Despite that growth, women-only founding teams still receive about 1–2% of venture capital funding, a number that’s barely moved in over a decade. But funding is only one piece of what founders need. The other piece is infrastructure. A place to work, a community that opens doors, and people who’ve done it before willing to show you how.

Bamboo is a coworking space open to everyone, but as a women-owned business, we’ve built our space, calendar, partnerships, and programming to be exactly that infrastructure for the women in our community.

Built By a Founder Who Started With $5,000

Our founder, Amanda Lewan, started Bamboo with a $5,000 loan and grew it into a multi-location venture across Michigan. She built the kind of space she wished existed when she was starting out, which is why being women-owned isn’t a footnote for us, it’s an integrated part of our mission. It shows up in the partnerships we choose, the events we prioritize, and a real belief that community isn’t just a perk, it’s part of the foundation.

Programming as Community Infrastructure

The Shine & Rise “Shine On Me” happy hour, hosted in partnership with Ann Arbor SPARK’s Women in Tech series and Shine & Rise, was an evening to celebrate women across tech and innovation. No agenda, no pitch, just a space to connect and mark a win, big or small. It also served as a lead-up to SPARK’s flagship Women in Tech event during a2Tech360 this fall. Both Shine & Rise and Ann Arbor SPARK host frequent events year-long to support women in our ecosystem.

The Women in HealthTech meetup, now in its second year, has grown into a supportive circle of women building the future of health technology. Proof that when you give a community a reason to keep showing up, it grows on its own.

Not every event on our calendar is exclusively for women, but many are women-led.

The Remote Workers Meetup Group, led by Emily McGuire, is a monthly recurring coworking day that brings together remote workers, freelancers, and people building nontraditional careers for a day of focused work and casual connection. There’s no pitch and no pressure, just the shared belief that working independently doesn’t have to mean working alone.

Third Space Sundays, founded by local financial therapist Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, was a weekly hour built for anyone craving ritual and real connection. It was a community gathering structured around a common theme, a few honest shares, and the question of who needs something and who has something to give.

Emefa Boamah (our AMAZING coach and Bamboo team member) brings that same mission to Sacred Sundays, her monthly breathwork and embodiment series. Emefa recently brought the series to our new Grand Rapids location for the first time too, growing with us statewide. A somatic and embodiment-based life and business strategist, Emefa also serves as Co-Chair of the Forum Committee for the Women’s Exchange of Washtenaw, helping female founders, leaders, and spaceholders build sustainable movements without burnout. It’s work that mirrors exactly what she creates in our space each month.

The Non-Negotiables workshop, run with Sproutwise, founded by Abby Gates, brought together three women facilitators to explore how personal values hold up under daily pressure.

And we’ve hosted pop-ups with women-owned Sundazed Coffee (still thinking about the Banana Latte) and The Deep End Cafe and Gallery, plus a live taping of the Bring Your Big Energy podcast with founder Stacey Kulongowski featuring Konnected with Care founder, Kamille Tynes, further providing experimental and fun ways to connect with women building in our community.

The Women Building at Bamboo

The real measure of any of this is what happens to the women who walk through our doors. When women build strong networks with each other, they’re not creating a separate lane, they’re creating more on-ramps into rooms they’ve historically had less access to.

Several of our members were featured in the inaugural issue of LeadHer Magazine, a new publication dedicated to telling the honest, unedited stories behind building a business. Wins, setbacks, and all. Andrea Taylor, Bamboo member and CEO of Livsee, celebrated revenue milestones with our community team at the front desk. Brenda Ponce launched Vida Financial Services Group right out of our second floor. And Eve Aronoff, chef-owner of Frita Batidos (home to a New York Times-recognized burger) used Bamboo with her team as their bunker while opening new locations in New York City and Dallas.

When one woman succeeds and turns around to open a door for another, it compounds over time. That’s part of why things like a magazine feature or member-to-member referrals matter beyond the individual story. They build precedent and visibility that makes the next founder’s path slightly easier.

Join Us

If you’re ready for more than just a place to work, check out our events calendar and join us for what’s next.

You can keep in touch with events at Bamboo Ann Arbor here on our website, or come down to visit us this Fall.

Don’t forget the “middle of the ecosystem.”

Most innovation ecosystems are designed around early-stage entrepreneurs and can sometimes forget the rest.

It feels timely to revisit this note as we look ahead to a busy fall season, regrouping with our team to revisit plans for the rest of the year.

Bamboo is also celebrating thirteen years this August. Wow, time has flow by — except for those pandemic years!

(Our first space below, not knowing this journey we were heading on!)

We’ve grown from a grassroots group to a statewide community intentionally designed to support builders and creators. Now we’re looking ahead and asking: How do we build long-term sustainability and social impact?

We know the beginning. We remember our roots. We know the ideal outcome: the impact we make in each of our communities. But what about the middle part of this journey? The growth stage?

In writing, we call this part of the story the “messy middle.” It’s when the stakes get higher, the challenges get more intense, and every character has an increasingly difficult job to do to make it to the end goal. That sounds familiar if you’re building a company. It might be familiar if you’re building an ecosystem too.

The end goal in mind for community and economic impact.

As a collective ecosystem, we are growing up. We’re advocating for sustained support. We’re seeing more founders move to Michigan to build here. More remote workers, too. We’re seeing companies scale and experienced operators emerge.

Now, imagine the end goal:

• More startups scaling into high-growth companies, creating jobs and generating long-term investment returns for the ecosystem and community.

• A pipeline of experienced operators who mentor, give back, and invest in the next round of builders.

• Small businesses become foundational pillars of their communities, lasting for decades—and some growing into philanthropy.

• Creators being intentionally included, with art and culture shaping not just an algorithm, but generations of community identity and shared cultural experiences.

The challenge I see is founders in this middle stage don’t have much support from our ecosystem.

Last month at Bamboo Grand Rapids, we piloted our first-ever retreat in West Michigan. Nearly 100 operators, creatives, and founders came together from across the state to hear local and national speakers.

We brought people together for two days of networking, intentional conversations, and learning. Three separate tracks for early-stage, operators, or creators, allowed people at different stages of their journey to find something relevant to them.

We also partnered with our members at Inside-Out Leadership for a CEO track, providing more support for seasoned operators.

Bamboo works closely with friends like Endeavor Midwest and EO, both staple organizations in the community helping those entrepreneurs at scale.

But outside of this, there’s not much else.

Invite all stages of experience to the table.

As we design our programs, partnerships, and places, we need to connect back to those further along in the journey—the people who have built companies, managed through growth, learned from failure, and are now ready to mentor, invest, and reinvest in the next generation.

The next stage of Michigan’s ecosystem development is bridging this gap.

It’s creating more spaces for experienced founders and operators to connect with each other, while creating intentional pathways for them to pour back into the communities that helped them get here.

Because ecosystems, like companies, grow up.

And the messy middle is where a lot of the work—and a lot of the opportunity—is.

It always takes a village to get there.

Our village doors are open.

Save the date for other key programs coming up at Bamboo this Fall:

Grand Rapids Tech Week - Sept 14th -19th. Nearly 15,000 people come to Grand Rapids to learn about technology. We’ll be hosting daily talks and events including Startups at Sundown.

Ann Arbor Tech Week: A2Tech 360. Sept 22nd - Oct 2nd. This is Ann Arbor’s tech week, filled with great events for university innovation, awards to high-growth companies, and uplifting women in technology.

Midwest House | Bamboo Grand Rapids Summit - December 2nd - December 3rd. If you came last year, you already know you can’t miss this one. Access to national leaders, founders and investors who are helping to build up the Midwest. Early Bird tickets end soon. Grab some!

Sports are a way to bring all walks of life together. Each year, we now host an all location Tigers Game and have started to integrate sports business topics into our centers.

Bamboo Tigers Game

Typically when we plan events at Bamboo, it’s intended for that location. It caters to our members and brings new people into the spaces. Though there is great value in that, one of my favorite things to go beyond our local walls and bridge the physical gaps between our locations by create something that is for everyone.

One of the beauties of bringing a sports element into Bamboo is that we are a Michigan-based company so we all (most of the time) support the same sports teams.

Boom! Instant connection point no matter which location you work from.

I did some research, showed my team what I wanted to do (they were awesome and supportive as always), and got the first one in the works.

Picture this: A Friday night in July with a pre-game party at our Downtown Detroit location, food, beverages, limited edition merch, a short walk over to Comerica Park, and a Friday Night Party in the Park (fireworks included). It was a great evening in Detroit, enjoying a game and connecting with each other outside of the our work environment. It sold out!

_{Learned to sit on the opposite side of the park after the first year! 😎}

A few weeks we hosted our 3rd Annual Bamboo Tigers Game. Bamboo has grown from 3 locations to 5 in this time and this event has sold out every time. One of the most fun surprises this year for me was the excitement from our locations that are actually the furthest from Downtown Detroit. I’m not sure if that comes from seeing the previous year’s games, hearing the Bamboo team member’s excitement, or just the desire for connection across the state. It was a chance to connect and meet people that you would not necessarily get to cross paths with, at least outside of the digital space.

The event is a fun chance for us to relax and hang out in person, and also connect with the members from across our state. It has become a staple of the summer for myself, the Bamboo team, and the Bamboo community. Only members and Bamboo team members are able to sign up and they can choose to bring a guest. It’s become a conversation among the halls of Bamboo and a fond memory for those that have attended. It’s also a way for smaller teams and to still get those “office outings” bigger companies provide.

