Why ILAQA exists.
You keep saying you want to do more — the dinners, the run club, the gallery thing Thursday. But your friends are busy, going alone is strange, and “we should hang out” has never once meant soon. So you don’t go.
Adult friendship has a logistics problem
Austin, to start — and it isn’t a shortage of things to do. It’s not knowing who to go with.
Adult friendship has a logistics problem — and it isn’t a shortage of things to do. It’s not knowing who to go with.
ILAQA fixes the who. It learns who you are, watches what’s happening around you, and sends you to the things you’d actually love — with a small ilaqa of locals you’d actually click with. Go once, and if the room’s right, you keep them. The next plan finds you. Then the one after that.
Researchers put a number on it: about 200 hours together before someone’s a real friend. Most of us never get there as adults, because we never get past the first night. ILAQA is built to get you to 200.
We keep it small on purpose: six to eight people in a standing circle. We bring the same group back twice a month, because what matters is not getting into every room; it is having one that becomes yours.
Membership starts with the best dinner party we can compose around you: an intimate, elegantly set table and six to eight locals chosen because meeting one another could matter.
What follows is allowed to emerge. The table might hold a future best friend, collaborator, opportunity, or simply the people who make Austin feel like home. One right room can become years of local life together.
At Baylor, my campus events grew substantially year after year into a profitable experiential agency, moving thousands of tickets through organic reach alone. Months after I graduated, my own university filed a 600-page federal suit over one of those events. I couldn’t afford a lawyer, so I represented myself, settled with no financial penalties, and the attention around the case led directly to my first job in venture capital.
That start became a career spanning investing and platform roles at multiple funds from Austin to Los Angeles, plus recognition on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Local list for Austin. Today, I’m a current resident at Antler, the world’s most active early-stage investor and home to one of the world’s most selective founder residencies.
I’m building ILAQA around what those rooms taught me: the right people, in the right room, can change your life. ILAQA is that belief made real: a way to get you out of the house, into the right room, and next to a few locals who actually become your people.
Umar Brimah — Founder, ILAQA
The whole idea, in four parts
How ILAQA thinks about getting you out of the house and into a room that becomes yours.
We fix the who
There’s no shortage of things to do. ILAQA handles the part that stops you — who to go with.
An ilaqa, not a crowd
A handful of locals chosen to be in the room with you. Small enough that everyone actually meets.
Built for 200 hours
About 200 hours together makes a real friend. We’re built to get you there, one good night at a time.
Small on purpose
An ilaqa is six to eight people by design. The same circle returns twice a month, small enough that everyone can actually know everyone.
The right people for you, in the right room. That’s the whole idea.
Austin, to start. Tell us a little about you, and the right rooms start coming your way.
request your seat