7 SXSW Sessions For Small Businesses
February 23, 2025
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While the annual SXSW conference primarily centers around technology, film, and music, there are also sessions and panels that small businesses can learn from.
As a small business ourselves, we’re drawn to sessions around branding, community building, and networking. These are the sessions we’re excited to attend at SXSW 2025.
SXSW Sessions for Small Businesses: Heywood Hotel’s Picks
1. How America’s 33M Small Businesses Can Grow and Prosper
Date: Mar 10, 2025, 2:30pm – 3:30pm CT
There are 33M small businesses in the U.S. They account for almost 48% of private-sector jobs and generate $5.3 trillion in annual revenue. Yet, 50% of them will fail in their first 5 years. Small businesses are the fuel that runs the global economy and the world’s most vital source of innovation and creativity, ensuring their success is one of the greatest challenges of our time. At SXSW, talent from ABC’s Emmy Award-winning Shark Tank, produced by MGM Television and Sony Pictures Television, and Clover, the leading all-in-one point of sale solution, unveil a new success paradigm for small businesses at the intersection of culture, commerce and community, redefining support for next generation entrepreneurs.
2. Main Street over Wall Street: Becoming a Main Street Millionaire
Date: Mar 7, 2025, 4:00pm – 5:00pm CT
Leading small business expert, former Wall Street investor, and founder of Contrarian Thinking, Codie Sanchez, shares her unconventional journey to building a 9-figure portfolio, and reveals her dealmaking framework that is investing in Main Street and taking on Wall Street.
Investing in what she calls “Main Street businesses”—unsexy but reliably profitable industries, like plumbing, construction, cleaning, and electrical—that white collar workers have overlooked is reshaping the way the next generation is thinking about wealth and ownership.
Session details here
3. Networks of Scale: How to Grow & Maintain Relationships
Date: Mar 7, 2025, 2:30pm – 4:30pm CT
This interactive workshop will change the way you network and create access to opportunities. Learn actionable techniques that you can put into practice on Day 1 to maximize your SXSW experience. Whether it’s solo talks, fireside chats, panels, meet ups, or other workshops, you’ll leave this event equipped with the tools to identify potential collaborators and, more importantly, understand how to scale those dialogues into a valuable long-term network. Your leader will be Adam Marx, an expert in cultivating magnetic networks, relationships, and collaborations.
Session details here
Note: Advance sign-up is required and will be limited to primary access only. Keep an eye on sxsw.com for updates to the RSVP process in late February.
4. Taboo Brands: Breaking Bad Rules For Good Reasons
Date: Mar 7, 2025, 4:00pm – 5:00pm CT
Every revolution starts with a broken rule. In TABOO Brands: Breaking Bad Rules for Good Reasons, the Mackinnon Brothers explore how breaking societal norms and marketing conventions can create impact where traditional approaches fall short. At a time when marketing has reduced itself to chasing clicks, the brothers explore the growing chasm between brands that get seen and those that are remembered.
Session details here
5. A Conversation on Brand and Community Building with Rare Beauty’s CMO Katie Welch
Date: Mar 8, 2025, 10:00am – 11:00am CT
Selena Gomez believed Rare Beauty could be more than a beauty brand—it could make an impact. Since September 2020, Rare Beauty has become a safe, welcoming space in beauty and beyond. Rare Beauty’s mental health mission, thriving community and cult-favorite products are the driving forces behind this brand. Join Rare Beauty’s CMO Katie Welch to discuss their unique approach to brand and community building.
Session details here
6. From FOMO to Fulfillment: The Science of Consumer Behavior
Date: Mar 8, 2025, 4:00pm – 5:00pm CT
With online shopping hype cycles such as “TikTok made me buy it” “Dupes” and “Must-haves” everything has begun to feel more and more like an ad. Buyers are often asking “why do people buy that? Wait, why did I buy that?”
Three professors share their research on how and why consumers are motivated, covering factors such as scarcity, meaning, and brand empathy. This panel serves as a resource and conversation point for understanding consumer decision making and spark conversations around the tactics used in the marketing industry to influence these decisions.
Session details here
7. How to Create Your Perfect Pitch
One thing is constant in any business that relies on creativity. It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-person studio or a team member of a multinational corporation. It also doesn’t matter what products or services you sell or where you are in your career. From intern to CEO, we all have one thing in common: we have an idea in our heads, and now we must get it out. We need to sell it. We’re going to have to pitch it. But how do you make your pitch clear, exciting, and most importantly, stand out and get sold? Join a former Vice President of Creative for Walt Disney Imagineering to learn how!
Session details here
Note: Advance sign-up is required and will be limited to primary access only. Keep an eye on sxsw.com for updates to the RSVP process in late February.
Support Local: Stay at the Heywood Hotel for SXSW 2025
The Heywood Hotel is a MICHELIN-rated boutique hotel located in East Austin. We have the perfect hotel location for SXSW. We’re just one mile away from the Austin Convention Center, where most sessions take place, and within walking or biking distance to more than 100 venues like Stubb’s, Mohawk, Scoot Inn, Hotel Vegas at Volstead, Waterloo Park, Low Down Lounge, Lucky’s Brick Bar and more.
With just seven rooms and a serene environment, the Heywood Hotel offers unparalleled comfort. Here you’ll find luxury beds, personalized service, and a cozy atmosphere. Even better—we’re walkable to most SXSW 2025 venues. After long, action-packed days spent on your feet, you’ll want a quiet spot to recharge. Our intimate and stylish hotel is the perfect place to retreat and get a good, quiet night’s sleep.