Get Ready for Gameday: Celebrating Women in Sports

After finding out that sports were something that our members enjoyed, I wanted to bring more of that topic to Bamboo. If you’re a sports fan at all, you will know there has been a lot of hype around Detroit Lions football so I wanted to build on that and do an event in the Fall. This time though, getting a little more into the sports industry itself.

One of the coolest things about today’s digital age is that you get to see a little more behind the scenes of businesses, industries, and people on your TV. I wanted to create a space to pull back this curtain more and celebrate women in the sports industry. I connected with Amanda, the owner of Kiloh & Co, a fantastic sports apparel brand out of Northville, MI, known for her “gameday is for the girls” branding. We aligned on the ideas for this event and she was a huge part in bringing this to life. It was an event that we both felt personally interested and connected to, which is my favorite type of event to create at Bamboo.

Get Ready for Gameday was a way to look at sports from other angles - getting ready to watch a game, getting ready to play in a game, getting ready to work a game. It was fashion, sports fandom, and girls night energy all wrapped together.

We had amazing vendors like Kiloh & Co, Brewhouse Coffee Co, Uh Huh Huggie, and Looking Glass Photo Booth to shop and enjoy. There were content corners for posting on socials, and lots of chances to just connect with a community of women all with a common interest in sports! To top it off, we brought in a powerhouse panel of women in the sports industry: Daniella Bruce - Reporter/Host for the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings, Monica Bradburn - Sports Photographer/Content Creator for the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings, and Candice Turner - Deputy Athletics Director, Senior Woman Administrator, and Provost Senior Staff Representative at Wayne State University. Attendees (and event hosts) got to learn what it’s really like to be a woman in sports with intentional questions lead by our Moderator and Bamboo team member, Lexi Williams. There were more than 70 women in the room and we all left feeling connected and inspired and with a cute new piece of clothing, Photo Booth strip, and cup of coffee! The event was both fun and inspiring.

What else is on the roster?

The Tigers Game has become a staple each year, so that will definitely be happening again. Make sure you get your tickets right away when they come out next summer! I would love to do some more focused events like Get Ready for Gameday. Maybe a collegiate athlete version at Bamboo Ann Arbor? In keeping the statewide connection going, I’d also love to plan more game outings across the state. Grand Rapids Griffins and UofM Football are on my list.

This past year, we also created a sports committee (shoutout to Lexi and Matt!) that is dedicated to keeping up the addition of sports to Bamboo - from streaming games at our Bamboo locations, to creating March Madness brackets and Fantasy Football leagues (coming soon, keep an eye out!) connecting our members across the state, to planning more outings to games. With this committee, we are integrating sports into all of the Bamboo locations throughout the year and bringing new ideas to the table each time we meet!

Please reach out if you’d like to partner or collaborate on a sports-themed panel or activation with our community.

Bamboo Grove is a two-day retreat where founders, creators, and operators step away from the day-to-day grind to work on their businesses, together. Twelve hands-on sessions, real conversations, and community-hosted meals at some of Grand Rapids’ local restaurants. July 23rd and 24th, at Bamboo in downtown Grand Rapids.

We’re giving you a look at the full lineup ahead of the retreat.

Register for Bamboo Grove here as early bird ticket discounts ($99) will end Thursday.

Find the agenda and hotel discounts here if you’re traveling in to Grand Rapids.

Day 1

Thursday Morning, 11:00am

Find the Pitch That Actually Works — Matt Gira

You know what you do. Saying it clearly is the hard part. Matt leads a working session where you’ll write fifteen versions of your pitch, pressure test them with the room, and leave with one that actually lands, whether you’re selling to a customer, talking to an investor, or just answering “so what do you do?” at a networking event.

Vibe Coding 101: You Can Build It, Too! — Winsome Kirton

You don’t need a computer science degree, a coding bootcamp, or even a Squarespace account to build a real app. Winsome will build one live using Claude Code and Replit, two similar but different AI powered tools that have genuinely changed what’s possible for non-developers. You’ll learn how to write prompts that actually work, how to set guardrails so your AI agent stays on track, and how to take control of what gets built instead of just hoping for the best.

Level Up Your Recording Setup — Ben Johnson

Ben joins us live and virtually to walk through how to build a recording setup that doesn’t require a studio budget or a technical degree. If you’ve been putting off video or podcast content because the gear feels intimidating, this is the session that gets you from “I don’t know where to start” to “I have a setup that works,” with practical picks for mics, lighting, and software that actually fit a small business budget.

Thursday Afternoon, 2:30pm

Performance-Driven Marketing for Every Budget — LeQwane Lynch

When you’re building a business, every marketing dollar counts. LeQwane explores non-traditional, performance-driven ad strategies that business owners and their teams can implement in any business, whether you’re managing a budget of a few hundred dollars or tens of thousands. This is a collaborative workshop, not a lecture, designed to help your team achieve better results with what you’ve already got.

Why Futures Thinking Is a Key Component of Great Teams — Jason Kehrer and Laura Leenhouts

Even at multi-billion dollar companies, thinking about the future is frequently the job of a small team of people who all have other responsibilities too. It’s easy to see futures thinking as expensive with no ROI, hard to defend in a budget conversation, or as something your years of experience already cover. Jason and Laura make the case that this work isn’t about predicting the future. It’s about expanding your range of readiness, and they’ll show you how to build that muscle without a dedicated team or budget.

Inside the System Behind a 150K YouTube Channel — Layla Pomper

Layla started ProcessDriven as a virtual assistant helping small teams clean up their operations. Seven years later, she’s built a bootstrapped business with a 150K subscriber YouTube channel at the center of it. In this session, Layla walks through her story, then opens up her actual content operating system live: how ideas get vetted, how they get published, and how YouTube drives revenue for her business.

Full Group Session

Automating Work with AI: A Practical Framework for Increasing Capability and Quality — Jason Porritt and Kimberly Crawford, Managing Partners of Atomic Object’s Grand Rapids office,

Kim and Jason share an example-heavy framework to help you understand the level of work you’re actually automating with AI tools, how to envision increasing the sophistication of that automation, and how to systematically approach one of the hardest problems in AI automation: quality.

Ready yet? Save your seat for Grove and don’t forget to find the full agenda and hotel discounts here.

Day 2

Friday Morning, 10:00am

Financial Modeling — Marisa Perez

Numbers don’t have to be the part of the business you dread. Marisa walks through how to build a financial model you’ll actually use, one that helps you make decisions instead of just satisfying a spreadsheet requirement. Come with your real numbers (or your real anxiety about not having them yet) and leave with a model you understand and trust.

Public Speaking — Zoe Carmichael

Whether it’s a pitch, a panel, or just explaining your business at a networking event, how you say it matters as much as what you’re saying. Zoe leads a hands-on session on speaking with more confidence and less script dependency, so your delivery finally matches the quality of your ideas.

Friday Afternoon, 1:30pm

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile — Angela Buccellato

Most LinkedIn profiles get built once and forgotten, which is a missed opportunity if you’re trying to build credibility or attract customers. Angela breaks down what actually makes a profile work, from headline to featured section, so it’s doing something for your business instead of just sitting there.

What Your Company Is Quietly Teaching People — Abby Gates

Every business teaches its team something, whether it means to or not, through what gets rewarded, what gets ignored, and what gets tolerated. Abby unpacks the culture your company is actually running (not the one on the values poster) and how to close the gap between the two.

Community Funding — Jonny Price

What if your best customers could also be your investors? Jonny is President of Wefunder, where he leads the team behind “community rounds,” a funding model where your customers, fans, and neighbors invest directly in your business instead of a bank or a VC. He’s helped over a thousand founders raise capital this way, including names like Mercury Bank and Substack, and before Wefunder he spent seven years running the U.S. lending team at Kiva.org. In this session, Jonny breaks down what a community round actually is, how it works, and what it takes to run one well.

What to Expect

Grove isn’t built for sitting and listening. Every session on this list is hands-on: you’re writing your pitch, building something live, running your own numbers, practicing out loud. Between sessions, lunch and dinner are organized meetups, not open floor time, so you’re still meeting people with intention instead of hovering near the snacks. Day 2 opens with an asynch networking activity to get you talking to people before the breakouts even start.

Come ready to do the work, not just take notes on it.

Register here for Grove — we’ll see you soon!

I’ve been back in Grand Rapids leading Bamboo Grand Rapids for 6 months now after helping to lead student entrepreneurship at Yale for the last 5 years. In those 6 months, I’ve had 311 meetings with community members and heard a lot of feedback.

The main thread has been clear: I want to meet people to build alongside.

We’re seeing it happen more and more as we build the community here, but what if we supercharged it?

Introducing Grove, a two-day retreat to help founders, creators, and operators step away from the day-to-day of their businesses and work on their businesses together.

Who’s Coming to Work With Everyone at Grove:

Winsome Kirton is a founder I met right before I left for Connecticut when she built Pack Elephant, a gift platform for businesses. Today, Winsome is the founder of Breaking Bread, a platform for bringing people together over a meal. She’s done something many of us are curious about: built it all with AI. Winsome is leading a morning session, talking through how she’s done it and working with any attendee to do the same.

Layla Pomper is joining us virtually to talk about how she’s built ProcessDriven into an educational platform business. Starting as a consultant, Layla has grown from $0 to $250k+ and built a YouTube channel with over 148,000 subscribers along the way. She crosses both pathways in what it means to be a creator and an operator, and I’m glad she’s bringing that to Grove.

