open. Founders, designers, technologists and creatives sharing the same room while downtown stretches out below.
The Creative Futures is taking over Thursday morning.
The Creative Futures Brunch™ has been bringing San Antonio’s creative and technology communities to the same table since 2019. This year, we’re opening Startup + Tech Week around a simple idea:
Creativity and technology aren’t two different industries. They’re one economy.
AI. Design. Data. Restaurants. Music. Products. Culture. Community.
The future isn’t being built inside one industry anymore. It’s happening in the collisions between them.
So this isn't a startup breakfast with a little creativity sprinkled on top.
The morning itself is the experience.
Music → coffee → bites → conversations.
Come hungry. Come curious. Meet somebody you probably wouldn’t have met otherwise.
Then leave with something to build.
🥐 Brunch Powered By
Box St. Social + Loverboy: House Eats
Start the morning around the table with food from two San Antonio hospitality brands helping shape the places where this city gathers.
☕ Caffeinated By
Pulp Coffee Roasters
Fresh espresso and coffee throughout the morning. Because asking people to discuss the future of technology at 7:30 AM without caffeine would be deeply irresponsible.
🎧 Music Spinning By
DJ Novasoul
The room is already moving when you arrive.
Novasoul opens the morning and returns between conversations before closing everything out with The Coffeehouse Set.
💬 Live Conversations
Not panels for the sake of panels.
Two conversations with people actually building across AI, product design, engineering, restaurants, music and the creative economy.
🌇 25 Floors Above Downtown
The Creative Futures Brunch takes over the Sky Lounge + rooftop at 300 Main, creating an indoor/outdoor morning experience overlooking downtown San Antonio.
🤝 Actual Connection
Stay after the conversations.
Grab another coffee. Find somebody you don't know. Talk about what you're working on.
That’s the point.
7:30 AM — DOORS OPEN
Coffee. Brunch. Music. Rooftop.
Grab espresso from Pulp Coffee Roasters, brunch from Box St. Social + Loverboy: House Eats, and settle into the morning with DJ Novasoul.
There isn't a hard transition from “networking” into “the event.”
You walked into the event.
8:45 AM — THE COLLISION
AI, Design, and What Gets Built Next
The Fifth Degree — Live
Nate Troxel + Will Regan sit down with Nic McGinnis, family office advisor and product designer working across design, data + AI
+ Dirk Elmendorf, co-founder of Rackspace, for a conversation about what happens when AI, design, product and engineering stop operating in separate lanes.
What are we actually building with AI?
Where does design fit when the technology can increasingly generate the interface itself?
And as the tools become accessible to everyone, what separates something merely generated from something intentionally designed?
This isn't a conversation about predicting the future.
It's about the people building it.
The session and its core focus on AI, product design and engineering are part of the locked program.
9:30 AM — REFILL
Brunch. Espresso. Music.
DJ Novasoul brings the room back up while everyone gets another cup, grabs another bite and keeps the conversations moving.
9:45 AM — KEEP THE DOORS OPEN
Tech for the Places Culture Lives
The Down Market Conversation
Madison King sits down with Daniel Trevino + Ben Hodge for a conversation about something we don't talk about enough:
The technology behind the places where culture actually happens.
Daniel Trevino is building Maitre, technology designed to help restaurants navigate the information, readiness and infrastructure needed to open smarter, scale and last.
Ben Hodge is building EEVET, creating better data and booking infrastructure for venues, artists and promoters.
Restaurants and music venues may look like completely different industries.
But both depend on physical places, people, culture and better information to survive.
Different rooms. Same problem.
How do we use technology to keep the doors open?
The program specifically pairs Maitre and EEVET as two approaches to building better information infrastructure for physical creative spaces.
10:30 AM — THE REVEAL 👀
Before we close the morning, The Creative Futures has something new to announce.
We're keeping this part intentionally vague.
You'll want to be in the room.
DJ Novasoul takes it home.
The talks are over.
The morning isn't.
Stay.
Refill.
Grab another bite.
Meet the person next to you.
Tell somebody what you're building.
Ask them what they're building.
Maybe those two things should meet.
That’s the point.
At 11:30 AM, we hand the momentum back to San Antonio Startup + Tech Week and send you into the rest of the day.
This morning is built for creatives, founders, designers, developers, technologists, artists, entrepreneurs, investors, marketers, storytellers, hospitality builders, students and curious people who don't fit neatly inside one industry.
Especially the people who keep finding themselves somewhere between creative and tech.
That's exactly where we want you.
Your Eventbrite RSVP does NOT replace your San Antonio Startup + Tech Week registration.
The Creative Futures Brunch is part of San Antonio Startup + Tech Week.
To attend, you must also be registered through sasw.co and follow the official Startup + Tech Week check-in process.
REGISTER FOR STARTUP + TECH WEEK → sasw.co
Event venue & nearby stays
300 N Main Ave, 300 North Main Avenue, San Antonio, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.