The luckiest 2,000 square feet in Austin.
With Gratitude, Fridge Friends.
It’s the last newsletter of the year, but we’re not done with 2025 yet. We’ve got founder stories to tell, beverages to share, art to appreciate, and hours to happy. But first, some gratitude and a peek into the Fridge’s future.
In this issue: Future Fridge, Restock Madness, Hold my Beer, Suite Life, SPARKLE Lunch, Artsy Wine, and Santa for Everyone.
Thank you all for showing up, connecting, and creating this entrepreneur community with me. The Red Fridge Society started as a simple idea: find 25 founders to work and play in an old house I love. Two years later, we’re nearing 50 Fridge Magnates with 24/7 access and more than 1,500 Fridge Raiders joining us for events. How many members will the Society have? I’m chasing a vibe, not a number. The goal is to maximize serendipity while still being able to grab a desk or conference room. So I’ll keep accepting chill, accomplished founders until it feels right. Best guess? Around 80 Fridge Magnates, which we should hit early next year. But then what?
The original version of the Society was going to be a quick hit before I moved on to more impactful projects. But as we’ve scaled, the member value shifted from cool space to influential community, and Red Fridge moved from side project to platform for me to help Austin entrepreneurs thrive. After we’re full, I’ll shift my focus to how we can connect Austin founders beyond events and further our mission to be the Luckiest 2,000 square feet in Austin. Perhaps we’ll allow verified founders into our Slack channel, curate interest groups, or launch mentorship programs. I’m still in the brainstorming phase and would love to hear how the Society can help you thrive in 2026 and beyond.
Again, thanks for showing up for the Red Fridge community. I’m grateful you are on this journey with me to chart the Society’s Future.
Top of the Fridge
Work Today, Beer Tomorrow. Tuesday, December 2nd, we are featuring Grady Wright, the serial founder and our neighbor at Hold Out Brewing. We’ll be serving up his brews and bites and hear how he became one of Austin Monthly’s "unofficial arbiters of cool."
In the Moody for Basketball. We share a Moody Center suite with some other founders and are taking a field trip to the UT vs. VA men’s basketball game. Have a couple of spots for founders. Basketball fan? Join the waitlist.
Founders who Lunch. Join us on December 11th for our Lunch Society featuring friend of the Fridge, Rich Manders, who will discuss his SPARKLE framework for maximizing company valuation.
Artsy Wine. After having explored watches and pens, next month we are discussing art collection, curation, and economics over fine wines poured by Mario, our personal sommelier. We’re even turning the Fridge into an art museum for the night!
Santa for Everyone. Although our quarterly open happy hour is sold out, we’ll open a few more spots the week before. Hop on the waitlist.
Twice the Caffeine. Our intimate founder coffee tastings, where we explore at least seven different coffee preparations, are my favorite way to meet and connect with founders in town. They are every two weeks—the next one is Thursday, and we have a special edition on December 18th.
Restock Photo. Wonder how we keep our snack and beverage games so strong? Well, I have a lot of free time, love perusing Costco, and go down rabbit holes. That’s how we end up with all the snacks, 30+ brands in our NA bar, and a truly silly bar-bar. How silly? Here’s our November Costco and Twin Liquor trips:
No snack left behind… Costco cashiers fear my cart packing skills!
The Gift of Serendipity. Alas, we don’t do Black Friday. But our next price bump will be early next year when we hit 50 Fridge Magnates, so it’s kinda like a discount now? Thinking about joining or know someone who should? Now would be an excellent time to apply.
The Monthly Magnate
What types of entrepreneurs are part of the Fridge community? Behold!
The December Magnate is Brian Holmes.
After hitting the Inc. 500 three times across his first three businesses, Brian Holmes is on his fourth act — building autonomous retail agents at AI Front Desk.
Brian, Adrian, and their energetic twin boys ride dirt bikes, mountain bikes, and take annual “epic adventures” — including paddling canoes from Minnesota to Canada.
Brian’s entrepreneurial journey began at age 24, when he quit his job and bought a failing Liberty Tax Service franchise. Over the next decade, he grew from one location to nineteen, before shifting from finance to fitness in 2016, opening seven Club Pilates locations in the Sacramento area with his wife, Adrian.