Jason Kehrer is one of the best operators I know and has been teaching other operators how to run great businesses for over a decade. He’s leading a session on building a team operating system to ensure your business has the foundation it needs to grow.

Beyond the Sessions: Community Meals

A lot of the magic of Grove will be in the meals.

We’re partnering with organizations to co-host intentional meal meetups at restaurants throughout Downtown Grand Rapids. Our goal is to foster connection and conversation. Whether you want to talk about AI, social media, or funding, our partners will have a place for you. Want to create your own topic? We can do that too!

Meals won’t just be meals. This will be a place for intentional serendipity to connect with more people and build deeper relationships that may last the rest of your career.

Two days. Great people. Downtown Grand Rapids. Come build with us at Grove, July 23rd and 24th. Grab your spot here.

P.S. If you’re traveling in, Black Tech Saturdays is happening July 25th, and the beaches in West Michigan make for a pretty great long weekend 🙂

We’ve also got hotel discounts waiting for you.

Grove Retreat Agenda Details are here.

Early-bird tickets limited in supply, are here.

At Bamboo Detroit, we’ve been paying attention. And this year, we decided to get more intentional about what it means to support that energy.

That’s how our Creator Residency Program in Downtown Detroit was born.

A Home Base for People Who Are Building

The Creator Residency Program was created for creatives and entrepreneurs who are planting roots in the Detroit area and need more than a desk. They need community. They need a space that moves at their pace, holds their ambition, and introduces them to the people who are going to matter to their journey.

The idea is simple: what if a coworking space did more than provide WiFi and a chair? What if it actively invested in the people inside it — and used that investment to make the whole community richer?

That’s the exchange at the heart of the Creator Residency Program. Residents bring their craft into the space. The community gets to experience it. Bamboo gets to grow into something more than four walls and good coffee.

We’re proud to share that our first-ever Creator Resident is Melissa Bridges — aka Mel Bee.

Mel Bee is a visual storyteller who works with brands, entrepreneurs, and organizations to bring their stories to life through video and photography. She joined Bamboo Downtown Detroit in March 2026, and from day one she brought exactly what this program was designed to attract — energy, attention to detail, quick turnaround, and an eye that just gets it.

What she’s captured here isn’t polished or produced for the sake of it. It’s real. The heads-down grind. The quiet focus of a Tuesday afternoon. The momentum of a room full of people building something. She sees the Bamboo Downtown Detroit vibe — and she knows how to put it on screen.

Having Mel Bee in the space has been a gift to our community, and we can’t wait for everyone to see more of what she’s been creating.

Sound as Community Infrastructure

Some of the best community moments don’t get planned — they get discovered.

We first crossed paths with DJ Venus FlyyTrap at our Grand Rapids grand opening, where she set the tone for an entire room full of people meeting each other for the first time. When she later announced she was moving back to Detroit, it felt less like a coincidence and more like the city pulling the right people back in.

That’s how our Sonic Residency came together — and it’s been one of the most quietly powerful things we’ve added to the Bamboo experience. Members notice it. The atmosphere shifts. Conversations start more easily. The space feels like somewhere you want to be, not just somewhere you need to be.

Meet DJ Venus FlyyTrap

Behind the decks is Asia Horne — cultural worker, historian, creative director, and the founder of Free Alchemy Studio. Her work spans DJing, community activation, sensory storytelling, and media production, all rooted in Black memory, ritual, and radical imagination.

She doesn’t just play music. She designs environments. At Bamboo, that means curated sound built for the way people actually work and connect — intentional, living, and in flow with the energy of the room.

When Detroit called her back, we were ready. And so was the community.

New Event: WorkFlow & Workday Wind Down

Out of the Sonic Residency, something new has taken shape — and it’s become one of our favorite things happening at Bamboo in Detroit right now.

WorkFlow Every Second Thursday of each month | 5pm-7pm

Workday Wind Down Every Second Tuesday of each month | 2:45 PM – 4pm

Cap off your day the right way. Workday Wind Down our end of day open coworking session designed to help you finish strong — wrapping up tasks, getting organized, and closing out your workday with focus and intention.

WorkFlow curated by DJ Venus FlyyTrap. Whether you’re racing to hit a deadline or just need a productive space to tie up loose ends, this is your time to lock in. And to make it even better, DJ Venus FlyyTrap sets the vibe with music that keeps you in flow — good energy, zero distractions.

Come for the productivity. Stay for the vibes. Leave feeling accomplished.

Founders feel it, even serial entrepreneurs with exits face barriers raising funds in Michigan.

ESOs and non-profits feel it, fighting for what is a very small pool of funds to support programs and people.

The community feels it. We are disconnected. We don’t own our success. We don’t invest in advocacy for ourselves.

Last week, the Michigan Innovation Alliance launched. The alliance is a collective of 100+ partner organizations coming together to advocate for our statewide entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem. The alliance aims to support innovation policy making, to unite storytelling efforts, and to advocate for our collective community.

This is the first time everyone is collaborating together with a very clear vision. Bamboo is a community partner. While our model doesn’t rely on grant funding (we’re for-profit social impact), we want the collective ecosystem to thrive. We want to see incubators, accelerators, EIR positions, seed funds, and grants to continue (often state funded). This creates a healthier environment for our founders and creatives. Bamboo’s community-driven spaces help to create density and a statewide network of founders, investors, and service providers. With our five locations (Grand Rapids, Detroit x 2, Royal Oak and Ann Arbor), we are serving as a bridge to statewide collaboration.

Many of these cities and ecosystems are operating in silos. We see and experience it every day. Many founders are unaware of the communities and opportunities statewide already in place. This group’s efforts, we hope, will be one step towards greater collaboration.

The Alliance will also foster storytelling. We have always been a community of builders and investors, yet we don’t tell our story well. A story is a part of a culture and heritage. It’s a shared understanding of values. It must be told broadly to help us understand the context of our community, and share our message with the world.

There’s a gap collectively and publically. Just in the last few months West Michigan saw Series A startup Bindplane exit to Dynatrace, following Payload’s recent exit to Figma, and a few weeks ago the recent Stryker acquisition of a Umich spinoff for $835 Million. This does not include the slide above that lists out 8 Michigan-made unicorns in the last decade, or the recent Histosonics exit, or several Series A startup announcements this past year, like Pursuit, which received national coverage more than local media coverage. The momentum and talent is here. We need to move past Midwest Humble and better collectively tell a bold and inclusive story.

The alliance is just starting. It is new and you can learn more or get involved.

I remain cautiously optimistic we can learn to collaborate beyond our silos to make this place a better state.

The Michigan Innovation Alliance: https://www.innovationalliancemi.org

Michigan Tech Week: https://www.michigantechweek.com/

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When people talk about coworking, they often talk about desks, Wi-Fi, and meeting rooms. But we’ve learned something else is just as important: how a space makes you feel the moment you walk in.

At Bamboo Royal Oak, we think about physical space like a conversation with the community. What are people drawn to? What are they searching for? What are they struggling with? Sometimes this is a direct request and sometimes it’s requested without ever saying a word. The signals show up in small moments: someone rearranging furniture to create a photoshoot corner, someone asking for a more flexible setup for their team meeting, someone lighting up at the thought of espresso and matcha lattes, someone hesitating because they’re not sure how to use what’s available.

These moments are feedback.

When we build intentionally for the people actually using the space, something shifts. Existing members feel pride in a space that reflects them. Guests can see themselves here because the space doesn’t just meet needs, it honors their dreams.

We can’t meet every single person’s needs all the time, but we can pay attention to what’s happening in our community and design around the patterns. Membership cycles are real, so being intentional about building sustainable spaces that can adapt and grow with the community is what it’s all about.

Rethinking spaces: “What else could this room become?”

Sometimes intentional design looks like adapting, not just adding. Years ago, we built a Mother’s Room for the working moms in our community. It was (and still is) a meaningful resource we’re proud to offer to members and guests.

Over time, that specific need showed up less frequently but we noticed that people were still searching for a private space for a moment of calm, so we expanded its purpose. The Calm Room/Mother’s Room now features an iPad with the Calm app, offering free meditation and breathing programs for anyone. The room is used for meditation, prayer, a quiet moment between meetings, baby care, and its original purpose as a space for mothers. It operates as a multifunctional, comfortable space for nervous system support - still rooted in its original intention, but widened to serve more people.

That’s the kind of evolution we’re always paying attention to: when use changes, we don’t abandon a space, we listen again.

Intentional also doesn’t have to mean expensive. One of the biggest myths about “upgrading” a space is that it requires a big renovation. Often, it’s actually about removing friction.

For example, we realized we were unintentionally creating a barrier by keeping community supplies behind the desk. If you had to ask for something, that added an extra step and sometimes an unnecessary hesitation. So we moved supplies into one easy-to-access Member Supply Station where members can see what’s available and grab what they need. It’s still near the desk, which means there’s still room for interaction and questions—but the default is independence, ease, and flow. That’s intentional design: not bigger, not flashier, just more human.

Dedicated desk room: This is one of our most popular memberships. Available office space meant for team of seven but we have demand for more desks? Let’s rethink that. Now it’s another Dedicated Desk area. Members get the same access and amenities as our other Dedicated Desks memberships but the assigned desks are in a closed door room, giving the opportunity for more of a library feeling workspace. We don’t promise silence in our lively and hard-working coworking space, but we can offer a specific area dedicated to quiet work for those seeking it. We have three desks available right now.

