Good things are happening in Fort Wayne - especially underground. Yes, I mean that literally.
In the basement of the STAR Financial Bank building on Berry Street in downtown Fort Wayne, a collective of startup-lovers and entrepreneurs are making things happen. For those of you who know me well, you know that's a phrase I don't use lightly - I tend to be very skeptical of projects I see producing more attention than results. At the Den, they seem to have the opposite problem - they're making more things happen than they're receiving attention for - perhaps because the space has only been operating in this capacity for a few months.
Earlier this year, the space was the new home of Panzit - a startup company founded by Alex LaPrade, Alex Smith, and Shane Aruajo. They quickly realized they had much more space than they needed. During the same time frame, Aruajo and Smith worked on a project for A Better Fort (a nonprofit they founded to increase civic engagement among Fort Wayne's young people) called Hip Hop 4 the City. The three of them were becoming increasingly attached to Fort Wayne, had a drive to see it realize its full potential, and were entrepreneurial by nature. Given their passions, motivations, and extra space - the Lion Den was born.
I'm a bit of a traveler around downtown who works from coffee shops, offices, and occasionally a park (not in this heat, though). Over the past few months, I've found myself spending an increasing amount of time in the Den thanks to two primary attributes of the space: the type of people it attracts, and the social nature of it. Everyone who works from the Den shares a common passion for our city and a drive to see its entrepreneurial community strengthen. Similarly, we realize we all have different talents we can bring to the table to make things happen. By pooling our resources together, some exciting products, websites, and ideas have already spawned from the Den.
I've always been a fan of organic, community-driven change. The Den is a near-perfect embodiment of that. People are coming together in a common space, sharing common interests, and pooling their resources together to bring about positive change throughout Northeast Indiana. Not only are they working together in an ultra-collaborative format, they've also slowly begun to crowdsource engagement and opinions from their own networks (which overlap to an extent, but are still rather diverse) to increase the overall impact of what's being produced. On a given day, you might find a half-dozen developers, a few nonprofit leaders, a couple of creative-types (myself included), and economic development leaders passing through (Marla Schneider of The Alliance pictured above, as well as Bill Brown of the Downtown Improvement District earlier this week). The amount of ideas, connections, and capital (whether human, social, or monetary) that passes through the space in a given week is outstanding - and certainly something noteworthy.
It's a morpheus space, however, that will continue to evolve and find its identity. The number of tenants (or those who use it on a regular basis) has grown to include Vertical Leap, SASSI Systems, Guild Press, along with a collection of others who are calling it home. For me, this isn't home - but it is hope. It gives me confidence that our region has a bright future with a growing number of attached, action-oriented people doing what they can to bring about positive change for their city. They're claiming ownership over it and setting an example for us all to follow - that action really does speak louder than words. And those in the Den aren't the only people following this example; I've spoken many times about the hard work of Dan Swartz with Wunderkammer Company and Kelly Lynch's visionary dream for the North River property (stay tuned for a more in-depth post about it, by the way - in the meantime, watch this breathtaking video he produced). It's as though we all started on separate paths but were headed towards the same destination - we're nearing an intersection of efforts with the power to propel economic, cultural, and entrepreneurial growth beyond our current dreams.
The Den isn't a solution; it's a spark. It's a collection of people who care, who create, and who collaborate. Most exciting to me - it's organic. It happened on its own, is developing its own identity, and is evolving to fit the needs, desires, and aspirations of our city's startup community. It wasn't created by some programmatic approach to encouraging entrepreneurship in Fort Wayne. It wasn't spawned from years of strategic planning or visioning. It was created by a few young people who believed in Fort Wayne's future, were committed to its growth, and were excited about the prospects of what could be. I'm excited to see how it evolves, and I hope you are too.
