Thomas Ball, Austin Ventures - Venture Partner

Thomas Ball with Austin Ventures is a new partner with the Firm. The following is an overview of the initial meeting with Thomas Ball by Sean Jackson.

I met Thomas Ball with Austin Ventures around March 2007. I had been reading the Austin Ventures website, and noticed that Thomas Ball was one of the newer venture partners at Austin Ventures.

The reason I initially reach out to him was because Thomas was the co-founder of several technology companies including ecoupons.com and Open Field Technologies. Another thing I found interesting was that Thomas Ball was a member of the Kauffman Fellows Class. So after my research I called Thomas and we set a time to have breakfast in Dallas.

Thomas Ball was at Austin Ventures Dallas office to pickup a pool table. We met at the Galleria for breakfast. Primarily my point in meeting Thomas was to understand his focus and role at Austin Ventures. I thought that since he was a new VC, he would not be so "jadded". Sure enough he was a very pleasant person and shared several interesting stories about the transition from entreprenuer to venture capitalist.

I am on my way this AM to meet with Thomas Ball about Lead Maverick. When we first met, my goal was to understand his role at AV better so that I could better understand if he was right for the company. Today my goal is to explain what we are doing with Lead Maverick and see if t aligns with the initiatives at Austin Ventures.