Event spaces and design choices (and what they signal)

We treat our event space like a blank canvas—not a one-size-fits-all room. With a few thoughtful shifts, the same footprint can hold entirely different experiences: chairs become conversation circles, desks turn into long dining tables, and the café becomes a concert venue. The space doesn’t force a single vibe—it adapts to the vision for the event.

That flexibility was intentional. We wanted to create more ways to say “yes” to what our community is asking for, without needing a full redesign every time someone brings an idea.

Small upgrades like cocktail tables and comfortable bar stools add a subtle sense of elevation and ease. Reimagining our existing event seating, coworking desks, and stage areas create new spaces. Including adjacent conference rooms with rentals to use for breakout rooms or greenrooms while simultaneously creating a more seamless experience for our members and guests by taking away the overlap during events. Changes like this make gatherings feel more considered, whether it’s a dinner party, a fitness class, a team outing, a celebration, or a networking night. And the best part is, it’s not about “more stuff”, it’s about using what we already have with more imagination.

Designing Cafe Boo

Inside our Lower Level kitchen area we’ve elevated this into a 24/7 self-serve cafe. Cafe Boo is a warm, lounge-like space made for small breaks, chance conversations, and calm focus. A place to pause between meetings, reset your energy, and return to your work feeling more grounded. Intentional design goes beyond the space, it’s how you present it too.

Whether you’re staying for five minutes, a full afternoon, or the nighttime grind—you’re invited to make yourself at home.

As seen in Cafe Boo, visual cohesion—from the coffee-drip logo to design elements that echo the Mike Han mural in the lower level—creates a sense of story and continuity. It makes the space feel connected, intentional, and part of a larger experience, not just a collection of separate rooms. Behavior and opportunities it encourages: Soft and easy intros between members, when making a matcha or using the espresso machine for the 1st time. Familiar faces, casual collaborations.

Vision:

In Real Life:

Coming Soon - The Creative Lounge: We often get requests for photoshoots, filming, and podcasts. We had an office that’s in a funny spot for an office but a perfect spot for a rentable space so we’re recreating it into The Creative Lounge. A space for the creatives. It will be moody, flexible, and elevated. A perfect backdrop for podcasting and photoshoots as well as space for editing and brainstorming. This will be a bookable space that members can utilize their conference room credits for and non-members can book by the hour. Check out the moodboard!

Coming soon - The Sidewalk Patio: We’re bringing our community outdoors. Cafes and restaurants around us on Main Street in Downtown Royal Oak have existing patios. We have people hungry for spaces to gather so why not create patio space for coworking? A brand new sidewalk patio will be coming soon to Main Street. This will house several tables and chairs to gather and work from. It will be a space for small events, member socials, and working outdoors. This is currently in progress and under review with the City of Royal Oak.

Scene + sensory: micro-moments we design for: We imagine a morning coffee at Cafe Boo, a brainstorm unfolding in the Creative Lounge, laughter spilling out onto the patio after an event.

Those micro-moments are the heartbeat of community—and physical space can either support them… or make them harder to find.

What we’ve learned:

When people feel welcomed, they open up. When they feel comfortable, they connect. And when a space is designed for ease, people start treating it like it belongs to them—because it does.

But physical space is only the first layer.

The next layer is the relational space—who gets connected to whom in a community, and how the city starts to feel smaller when you engage with your neighborhood.

Check back in for the next part of this series later this year.

It’s time for innovation ecosystems to take a pivot.

The Midwest has been historically slow to evolve from an industrial to a technology-driven ecosystem. After decades of collective investment, that’s changed. We’re experiencing momentum. Still, we did not catch up to the concentration of innovation on the coasts.

Now as we enter the age of an AI driven economy, will we take a leap forward? Or be slow to pivot?

I’m betting and hoping we take a leap together.

Last week in Ann Arbor, thousands gathered for ClawCon at Chrysler Center. ELab ventures awarded $50,000 to a startup selected by AI. You could start to see the shift. The energy was electric. Alongside the event, The University of Michigan announced a new institute for agentic computing, aiming to foster AI systems that “are built openly, responsibly and in service of problems that matter.”

The shift to a new economy has begun. We have an opportunity to invest in access for our communities. Below are a few ideas from our Bamboo community to consider.

(Read more ClawCon at Start Midwest, and meet the winner Alisio Financial here. Photo borrowed from Marc Mojica who presented at ClawCon last week. Catch the next event in Ann Arbor).

A Boom & Upskilling Ahead

In the near term, there is opportunity to be had. One evolution we are seeing at Bamboo is the rapid pace of prototyping. Startups can get an MVP product out faster. They can test out a business model. They can operate leaner with smaller teams, perhaps requiring less initial startup capital. This could be an advantage for places like Michigan or the Midwest, where investment capital has been less accessible. Programs that support entrepreneurs should adopt to utilize this rapid prototyping, and those seeing success should teach and share with others.

As larger enterprises begin to adopt AI, we could have a greater need for upskilling across our communities. It’s too early to tell what this would look like but those who embrace new skills will be better prepared for the shift. Access to information and training will be critical to help others learn.

Government Engagement

Michigan is in the midst of an election year. The next Governor will need an understanding of AI and a willingness to learn how it will impact our innovation economy. This will require working in tandem with communities, some who are hesitant or fearful of AI.

Few candidates today are speaking publicly about AI innovation, or even listing ecosystem development as a key focus area on their campaigns. Governor Whitmer has begun adopting data center policies, recently speaking out on her approach. Who will be next and what will they steer forward? How we will be proactive instead of retroactive?

It is critical that our government leadership engage. If we don’t invest in the right resources, support upskilling, and build the right infrastructure to support new jobs, we will be slow to evolve.

We hope to see open conversations with communities and the inclusion of our existing technology and entrepreneur ecosystem in tandem with the next leadership.

Statewide AI Education

As you saw with ClawCon, meetups are forming across Michigan. This is some of the fastest and easiest ways to facilitate learning as AI models and tools change rapidly. We should invest in infrastructure, community-led learning, or ways to share this knowledge. Corporations and governments can partner with community-groups to facilitate this upskilling now.

If you do not believe the rapid pace, speak to a founder building in AI. This is what you’ll hear:

“It feels like the Web 2.0 era,” a founder said at an event. “I cannot believe how quickly I built my software.”

“I can’t keep up with the rapid pace of change,” another founder said. “It can be exhausting and has a mental toll on us who are building.”

“There is no startup who should now need a $300K a year software developer,” a technical founder said. “Those jobs will be going away or will become less and less needed.”

The Midwest Cultural Advantage

Building a company, leading a team, listening to customers to innovate requires a human spirit. There are many aspects to human leadership and operating a company that we need to continue to foster.

Culturally, this is where Michigan and Midwest cultures often thrives. We are hard working. We are people focused. We are diverse. We are capital efficient. We have some fantastic technologist and entrepreneurs who are heart-centered leaders. People build companies centering joy, or centering diversity, or centering human empathy.

We may as a society become more aware of these cultural strengths, and how they can be best used to co-create using AI.

We must find a way to make this pivot together. Pivoting can feel exhausting — exhausting and exciting. It requires a collective effort. We have much to learn and develop ahead in this great leap forward.

Let’s not let economic shift pass us by as a state, but find ways to embrace and build upon our momentum.

Applications are closing this week for Tsuanami Lab, a new entrepreneurship through acquisition program. Below is Marcel’s story entering the entrepreneur ecosystem, and the story behind the launch of the lab.

To some, I am the disruptor. To others, I am the artist, the poet laureate, the community advocate who founded a philanthropic organization rooted in dreaming radically and doing feverishly. But very few historically thought of my name as being synonymous with “entrepreneurship.” Even some of the brilliant minds on my own Professional Advisory circle don’t necessarily see my ability to create as something that is scalable or of significant economic value.

In their eyes, I was a “community guy.” They saw the heart, but didn’t see how it could steer an economic engine for change. Psh, but to be fair, there were days I didn’t see it myself; and ones I still doubt it now.

The Mirror of the “Miracle” Résumé

My tenure with the non-profit I founded came to a jagged end. I had taken that organization from a single sheet of paper; filing the articles of incorporation; to a multi-million-dollar entity. I did it as a non-college-educated, Michigan-born-and-bred founder. In a region that values pedigree and “Collegiate polish,” I was a glitch in the matrix.

When that chapter closed, I struggled to find my footing. I knew I had a love for consulting; an ability to fundraise that felt like a superpower; and a knack for designing large-scale, scalable systems. I founded The RE: GROUP because I knew so many philanthropic professionals who were suffocating on their own reliance on foundations. These were good people, brilliant people, but they didn’t know how to diversify revenue. They didn’t know how to lean into public-private partnerships or navigate the labyrinth of state, city, and county dollars. They had a mission, but they didn’t have a map. Even rarer was the authentic community support or the know-how to secure major individual gifts.

I thought I could be the guide. But after a short-lived time as a grantmaker with one of the oldest community foundations in the state, I hit a wall of realization. I didn’t want to be a career non-profit professional. At least, not right now.

I realized my drive to “learn everything I could” about philanthropy was rooted in a survival instinct. I believed the non-profit structure was the only way someone who looks, thinks, and lives like me could raise capital or scale a mission in West Michigan. I believed that if I wanted to do good, I had to ask for permission through a grant application. I honestly still don’t entirely disbelieve that the system is rigged that way; but now, I am yearning to prove that reality is not the only option.

The Enchantment of the $50 Million Announcement

Then came the shift.

