Michigan Ecosystem Builders List

Reflecting on the many people who do the work of ecosystem and community building together.

What a December it’s been.

Our team opened Bamboo Grand Rapids, just in time to host the wildly fun Midwest House Summit. The innovation conference welcomed over 500 people for two days of events. Nearly half of the guests came in from around the country.

The energy was exciting. The speakers were great. The temperatures dropped, but we were all warm and cozy inside our new hub at 2 Fulton.

It’s never about a single place or a building. It’s always about the people and partners that bring a place to life — that make it a supportive environment. So thank you to Midwest House and Start Garden for your partnership on a wonderful opening week (and the many sponsors of Midwest House Summit, too!).

(PS - We’re open now, head here or here to book the venue or work with us next year).

Sometimes the work of “ecosystem building” and “community building” is unseen until an anchor event like Midwest House Summit brings it front and center.

In every community, we have leaders, sometimes these are founders, or even event hosts and volunteers, who help to build up the ecosystem. Remember that if an ecosystem is a network, then a network is made up of people.

As we close out this year, I wanted to share a spotlight on the many people we worked with this past year as we all help to grow Michigan’s innovation ecosystem. These are just a few leaders who have built community with us and who continue to build community in their cities.

Since Midwest House, I also keep hearing the same questions over and over again: How do we work together better as a region? What’s the pitch for companies scaling to stay?

It leaves me a wish for next year. I hope that we find ourselves a strategy that is cohesive, that brings the hundreds of organizations and people into alignment, that helps to amplify all of our work. A rising tide lifts all boats. Momentum begets more momentum — but only if we let it.

Below is a list of builders. Learn about them. Support their work.

Let’s continue to help us build a more cohesive and connected ecosystem.

PS - This list is not exclusive or exhaustive — it’s just a start and a spotlight.

Grand Rapids & West Michigan

Here are a few leaders I would point you to connect and learn more about Grand Rapids.

Ted Veile - Midwest House - An OG community builder, Midwest House leads local and national events boosting Midwest innovation.

Jennifer Wangler & Anna Beaten - Co-hosting The Coffee Circle these two leaders are building a vibrant community of women in tech. Jennifer also leads technology strategy at The Right Place in Grand Rapids.

Erika Plunkett - Helping social entrepreneurs and non-profits through her work at Grand Rapids Giving Day and Ama International.

Elizabeth Goede - Helping to build the AI community, and support businesses utilizing AI.

Shannon Cohen - Has built a fabulous group of diverse women supporting each other at Rockstar Women.

Corey Hart - Leads the Startup Grind Grand Rapids chapter and many entrepreneur events.

Jonathan Jelks - A serial entrepreneur who’s also leading the Midwest Tech project, events and support connecting the next generation to a growing Midwest Tech community.

Richard App - City of Grand Rapids/DGRI- A go to resource for retail that has supported Bamboo, Rebel Nell, and others with recent expansion into downtown Grand Rapids.

Paul Moore, Darel Ross, Laurie Supisnki, and Jorge Gonzalez - Start Garden - Our incubation partner at 2 Fulton, Start Garden hosts anchor ecosystem events such as 5x5 pitch nights and the Demo Day 100 getting capital and support into the hands of entrepreneurs.

Joe Jones - Hekima Group- Joe is a civic leader and mentor to many in the entrepreneur community.

Rachel Berkel and Sadoc Paredes - Co-founders of Vetr Health - Two great founders who are always up for a coffee or helpful connection, while they lead a platform for in-home veterinary care.

Terra Osman Founder at Farmish, and Andrea Wallace Founder at Opener - Co-hosting monthly founder first fridays at Start Garden, an open coffee event for all.

Bryce Kaiser - Founder at Centered - Centered is an institutional cofounder taking a patient approach to building high potential businesses. They publish a Linkedin newsletter featuring startup news in Michigan and host events.

Carl Brown - Startup Zoo - Building Kalamazoo’s innovation community.

Marcel Price - Kalamazoo Ventures Forward - A community builder helping to boost the small business ecosystem through KVFZ.

Tim Haines - Building up the marketing and creative community, launching new programs.

Derek Mohr and Creative Mornings Grand Rapids -- A collection of volunteers leading CM GR, a fast growing meetup uplifting the design and creative community.

Ann Arbor

Alison Todak & Kristina Oberly - Shine and Rise co-founders, providing a supportive virtual and in person network for women and non-binary leaders in technology.

