Watching Us Grow

We just did the damn thing in Austin

During our Ecosystem Builders Welcome Party on the opening night of Midwest House 2025, author/founder/leader/thinker Victor Hwang of Right to Start explained the basic metaphor behind his book “The Rainforest.”

I’m going to paraphrase because I’d slept about 5 hours in the preceding three days, but the basics were as follows: if you’re trying to grow one particular crop - it’s relatively straightforward to set up the conditions for optimal growth. If you’re trying to grow a rainforest the task is much less predictable and whole lot more difficult. Trying to grow an ecosystem where innovation and creativity thrive, he argues, is similar to growing the rainforest.

So how do you do it?

Creating a startup rainforest is all about creating the conditions and adding the right ingredients - and then letting things like creativity, innovation, ambition, grit, etc go to work.

Soooooooooo, man oh man, what a week we just had!

4 packed days and nights. Almost 10k attendees. Speakers and musicians, pitches from both founders and investors, food, drink, yoga, jewelry making, tattoos…

It was a lot.

But at its core, it’s pretty simple: we’re trying to create the kind of environment where creativity and innovation can thrive. Then all of you that attended, supported, or even watched from afar are like the added the ingredients.

Just add water, y’all.

We all know, though, that 4 days 1000 miles from home does not an ecosystem make. But it’s a moment that shows what is possible in our region, and more importantly, a moment of connection which is vital for any rainforest (we’ll delve into this soon).

So thank you for all who took part. Thanks to the attendees. Thanks to the speakers. And, yes, huge enormous thank you to the organizations and people who chose to prioritize and sponsor this thing. We all know it is a rough environment out there for all kinds of orgs right now, so we are beyond thankful to those that supported this year’s House. It is the only way this kind of stuff happens so, yes, I’m about to list all the names:

DAY SPONSORS

Michigan Economic Development Corporation

World Business Chicago

THEMATIC COLLABORATORS

City of Grand Rapids Smartzone

Foode

Founders N’ Funders

Funded House

ID Ventures

Maximize

Michigan Founders Fund

Michigan Outdoor Recreation Industry Office

Opnr Music

Plain Sight

The Player’s Company

Populous

Start Garden

Techtown Detroit

Venture 313

REGIONAL COLLABORATORS

1871

Ann Arbor SPARK

City Innovations

BMO Financial Group

Detroit Regional Partnership

Microsoft

Newlab

Obama Foundation

Pie

Portillos

The Right Place

University Research Corridor Michigan

PROGRAM PARTNERS

ActiveCampaign

Ally Bank

AnitaB.org

ArtPrize

Atomic Object

Capitalize VC

Chicago Blend

Coya

EcoMap

Friends of Grand Rapids Parks

Horizon Impact Fund

Hummingbirds

Lightship RV

Logictry

Mentavi Health

Ohio Angel Collective

Outdoor Recreation Roundtable

Regal Resilience

Seamless

Union Heritage

WNorth

WebAI

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

2112

AutoPacific

Bells Brewery

Boxed Water

Carbon Stories

Carhartt

Cintrifuse

Cooley

Farmers Fridge

Finn

IDA Ireland

Michigan Outdoor Recreation Fund

Outdoorsy

Rebel Nell

Right to Start

Rituil

Sino Auto Insights

Startup Grind

US Conference of Mayors

What She Said

“Good night. I'm feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I'd give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart.” - JD Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenter

I’ve mentioned before that I went to grad school with clichéd dreams of writing the “Great American Novel.” I’ve often come back to this quote when I think about where life has taken me, I’ve definitely written about it before, but I’m never really sure if anyone understands what I mean when I say that I think of this work as “writing a tree”.

One of the things that speaks to me about Victor’s “Rainforest” metaphor, though, has long been implied in my own barely intelligible “write a tree”.

I’m very proud of what we just accomplished in Austin and the community we’re building, but the beauty of it has so little to do with me. We’re just creating an environment. Adding some water (in a box thanks to Boxed Water), some light, and a bunch of a bad ass folks who believe they can change the world. And then watching things grow from there.