When I saw Kalamazoo Forward Ventures (KzFV) come on the scene; six Black men making a $50 million announcement; I wasn’t just captivated. I was taken back in a way I can barely describe. As someone who felt like an anomaly for having raised $6.5 million in a philanthropic space; a journey that came with death threats, county officials wanting my head, and a chorus of voices telling me my fall would be as fast as my rise; seeing KzFV was like seeing a mirror from the future.

In West Michigan, the unwritten rule is that you don’t refuse to “kiss the rings.” I had spent my career refusing. I had watched as the elite maintained control while the middle class was ruled by philanthropy. I saw people giving their lives to work that resulted in no tangible equity. They were moving the needle for the city, but their own dials stayed at zero.

So, when I saw six people launch an investment firm; a for-profit entity designed to invest in other underinvested humans; I became enchanted. I attended their launch event and was mesmerized by the stories, but more importantly, I was emboldened by the mission. They were navigating the world by pouring into those who weren’t at the table, and they were doing it through a for-profit framework.

In February 2025; Black History Month, ironically enough; I began my role as Director of Community & Strategic Engagement at KzFV. For the first time in my professional life, I had the capacity to learn without the immediate threat of the plane crashing.

As a founder, I was always building the plane while flying it. I was trying to land without killing anyone while simultaneously using the plane to assist others. I was busy. I didn’t prioritize learning outside of mentorship. But now, I was taking professional development classes. I was reading everything I could find. I completed VC University through Berkeley, which opened my eyes to an industry that felt both alien and strangely familiar. I realized that being a founder of a philanthropic institution is almost identical to being the founder of a venture start-up. Being a grantmaker is the mirror image of being an equity-based funder.

The mechanics were the same; only the currency had changed.

The Pivot to Main Street

In early 2026, my role refined. I received a promotion to work exclusively with our Main Street pillar under Managing Partner Dwayne Powell Jr.

Dwayne is one of the founders of KzFV and, frankly, one of my favorite leaders I’ve ever worked for. He is a brilliant, tenured economic developer who knows the soul of Kalamazoo because he is native to it. We started to notice something in the fall of 2025. As a new fund, we were looking at the staggering failure rate of start-ups. In the Venture Capital world, you expect most to fail because the few that win, win big. But Main Street is different. Main Street is about the anchors.

Dwayne noticed a trend in our data. Out of nearly 300 Main Street applications, only 5% had over $150,000 in revenue. Even fewer had existing assets or “clean” books. When you look at the success rate of a brand-new start-up compared to the success rate of Entrepreneurship through Acquisition (ETA), the appeal as an investor becomes crystal clear.

This is where the disruptor in me started to get excited. I realized that if we wanted to move the needle on economic justice, we couldn’t just keep starting from zero. We had to start buying the rooms we were already standing in.

The Arithmetic of the Silver Tsunami

We have to talk about the math, because the math is the only thing that doesn’t lie.

Nationally, we are facing what economists call the “Silver Tsunami.” Baby boomers currently own about 2.3 million privately held employer businesses.* These firms are the heartbeat of the American economy; providing 25 million jobs and generating over $5 trillion in annual revenue.* When these owners retire; and they are retiring in droves; we face a systemic risk. If there is no one to buy these businesses, they close. The lights go out. The jobs disappear. The wealth is extracted by distant corporations.

But look at the disparity in the current ownership landscape:

• Women-Owned: ~22% of employer firms.*

• POC-Owned: ~18-20% of employer firms.*

• Black-Owned: ~3.3% of employer firms.*

The representation gap is a canyon. Black folks make up over 14% of the population but own barely 3% of the businesses that actually employ people. In Michigan, the numbers follow the same tragic curve. We have roughly 81,500 boomer-owned firms.* These businesses provide nearly one million jobs; that is 1 in 5 private-sector jobs in our state.*

In West Michigan; my own backyard; Black ownership of employer firms hovers around 2%.* This is where the “Tsunami” becomes an opportunity for a “miracle.” If we moved just FIVE businesses a year in West Michigan into the hands of Women, POC, or Black owners, we would fundamentally shift the regional economy.

• In 3 years, we would increase the total number of Black-owned employer firms in the region by almost 8%.

• In 5 years, we would move the needle by nearly 13%.

We are talking about a $50 million transfer of wealth and power over five years just by ensuring these businesses don’t go dark. This isn’t a “program”; it’s a revolution.

Tsunami Lab: The Justice League of Program Design

I have always used my work to create what I needed and didn’t have. As a teaching artist, I created the stages I needed as a kid. Now, as an entrepreneur and a leader at KzFV, I am creating the infrastructure I need as an adult.

We built Tsunami Lab to be that infrastructure.

It is an acquisition accelerator designed to reduce the friction in ownership changes. We are assembling a “Justice League” of program creators to equip leaders with the tools to identify, evaluate, and acquire existing businesses. We aren’t looking for early-stage concepts that burn through cash; we are looking for real companies with employees, customers, and cash flow.

Tsunami Lab is for the operator who has the leadership capability but doesn’t have a “novel startup idea.” It is for the person who knows how to run a team but was never given the keys to the building. We are taking the “red flags” that the system sees in our backgrounds and turning them into the “green lights” of a sustainable economy.

The coming week is the final week for applications. We are looking for the innovators, the risk-takers, and the disruptors who are ready to shake up the status quo by owning it. People can apply here: [Link].

The Spectrum of Entrepreneurship in Michigan

Michigan is blooming into a beautiful entrepreneurial renaissance. But we have to realize that entrepreneurship is a spectrum.

Not everyone is built to be a start-up founder; the person who builds something from a napkin sketch and a prayer. And not everyone is built for entrepreneurship through acquisition; the person who takes an existing engine and tunes it for the next fifty years. Both are valid. Both are vital.

I believe Michigan is the future. From the automotive legacy of Detroit to the Furniture City of Grand Rapids; from the biomed innovation statewide to the CPG power in Battle Creek; or the Public / Private savants in Kalamazoo, home of The Promise. Michigan inspires the world. But it is up to us to innovate in ways that continue to move the needle for the middle class and the underinvested.

I told myself I’d never lead again. I was exhausted; spiritually, emotionally, and financially. But something shifted. I realized I don’t just like leadership; I need it. I am at my best when I am responsible for building something meaningful. Something sustainable. Something that can/will outlive me.

We are going to attack unemployment and economic disparities by utilizing the systems we have and getting more disruptors into positions of ownership. We are going to preserve the businesses that already sustain our communities.

We are going to take the “Silver Tsunami” and turn it into a reservoir of equity.

Even if it is one program, one acquisition, one transfer of wealth at a time.

Peace, Love, and Creativity

Marcel Fable Price

Founder, The RE: GROUP Strategies.

Director of Platform and Programming @ Kalamazoo Forward Ventures.

*Citations and Resources:

 Project Equity: The Small Business Closure Crisis (Michigan & National)

• Read the Michigan Report (PDF)

• National “Silver Tsunami” Press Release & Data

 U.S. Census Bureau: Annual Business Survey (ABS) 2023/2024

• Main ABS Program Page

• Note: This is the definitive source for ownership by sex, race, and ethnicity.

 Brookings Institution: Black Employers are Reaching New Heights (2024/2026)

• Read the Full Analysis

• Black Business Parity Dashboard

 SBA Office of Advocacy: 2024 Small Business Profile (Michigan)

• Read the Michigan Profile (PDF)

• National Small Business Profile (PDF)

 Exit Planning Institute: State of Owner Readiness Report

• 2023 National Report & Executive Summary

Despite the frigid temperatures that evening, we gathered to celebrate and support each other. Everywhere we go in Michigan women are building. We are creating communities, launching companies, and leading innovative teams.

I couldn’t help but wonder that night, how many of these women here will start a company? Many in the room that day work remotely for big tech, in research, or at established firms.

The talent is here. Yet so few female founders actually start companies. Nationally, the estimate is 10-15% of all founders of high growth companies are women. That is shockingly low.

*Thank you to Shine and Rise & Ann Arbor Spark for the event above at Bamboo Ann Arbor.

As someone who started Bamboo with a $5,000 loan and scaled it to a multi-million dollar venture in Michigan, I often wonder why more of us don’t try. Why don’t we take the risk?

Perhaps, it starts with considering a role at a startup first. Typically at a venture backed startup, you have the opportunity for equity and a path to wealth creation, that is if the business succeeds. You might learn how to build a startup, and then be empowered to start your own.

The more wealth we create in our community, the more likely it is invested back into our local economy. Nearly 80% of our member companies at Bamboo cite they prefer to spend their money locally, with 100% of our high-growth companies prefer to hire in Michigan. Founders are our job creators. They are the path forward to a more diverse and innovative economy.

If we can welcome more women into our startup ecosystem, this creates both equity and experience that leads to future founders. We create a better flywheel of our own talent in our backyard.

Why you might want to join a startup or high growth company.

I asked Abby Gates of Sproutwise, a firm dedicated to scaling up people operations, her thoughts on this topic and how equity at early stage startups work.

Abby has been building her firm for several years in Michigan, after spending much time at high growth firms. Her work offers a unique perspective across our ecosystem.

Why should women consider joining a high-growth startup team?

“The acceleration of your learning,” Abby said. “What you’ll be asked to do and the opportunity for your impact is so much greater. You have an opportunity to explore skills you’ve never even known you’ve had. You get exposure to every part of the organization. If you’re within a product team, you might also learn about sales engineering and sales processes.”