Jennifer Olmestead - Ann Arbor Spark- Jennifer has been an instrumental super connector and supporter of women in tech community.

Loren Townes Jr - Ann Arbor Spark - Leading A2 New Tech a monthly pitch practice event and Spark’s tech bootcamps in the community.

The 1 Million Cups Co-leaders: Ginger Liemohn, Emefa Boamah, Arash Baktash, Srikar Chiravuri, and Tarun Gehani. All business types gather for safe, vulnerable support weekly.

The New Enterprise Forum Meetup team led by Wiebke Hagendorf-Schröter has been a long-time resource supporting entrepreneurs.

Ezra Zimbler - The Profile Experience - A community IRL connecting innovators and builders for intimate dinners, sessions, and more.

Ryan Morrison - Long Angels -- Ryan has long led student startup programming and now is connecting the Long Angels community to Michigan.

Matthew Hynes and team at A2 Bio Social -- One of the best organic and growing meetups for life sciences community.

Trista Van Tine - Nuchi - Building a AI social platform for connected communities that can help foster ecosystem connections.

Kelli Sexton - And her entire team at Innovation Partners, who help launch programs and support for research led innovation and partner with many in the ecosystem.

Eric Bacyinski and the UMich Center for Entrepreneurship - Often bringing in Michigan founders to speak to students.

Angela Kujava and The Desai Accelerator - leading accelerator supporting alumni of the University of Michigan.

Sarika Gupta and Hannah Berasley at Zell Lurie Institute - Supporting U-M students and alumni in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

There are many, many formal university programs too. This is just a few.

Detroit

Johnnie & Alexa Turnage - Black Tech Saturdays- A movement building a network of founders and builders, and hosting anchor programs such as The Digital Empowerment Summit in Detroit.

Delon Dixon & Shaun Zhang - Think Technologies team and leaders of AI meetups in metro Detroit, helping others to embrace and understand AI.

Lauren Daniels - Our EIR at Bamboo in Royal Oak and Founder of The Scale School providing free resources to scale up operations.

Robert Courtney Collins - A leader in our creative ecosystem, Robert launched CreatorCon an annual conference for creative sectors.

Denzell Turner - Black Fridays Podcast - Telling stories of innovators and entrepreneurs many in Detroit or around Michigan.

Tommy Hailey - Hosting Developers of Detroit a regular group helping to launching technology pilots with businesses.

David Baird - Leading vibe coding meetups to grow our AI community.

Johnny Jarbo & Tess Jarbo - Leading the Hustle Society Meetup- an entrepreneur and creative meetup regular at Bamboo Royal Oak and Anchor Design.

Taylor Mae - One of the lead co-hosts of Creative mornings Detroit, energizing Detroit’s creative and design community.

Meagan Ward - Building a community of female founders at Femology.

Niles Heron & Jacob Smith - TechTown Detroit - Two long time leaders in our community now supporting tech and mobility innovation.

Ber-henda Williams - Nurturing a diverse ecosystem of women changemakers and entrepreneurs through media and in-person gatherings.

Elizabeth Hanson - Dedicated to growing our Blockchain ecosystem, she’s the Stand with Crypto Michigan President and leads regular Blockchain advocacy and education events.

Dug Song- Always lending a hand, speaking and organizing across our state to support entrepreneurship and tech innovation.

Monica Wheat - Venture Catalysts - Supporting the ecosystem, including mapping the greater innovation ecosystem.

Tim Moore - Clixie AI - Tim has a wealth of knowledge spinning up and exiting from several startups and is a super connector helping many in the ecosystem.

Phil Vella - Start Midwest - Phil is helping to create a storytelling platform with real talk secret VC and secret founder pieces giving frank feedback on our collective ecosystem challenges, among other stories.

Abby Gates - Sproutwise & Silo Busters - Abby is an HR pro with a firm helping fast growing companies align their people-opps. She’s also started Silo-Busters an organic open-sourced group helping to change the ecosystem for the better.

Nick Beadleston - Grove Community Incubator - A great entrepreneur community and space, with a weekly Meetup supporting founders.

And many, many, more…

Of course our own team at Bamboo is made up of community and ecosystem builders and many of you see them doing this work daily too!

thank you for the work that you do to help tell stories, host events, empower others and support the ecosystem.

We look forward to supporting you and seeing your work continue to grow.

see you all in the New Year!

-amanda