That experience sparked Brian’s next venture, Franchise Ramp, a digital marketing agency that now supports 1200+ brick-and-mortar franchise locations across North America and hit #49 on the Inc. 500 in 2022. After stepping down as CEO in 2023, Brian turned his focus to AI Front Desk — a natural evolution of his obsession with automation, systems, and scaling operational excellence. His goal: to help thousands of small businesses execute more efficiently through intelligent automation. Over the last two years, AI Front Desk has built AI Agents to execute 1.4m tasks previously dependent on human staff and is growing rapidly.
Fridge Factoids:
Brian gets the award for quickest “yes” to RFS membership—he walked in, looked around, and joined before we even discussed pricing! Brian can also be found in our living room debating the pros and cons of bootstrapping vs raising capital with me. He’ll probably hold off and jump straight to an A-round at this point, but if you fund agentic companies, get to know Brian!
What’s Fresh in the Fridge?
You can check out our entire always-free-for-founders calendar, but here are some featured events open to non-members. Note that “founder” events are limited to past or present founders and start on a waitlist.
TOMORROW! December 2nd: Brewer Series w/Holdout Brewing (founders) Join Holdout Brewing Founder Grady Wright for a beer tasting intermixed with his story of co-founding Holdout Brewing and a bevy of other Austin cafes and bars.
December 3rd: Fridge Field Trip: TX vs VA Men’s Basketball (invite only) We share a Moody Center suite with some other founders and are taking over the entire suite. Basketball fan? Hop on the waitlist, and we’ll open up seats the day before if our members don’t grab them.
December 4th: Founder Coffee Tasting (founders). Connect with fellow founders and discover your perfect cup by trying the same bean prepared 6 different ways (at least!)
Coffee Contraptions and Conversation
December 9th: Wine and Art (founders) The next in our Wine & series, where we explore the finer things over wine. We will have discussions on art collecting by Joey Hovsepyan, art economics with Carlos Cardenas, and art philanthropy with the President of the Board of Trustees at The Contemporary Austin, Debbie Dupré.
December 10th: Raid the Fridge Santa Happy Hour (open) Our quarterly community happy hour is back, and we’re bringing the holiday spirit (and sweaters). Currently sold out, but hop on the waitlist, and we’ll open up seats next week.
December 11th: Lunch Society: Maximizing Company Valuation (founders) Have lunch with Friend of the Fridge Rich Manders, Co-Founder and Lead Coach at FreeScale, as he discusses the proven framework that entrepreneurs and executives use to maximize company valuation and negotiate superior exit terms.
December 15th: My First Million Podcast Meetup (open) We are hosting the end-of-year potluck for the MFM fan club in partnership with Alice Huang. Alice owns the invite, but we’ll have a few spots for Fridge Raiders.
December 17th: House Poker Night (members) Our monthly Fridge Member Poker Game. Limited to 10 players. Occasionally, we have an extra seat available for a Fridge Raider if you’d like to join the waitlist.
December 18th: Founder Coffee Tasting with Cold Cycle Coffee (founders) An encore special edition of our founder's coffee tasting featuring the founders of Cold Cycle Coffee, who are reinventing cold brew.
January 22nd: Fridgeside! Live Austin Next Podcast with Rob & Chris Taylor. Jason Scharf is interviewing my brother and me about our perspectives on Bootstrap vs raising Venture Capital.
February 17th: Founder Invitational Poker Tournament (founders) Manifest some Serendipity at our 30-founder, $200 buy-in Poker Tourney. Members and new players get seats first —sign up now!
Congrats to our final table and our winner, Dr. Hasegawa (and damn you, AK suited)
Gift Yourself Some Serendipity.
Join Austin’s Luckiest Entrepreneur Community.
Although the ridiculous amenities, meeting rooms, coworking, and guaranteed access to events are all great reasons to join, the community is the primary value driver of the Society. We promise that you’ll have a conversation at the Fridge in the first few months worth more than the cost of a few years.
Memberships start at $850/month. You can apply here.
New to Austin? Apply for our Austin Fresh program for a free Fridge membership.
Want to come check out the Fridge, but can’t make an event? You can grab an hour on Chris’s calendar to get the tour.
November Leftovers
We know it’s hard to keep up with everything going on at the Society, but here’s a little visual recap of some of the events from last month.
It was a privilege to Fridgeside chat with Ballet Austin’s Stephen Mills
Brainstorming over beers to kick off the Austin Hardtech community
Hearing (and tasting!) the amazing founder story of Hudson Wines
Keeping things chill at Ballistic Ventures’ Cyber Security Happy Hour
That’s a wrap for our December newsletter (and 2025!).
As always, be cooler than necessary, and I hope to see you Fridgeside soon.
Proprietor, Red Fridge Society
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