The acceleration of learning is huge. Abby describes the growth trajectory in a high growth company as much more condensed. You get to learn faster. It is higher risk and higher reward, though in an untested organization.

How does equity in early stage startups work? Can you describe it for those unfamiliar with the concept?

“For the first timers, ownership can be a nebulous idea,” Abby says. “If the company is successful, you are treated as an owner. Equity is ownership.”

“Think of it as the green bay packers -- it is an equity held organization by their fans. Every single fan feels that much more invested in the team’s success because they are owners too. Part of it is yours. Changing the conversation. It’s not a now game, it’s the impact you might have down the line. It is a level of personal investment of building and being an owner of the company.”

“It’s a volatile environment at times, but it’s yours,” she says. “These jobs feel more like yours than anything else you might get a chance to do. You’ve been chosen to help solve a problem that no one has ever done before. That’s an exciting opportunity.”

What is one way you’d like to see Michigan’s talent ecosystem grow?

“We need more structure. If we’re considering this issue for a company, what is that we’re offering and selling to this person? Cost of living might be part of our proposition. How are we encouraging people to grow here? Relocation, stipends, might help others be here and have a safety net,” she says.

“Structurally as a state, we need to know what we offer to entice and grow here -- there’s a whole strategy element.”

PS. If words like equity and ecosystem are new to you, check out this list of startup vocabulary that Abby shared on her blog.

How to connect with our growing ecosystem and job opportunities.

Wherever we go in Michigan, women are building products, leading teams and helping to disrupt industries. One of our recent successful venture-backed exits last year in Michigan, HistoSonics, was a product invented by women. That said, finding us can be hard. We’re remote or at coworking hubs... or well we are all over the state of Michigan.

Here’s a quick list of a few firms helping women, and offering ways to find high growth jobs.

• Shine & Rise - a virtual community of women in tech and startups

• Ann Arbor Spark - hosting a women in tech series with Bamboo, and annually at A2 Tech 360

• Women in Health Tech - a regular meetup in Ann Arbor

• Michigan Founders Fund - a resource for founders in Michigan, many women members

• Black Tech Saturdays - a global movement hosting a Women’s Takeover coming up

• Femology - leading programs for women founders

• Coffee Circle - meetups in Grand Rapids led by Jen Wrangler, one for women in tech, and women in healthcare/healthtech

• Michigan Research Job board - posting job opportunities at high growth ventures in Michigan backed by MSU’s venture team

• Michigan Women’s Forward - seed funding and pitch opportunities for women-owned companies

• Techtown Detroit - job board

• Ann Arbor Spark - job board

• Purpose Jobs - jobs and talent network, hosts a quarterly Startup Detroit happy hour

• Bamboo - We post job opportunities inside our private slack channel, and on social media when our companies hire. DM if you’re looking to make a change and we’ll post privately. At one point, 50% of our companies had a women co-founder or leader with equity on their team.

He built Alerje’s first product, a smartphone connected epinephrine auto-injector and recently this medical device to a strategic partner, SemPresto.

As someone who has been building his company in the last decade in Michigan, I sat down to catch up and ask him for his feedback on Michigan’s innovation ecosystem.

Here’s what Javier shared with us and what’s next for their team.

On building and exiting a hardware medtech company.

Alerje was born from lived experience. Javier grew up with severe allergies and often forgot to carry his injector. When he learned that two-thirds of people living with allergies also forget, the idea for the product formed.

Over the years, their team secured 13 international patents and multiple awards for design. The decision to sell was strategic.They sold to a strong partner with a vision and roadmap that aligned to continue serving those living with allergies.

In the last two years, traction started building from the software side of their company. While there’s no cure for an allergy, there are treatments. Doctors need better data. Alerje is now focused on working with the top allergy clinics to provide a solution.

“It’s pretty niche but it’s powerful,” said Javier. “Moving forward, allergy care can be based on real time data that can better inform shared decision making between patients and doctors. We look forward to showcasing this during an upcoming pilot with one of the largest allergy clinics in the U.S.”

“The beauty of healthcare is you can go deep and make an impact in people’s lives.”

Feedback on our startup and technology ecosystem.

Originally from the Chicagoland area, Javier’s entrepreneurial journey began in Detroit. He was working as a software engineer at one of the largest health insurers and PBMs in the Midwest, then jumping into full time entrepreneurship. Living here was more affordable than the coasts. The community and his mission aligned.

“One of my personal mottos, mission over ego, is one of our core values at Alerje,” he said. “We have an incredible community. Everyone is willing to make introductions.”

Javier is now based in Southwest Michigan which has a rich medical device innovation history and a low cost of living too. Kalamazoo is home to Stryker, a multinational medical technologies company valued currently at $140 Billion. New venture funds like Kalamazoo Forward Ventures are investing more founder friendly capital into the local and statewide ecosystem.

“True wealth in Michigan hasn’t been activated yet,” he said. “It’s an underrated part of the country that tends to punch far above its weight.”

It’s a tough journey to head down this path building a physical medical device product. Having a strong faith, great mentors, and helping others in the industry, all kept him motivated during the cycles of entrepreneurship.

“Without having any faith you will get swept up in the wind. The wind of feedback that might be positive or market challenges. Sometimes it’s best to opt out, lock in, and level up; opting out of the noise and staying focused on the task at hand; beware of new shiny things.”

Jaiver also helped grow the MedTech Color community early on, where they invested over $1 Million back into founders while being supported over the years by industry titans including Stryker.

“Lifting while you climb can be hard. It’s an energy tax,” he said. “But it’s also motivating, and at times it’s the modus operandi of underrepresented startups.”

This really resonated with me. Often in an emerging ecosystem founders are tapped to mentor and participate, while being busy scaling a company of their own or balancing the demands of personal life and entrepreneurship. Giving back your time or support can cultivate a tight-knit community and create impact along the way.

What I heard most from Javier’s story: affordability vs coastal cost of living, and a sense of mission and connectedness in a community are positive drivers.

A challenge remains in unlocking Michigan’s wealth which could be an opportunity to align more investment with the greater Michigan innovation ecosystem, perhaps similar to what we’re seeing in Kalamazoo.

Congrats to their team on reaching the incredible milestone of exiting their product innovation, and now scaling up their software. Learn more about Alerje here and follow along.

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

This past year has brought with it unexpected challenges: tariff negotiations, budget cuts, and pivots. Many of our members navigated a tough year that is now, hopefully, beginning to settle.

At Bamboo, we’ve been navigating our own season of change. This Fall will mark for us a new milestone as we open two new community hubs, in Detroit and Grand Rapids, strengthening our statewide community.

Now Open: Bamboo Midtown at The Jefferson Hub

We’re excited to announce that Bamboo Midtown is now open inside The Jefferson Hub, a new 115,000 sq ft center for collaboration and innovation in Detroit.

Bamboo is managing and programming this historic building in partnership with Invest Detroit. Unlike our other locations, The Jefferson Hub blends traditional team office suites and flexible co-working spaces to support every stage of an emerging business. Come tour the space and see the former basketball court turned into a co-working hall. Stay tuned for community events and gatherings coming to this location.

Coming in December: Bamboo Grand Rapids

After two years of meeting with community members, founders, and funders to re-imagine the former UICA art gallery into a hub for innovation — we’re excited to finally open our doors in Grand Rapids this December.

Bamboo Grand Rapids is nearly full, with a diverse mix of technology companies (national and local), creatives, and innovation partners. All sectors and stages are welcome to join us in cultivating a new entrepreneurial center for West Michigan — a place for business support, creative collaboration, and big celebrations.

And yes, the art gallery and movie theater will reopen to the public for events and private rentals starting in December.

Celebrate with Us: The Grand Grand Opening & Midwest House Summit

Join us in Grand Rapids for two special days of celebration:

• December 3–4: Midwest House Summit — a two-day experience bringing together bold ideas, breakthrough talent, and cross-sector collaboration shaping the future of the Midwest. The line up is looking so good, and we can’t wait to welcome in guests from all over Michigan and the Midwest.

• December 4: The Grand Grand Opening Party — music, a vendor showcase, and a special celebration marking the opening of the center.

If you’re traveling in for the conference, discounted hotel rates ($150/night) and free bus transportation from Detroit, Royal Oak, and Ann Arbor, is available thanks to our friends at TripSlip. You can find the full details for the conference here: https://www.midwesthousesummit.com.

Opening in Grand Rapids marks more than just a new location, it’s a milestone as we officially become a statewide platform connecting entrepreneurs, startups, and leaders across Michigan.

As we enter both our opening season and planning season, we want to hear from you.
What’s working? What do you want to see next? Your feedback always helps to guide our team of ecosystem builders as we look to evolve and support you. Let’s keep building a more collaborative ecosystem this season and onwards.

“You know, not everyone knows that word,” she said.

It is a word we use a lot in our startup community, borderlining a buzz word.

It’s ingrained in our mission and vision at Bamboo: to build a more collaborative and inclusive ecosystem.

But...what exactly is an ecosystem?

This word “ecosystem” is really just another word for a “network.”

Whether you are in education, technology, or a creative sector, you have a network of resources, people, and supporters to help you on your journey. Everyone has their own ecosystem around them.

In entrepreneurship, we are usually referencing an informal link between the builders, the investors, and the universities....all of the key players who might impact the growth of a startup company.

It can include policy makers deploying capital or industry groups supporting people or products. Sometimes it includes an individual founder or mentor, someone who’s scaled a company and can coach you through the process. An ecosystem is centered around the person it is supposed to serve. In our case at Bamboo, an entrepreneur.

