Inside Traverse City's Newest Entrepreneurial Support System

Ann Arbor. Detroit. Grand Rapids. East Lansing. Kalamazoo. These are a few of the cities around the state that participate in “Founders First Fridays,” a program sponsored by the Michigan Founders Fund that creates regular meetups of entrepreneurs in hopes of fostering community, connection, mentorship, and innovation.

Now, Traverse City has joined the list.

Broc Crandall is the founder of Stocked, a local startup and grocery delivery service that focuses in particular on northern Michigan’s robust vacation rental market. He’s also the ringleader of Traverse City’s brand-new Founders First Fridays meetup, which kicked off last fall. At 9am on the first Friday of each month, a group of business founders and entrepreneurs from around the region convene at a pre-determined location to talk challenges, opportunities, growth, and more.

“It’s very informal,” Crandall said of the meetups. “We do introductions, and then it’s basically just: Where are you at with your business? What are you stuck on? What can we help with? It's a very open conversation. There's no schedule; there’s no rigid structure where each person gets 10 minutes to talk. It's nothing like that. It's very open and relaxed.”

The Founders First Fridays concept isn’t necessarily new: For years, entrepreneurs around the state have been using the idea to meet new people, navigate business hurdles with help of fellow founders, and shore up stronger business communities in their hometowns. It wasn’t until recently, though, that the idea made its way to northern Michigan.

Crandall only heard of the concept because Stocked joined Michigan Founders Fund, described on its website as “a network of entrepreneurs and investors who have pledged 1 percent of equity or carry to support impactful local organizations throughout the state who are doing the work to better our communities and enrich quality of life.”

“Basically, businesses like ours pledge 1 percent of their company at an exit or at a buyout, and give it to Michigan Founders Fund for founders who are starting new companies,” Crandall explains. “It’s a resource for those first-time founders to get funding for their ventures.”

Among the offerings of the Michigan Founders Fund are programs and events intended to “create ongoing opportunities for high-growth founders to engage with one another to achieve both business and community goals.” One of those programs is Founders First Fridays, which Crandall learned about from Pete Martin, director of connection for the Michigan Founders Fund. As Martin told Crandall, there have been standing monthly engagements under that program banner in many of the bigger cities downtstate, but there wasn’t one in or near Traverse City. Crandall decided to change that.

As Crandall tells the story, he and a fellow local entrepreneur – Chase Bonhag of FirstIgnite, which makes AI-powered business development tools for colleges and universities – have “always talked about how we wanted something like this when we started our businesses.” But while the growth of Traverse City’s business scene has made it a friendlier space for entrepreneurship, Crandall argues that many of the networking opportunities and startup support services available here aren’t offering what he sees as the strength of Founders First Fridays. Some, he says, are too formal or too rigid in their structure; others are focused on specific niches within the business world and don’t leave the door open for everybody. Founders First Fridays, Crandall hopes, can be something a bit more approachable, for any type of business founder.

“We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from founders who have attended our first few meetups, and one of the biggest things is that people are glad this is for any founders, and not just for people in tech,” Crandall tells The Ticker. “We talk a lot about tech entrepreneurship in this community, but not every startup is in tech. We have startups here that are producing goods, or they’re doing something else in the community. And they’re all trying to get legs and they need help, but they haven’t found a support system like this until now.”

The sessions aren’t just for fledgling businesses, either. Founders First Fridays also welcomes seasoned veterans who have built large, successful companies. One highlight from the early sessions, Crandall mentions, was an appearance by TentCraft founder, president, and CEO Matt Bulloch, who shared stories and tips from his days in the startup trenches. Since its start in 2007, TentCraft has grown into one of Traverse City’s biggest manufacturing enterprises.

The local edition of Founders First Fridays had its inaugural meeting last fall, at Happy Camper Coffee in Elk Rapids. But the meetups, which Crandall says have drawn a few more people each month, quickly outgrew that spot. The new home of the events is at Riley’s Candles in Grawn – and Josh Hart, the founder of that business, is a regular participant in the sessions. The next Founders First Fridays meetup is scheduled for this coming Friday, February 2, at 9am.

“These events are free for people to come and hang out, have a coffee, and chat,” Crandall says. “And it’s all about supporting entrepreneurs and trying to help them grow their businesses. It’s our way of saying, ‘Are you starting a company here in northern Michigan? Come join us, and let us know what we can do to help.’ When you’re in startup mode, you typically don't have that many employees, and you're going through a lot of things that you can't really talk to anyone else about. But you can talk to other founders.”