A strong ecosystem, a strong network, does the following:

• Helps you find the right people and resources at the right time.

• Is inclusive, supporting and welcoming all to the table.

• From a regional perspective, it fosters job growth in your city, state or local economy.

That’s it. A network of support. Helping you, right?

Here is a simple graph built by Chat GPT to show you an “ecosystem map” .

Why should we care about what an ecosystem is?

You know that phrase your network is your net-worth?

The faster and easier you can plug into resources to start and scale, the better your journey will be. The more likely you’ll stay in Michigan and create economic impact. If there’s someone underserved in an ecosystem, and often there is, we can collectively welcome them in if we understand the gaps of support. It’s also that feeling that you have a community supporting you. That you can find what you need — you’re just an intro or two away. That’s a great feeling.

If I’m a fund or an organization... Why should I care about this?

If we stick to our individual silos, and don’t play collaboratively, then we don’t help accelerator culture change. In Michigan, we’re still historically transitioning into more technology and creative industries. We’re still welcoming more people at our collective table. Our work together uplifts all of us as a region. A rising tide will lift your fund or organization too, no?

When you think of this more...Who’s in your ecosystem? Who isn’t?

Look around. Connect. Ask others for introductions. If there’s a gap supporting your journey as a leader or entrepreneur, tell people who can help make a change. Help us build up this network that is organically linked together to help you better.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to spotlight more of the people in our broader Michigan network so you can see who’s in our state helping you plug in.

I hope this definition is helpful for those new or entering into our “ecosystem”.

We aren’t retiring this word just yet, but maybe we’ll be done saying it this morning.

As entrepreneurs, we can never predict how markets or trends might change, and in the process of building an ecosystem, what might accelerate our collective momentum.

But there is something very special right now about building in Grand Rapids. The city was ranked the number one city on the rise nationally for careers by Linkedin, citing growth in tech, healthcare, and professional services. It's a place where private and public partnerships thrive. This week kicks off Grand Rapids Tech Week and the internationally renowned Art Prize, two anchor events in West Michigan.

Grand Rapids is also now home to Bamboo’s fastest growing entrepreneurship center. Our location at 2 Fulton is anchored by Start Garden, who’s hosting a Demo Day featuring 100 companies this week, and Midwest House whose December summit is coming up alongside our opening. All of our partners and collaborators are aligned on fostering density, supporting innovation, and welcoming back the creative arts and design community into our center (home to the former Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts).

While space and infrastructure are needed for an ecosystem to thrive, it’s really the people who lead the community and nurture an ecosystem’s success.

Today, we’re very excited to announce our Grand Rapids team.

Meet our Bamboo Grand Rapids Team

Community Director Matt Gira

We’re excited to welcome Matt Gira as our Community Director for Bamboo Grand Rapids. Matt is a founder who launched and ran a drone startup called Fathom (Techstars alum). Matt has spent the last five years working directly with entrepreneurs to help them generate revenue and launch at Yale’s Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking (Tsai CITY). He’s passionate about helping entrepreneurs learn to bootstrap, and shares his entrepreneurship advice here. Please help us give Matt a warm welcome back to Michigan with us!

Senior Manager of Events and Sales: Nicole LaRae Leech

Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Nicole has built her career at the intersection of music, community, and live events. A longtime radio host on WYCE 88.1 fm, she has spent over 20 years championing independent artists through her weekly on-air programs.

Nicole’s event production journey began with local venues like Juke’s and The Pyramid Scheme, where she booked thousands of shows - ranging from grassroots showcases to national acts, festivals and community gatherings. She has helped shape cultural programming through projects like Grand Rapids Public Museum Concerts Under the Stars, Michigan House at SXSW, and her boutique record label, dizzbird records.

Most recently, Nicole served as Director of Programming and Production at the historic Kalamazoo State Theater, revitalizing its post-pandemic lineup with acts such as Json Isbell, Kamasi Washington, Sharon Van Etten, and Tig Notaro. She also continues to book talent at both of Bell’s venues in Kalamazoo.

Now joining Bamboo, Nicole is excited to bring her creativity, network, and deep love for connecting people through shared experiences back to her Grand Rapids community. She welcomes collaborations and new ideas for events that inspire and bring people together.

Identity & Marketing Consultant: Erin Wilson

A special thank you to Erin Wilson for being the first to join our Grand Rapids team, as an Identity & Marketing Consultant. Erin is leading the project of re-opening the 200 person movie theater and gathering spaces with us. We appreciate all your guidance and support on re-opening this special place for the greater creative community.

Thank you to our newest team members for helping us to accelerate our collective momentum in Grand Rapids, and for thoughtfully reopening the loved theater and art gallery venue again.

We’re Still Hiring: We’re seeking a Community Coordinator

We’re seeking our Community Coordinator to join us in November. This position supports the daily operations of a busy center interacting with our community. We will also have more positions opening up soon in 2026 and key vendor opportunities.

PS: Save the Date for our celebrations:

• Midwest House Summit - Dec 3rd-4th

• Bamboo Grand Opening - Dec 4th - details coming soon

For those considering traveling into Grand Rapids, we’re working with Midwest House on providing a bus from Ann Arbor and Detroit. Stay tuned for more details as we get through construction and onwards to opening.

If you’re in Grand Rapid’s this week, come say hello and see what we’re building at our Hard Hat Tours on Thursday, part of Grand Rapids Tech Week. Afterwards we’ll be at the Grand Impact, a community arts and tech takeover.

Three years later, I find myself in a position that once seemed like a distant dream — Community Director of our thriving Royal Oak location. This journey from intern to director has been filled with growth, challenges, and countless moments of connection that have shaped both me and the space we've built together.

The Evolution of a Community Builder

My path to Bamboo began long before 2022. As a 21-year-old from Detroit's east side, I founded my first non-profit in 2015, Project YEARN, fueled by a passion for creating spaces where people could thrive. This led to Live Inspirationally, a platform focused on personal development for creative millennials that encompassed everything from media production to event planning.

What I didn't realize then was that these early ventures were preparing me for something greater — the opportunity to foster community in a space designed specifically for connection and growth.

Coworking = Community Wellness

Working at Bamboo has never been "just a job." Yes, our small-but-mighty team (now just myself and our coordinator Abby) manages 500+ members and countless event rentals while wearing every hat imaginable. But beneath the operational hustle lies something far more meaningful — a sense of belonging that transcends the physical space.

What makes Bamboo special isn't just our desks or meeting rooms; it's the wellness that permeates everything we do. It's watching members support each other through challenges, celebrating wins together, and creating an environment where everyone feels valued not just for what they do, but for who they are. Providing this community care and emotional support at Bamboo cultivates a space where people can truly thrive.

From Service to Leadership

I've come to understand that community building isn't about customer service — it's about leadership that empowers others. It's about creating conditions where people can form authentic connections and thrive in their work and lives.

As a 29-year-old Black woman with Belizean roots, I sometimes marvel at how beautifully the cards have played out. This opportunity feels like a manifestation of something I once only spoke into existence — a chance to create spaces that reflect the diverse, vibrant community I come from. I want to be a leader who not only embodies this manifestation, but helps others find their own path inside our community too.

Where Wellness Meets Tech Innovation

As I step into this new chapter as Community Director, I'm filled with excitement about the future. My vision includes bringing more tech-focused initiatives to Bamboo Royal Oak, expanding our wellness programming, and creating thoughtful, authentic experiences that nurture both creativity and connection.

Last week we welcomed hundreds through our doors for Tech Connect Week – a week of collaboration and connection for developers, leaders in AI, community builders, and startup innovation. Our tech ecosystem is regional and fast-growing, and we’re grateful to create a space that nurtures it.

I'm committed to learning and growing every day, driven by the knowledge that the community we're building extends far beyond our walls. When we create spaces where people feel truly seen and supported, we're doing more than running a coworking space — we're fostering the conditions for innovation, collaboration, and genuine human connection.

This is just the beginning of our story, and I can't wait to share this journey with all of you.

With gratitude and excitement,

Ally 🌱✨

Music, fresh coffee, and fresh juice on the rooftop was a hit. We had guests who traveled into Bamboo Ann Arbor all the way from Lansing and Flint to join us.

Coworking platforms like Bamboo can be low-risk ways to test out expanding into a market. Whether it’s setting up a virtual office for a mail address to start to show your presence, or something more intentional like a pop-up experience, you can test out if you should expand into a city with us.

Candace Cavazos the owner of The Deep End Cafe and Gallery is a stellar community builder who’s currently working on opening a location in Southwest Detroit. So we asked her for a few tips on how she thinks through designing pop-up experiences.

(BTW: we’re planning more weekly pop-ups through November on the rooftop in Ann Arbor - reach out if you’d like to partner and join us this week Thursday for the next pop-up a tailgate with Ferne Botique).

What inspired you to test out a rooftop coffee-shop pop-up?

When you’re a new business, I think it’s important to meet people where they are. Bamboo is a great place to engage with entrepreneurs, creatives and innovators. These are exactly the kind of people we want to engage in our events and programming. We do more than coffee, we curate artistic, cultural and innovative educational programming. We thought it was a wonderful idea when Amanda, co-founder of Bamboo, invited us to do a pop up on their rooftop. Day time coffee parties with live DJs are gaining popularity throughout the U.S. We thought it was a great opportunity to try the concept here in Michigan and show people how TDE can infuse arts, culture and specialty hand crafted beverages into a work space. The music, the art and even our guest speakers were intentionally curated. I think it’s brilliant that Bamboo leaders lean into the experts and the talented folks in their network to bring new experiences to their guests.

What was one thing that worked really well this time, and one thing you’d change next time?

The way people engaged with the pop up was impactful. We brought out 12 local DJs from Washtenaw and Wayne county and they gave very positive feedback about the connections they were able to make in a new setting. We also collaborated with a local Ypsilanti artist, E’lana Amyre, and the Prisoner Creative Arts Project at University of Michigan to showcase beautiful art during the pop up. Guests were inspired by the thought provoking work which raised awareness for local art and mass incarceration in the U.S. If I were to change anything, I would say it would be more promotion. Handing out flyer throughout the surrounding area would have brought more awareness to the general public that this was happening. It was a great opportunity to engage with the Bamboo space and be a part of The Deep End Cafe & Gallery’s curated essence and we could have done a better job making sure more people knew that.

If there’s one core piece of advice you can share, what do you think makes a successful pop-up?

Intention followed by immediate action. Pop ups move fast. Changes and improvements have to be made almost immediately. Throughout the pop up, we consistently noticed when something could be better and acted on it right away. We had to be in consistent communication with several stakeholders to ensure an organized effort for a flawless presentation. While taking actions to ensure the best outcomes, it’s important to maintain the core values and intentions. It’s important to stand firm on who you are as a founder and a brand to reveal the genuine essence and impact of what you are offering. We could have simply served coffee and juice on the rooftop while a playlist pumped out Apple’s top 100 hits. Instead, we decided to be more intentional by engaging local artists and organizations in a collaborative effort to bring meaningful impact and experiences to the Bamboo audience that truly set us apart from other coffee pop ups. Find what makes you unique, and amplify it through your services.

Can you share a bit about your approach to building community and activating space?

When it comes to building community, it is all about healthy relationships. We hear that all the time and it’s true. In order to get people to see your vision and be a part of it, you have to ensure that they feel valued in it. Transparency is key. As an artist and event attendee myself, I have been promised more than what organizers could offer. This is always disappointing and breaks the bonds of trust that establish a strong foundation for a successful event while activating a space. For this pop up for example, we didn’t have a budget to pay DJs their asking price. Instead, we put a call out to our artist network detailing the facts about what this opportunity could offer (a new network and environment to engage with, a small stipend and promotion on our platforms). The DJs that saw value in this transparency, quickly signed up and fully understood what they were getting out of it. It’s best to be honest about where you are as a new business or curator/organizer. Transparency builds trust and attracts the right people to your work so that you can grow and support one another meaningfully. You don’t have to pretend to have more than you do, you just have to be honest with people and invite them to join your journey. Be intentional to ensure opportunity for growth for the people that align with your mission. Value people’s contributions and insights throughout the process by explicitly expressing gratitude and making space to support their endeavors the next time around. Building community is a reciprocal process and activating a new space is a people centered approach.

How can our followers learn more and support you?

To learn more about The Deep End Cafe & Gallery and join our network, you can visit tdecafe.com or follow us on Instagram at @tdecafe. Currently, we are seeking capital to acquire our permits for our new space in Detroit. Donations can be accepted on our website and all resources are welcome! Please reach out and connect, we would love to know you!

Community leadership is rooted in collaboration and collective well-being. It fosters a service oriented mindset and creates a sense of belonging.

At Bamboo, we strive for each of our team members and locations to embrace their own communal leadership, letting their community hub find its spirit. Each location and community has a similar core value and offering, but a distinct local community.

I also think communal leadership can be a lens to look at a healthy innovation ecosystem. A healthy ecosystem in which all participants -- service providers, founders, investors, government agencies -- look at uplifting all in spirit of the collective well-being of the ecosystem.

Founders should support founders. Organizations refer clients to each other in collaboration. Friends show up to our pitch events, our openings, our milestone moments and our private struggles. Community members must have a stake in each other’s success. We have to collectively be in it together as an ecosystem in order to grow.

With that in mind, we’ll be sharing more voices from fellow community leaders on our team and in each city soon, with insights that might be helpful for you.

In the meantime, as we think about our collective ecosystem here’s some news to catch up on:

-> proposed state cuts to entrepreneurship and innovation funding have us concerned. This funding is critical for smart zones, micro-grants and more -- the foundation for our early stage startup ecosystem. Learn more about how to support our non-profit ESO community (entrepreneur support organizations) who need this funding.

-> Michigan startups create jobs and economic impact including bucking national trends with raising rounds right now, but the support system behind the founders need your support with funding too.

-> In spirit of a statewide ecosystem, catch the weekly startup newsletter by Bryce Kaiser featuring news and events across Michigan, or Flannel Rocket by Pete Martin who’s latest episode tells you why founders choose Michigan and other weekly news.

-> Midwest House also announced a new platform called Start Midwest, featuring jobs, resources, data and news on innovation across Michigan + Midwest region.

-> And I love this story of student founders Meet Your Class, coming from University of Michigan and leveraging our Ann Arbor <> Detroit communities to stay in our region and grow.

We’re building an ecosystem that is statewide, that leverages all of our strengths, and focuses on the collective impact we can make together.

In Grand Rapids, we continue to progress on construction of 2 Fulton, a 40,000 sq ft community innovation hub. The ecosystem was recently ranked as #1 by LinkedIn as an emerging city on the rise, citing job growth, affordability, and growth of the population. Job opportunities are growing in technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and more.

We’ve also opened up two leadership positions in Grand Rapids, a Community Director and a Manager of Events and Sales, as we march on to an opening this Fall.

If you’re excited about helping to create community hubs, value having a service-oriented or give-first mindset, want to help us continue to create ecosystems, then please come join us or share with a friend.

That’s all for now.

Hope you’re having a good summer.

-amanda

But before we share that news, I’ve been reflecting on how we first built Bamboo.

It was 2013, and we were a group of friends who wanted a space to work on new ideas together. We were all in transition, left a recent job, laid off or looking for a way to build our own path.

Entrepreneurs need space to grow, but what they really need is each other.

We had no money so we borrowed $5,000 from my business partner’s Dad, bought Ikea furniture, and setup a 2,000 sq ft co-working loft. We then worked on our own business ideas and we welcomed everyone to join us. We hosted fireside chats with entrepreneurs and VCs from all over, including Sequoia Capital, who came through to this little loft that had no sign and was located over a bails bondsman in Downtown Detroit.

It sounded like a “speakeasy” a team member said. It was a raw space, with a group of entrepreneurs who just wanted to build together. But it was always this spirit of community and a mission to change culture that kept us going.

From there, we evolved our model. A grant from Motor City Match helped us expand into a new location, our current location at the Julian C Madison building downtown.

I took over the role of “ceo” but I struggled with the idea of being an entrepreneur. My family didn’t start businesses. I come from a long line of single, working class women, who raised babies and barely got by. What made me think I could do this? I went to school for creative writing, and I felt very sheltered from this entire world of starting and operating a business.

I had to learn to embrace this path, and I wanted to learn fast. I joined a program at Inforum, led by Patti Glaza and Rachele Downs. I still remember Rachele coming to Bamboo to invite me to participate in the program. I was afraid it wasn’t for me. But she encouraged me and I signed up. In this group, female founders gathered monthly to help each other (shout out: Tatiana Grant, Gwen Jimmere, April Clark and many friends). I entered in unsure how to navigate my role at Bamboo, and left feeling much more confident in this choice.

At many moments in our journey, we’ve been blessed by others stepping in to mentor or guide us at critical times. We try to encourage that same spirit of giving back in all our programming at Bamboo.

We’re creating a new path forward now to build a statewide ecosystem and Detroit is a central epicenter of entrepreneurship in our region.

Bamboo at The Jefferson Hub in Midtown Detroit

Today we’re announcing we’ve partnered with Invest Detroit, who helps support entrepreneurs through programs like the ones I shared today. Bamboo has been selected as the program manager and property manager for their new innovation center at The Jefferson Hub, located at 950 Selden.

The historic school has been renovated into 115,000 sq. ft. of innovation space. Located in Midtown, Detroit, we’ll be opening this Fall offering:

• Private spaces at 150-10,000 sq ft for room to grow

• Coworking lounge inside the former gym, from ball to a coworking hall

• Shared amenities like an 85 seat event center, lounges, fully stocked kitchens

• Outdoor and indoor mezzanine spaces

• Parking on site which is always a bonus in Detroit

Below is a peak of construction in progress.

Team suites are available for leasing now, and our coworking space opens this Fall.

Office tenants and members of this location, will access all Bamboo locations statewide including our Downtown Detroit, Royal Oak, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids locations.

Invest Detroit has helped to seed our growth and much of the small businesses and startups in Detroit. A fun full circle moment for us to work together in this new location.

And our mission remains the same….supporting the entrepreneurs, creatives, and forward-thinking companies that are changing our culture in Michigan to be more inclusive and innovative every day.

We can’t wait to show you more soon, as tours open in July.

Stay tuned!

-amanda

*Programs & people mentioned above:

Invest Detroit a CDFI dedicated to economic growth in Detroit, and ID Ventures.

Patti Glaza, Rachele Downs and the Inforum Women’s program. Rachele Downs is also a co-founder of Women’s Sustainable Development Initiative, helping more women and women of color enter commercial real estate.

Motor City Match a grant program helping small businesses open physical spaces in Detroit.

The Ferlito Group seeded our first location together with our co-founder Mike Ferlito, and is our property management partner for this location.