MSU Research Foundation Podcast

The Front Door to Innovation with 20Fathoms

• MSU Research Foundation • Season 2 • Episode 3

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In this episode, David Washburn talks with Craig Wesley, Executive Director of 20Fathoms in Traverse City, about how northern Michigan is cultivating a vibrant entrepreneurial community and expanding opportunities for early-stage founders across a 10-county region.

Craig shares his path from Michigan State University to two decades in Silicon Valley and back to Traverse City, and how that experience shaped his vision for building an environment where innovators can thrive. He discusses the evolution of 20Fathoms from a local coworking hub to a regional catalyst for startup activity, along with emerging strengths in freshwater research, fisheries innovation, and drone technology. Craig and Dave also explore how statewide partnerships, new research facilities, and collaborations like PitchMI and Conquer Accelerator are creating more pathways for entrepreneurs across northern Michigan.

Host: David Washburn
Guests: Craig Wesley (Executive Director, 20Fathoms)
Producers: Jenna McNamara and Doug Snitgen
Music: "Devil on Your Shoulder" by Will Harrison, licensed via Epidemic Sound

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David Washburn:

Welcome to the MSU Research Foundation podcast, today I visited with Craig Wesley who is the Executive Director of 20 Fathoms, the "front porch" of the entrepreneurial community in northwest Michigan. Today I'm with Craig Wesley, who is the executive director of 20 Fathoms in Traverse City. Twenty Fathoms is uh to use your words, Craig, the front porch of the entrepreneurial community of Northwest Michigan. And we're we're happy to have you here. And um before we get started, just a note to our listeners, uh, we're gonna talk about companies that we probably have some investments in. Um we're partners with 20 Fathoms, but this podcast should not be construed as um investment advice or legal advice. So, Craig, welcome.

Craig Wesley:

Terrific. Hey, thanks for having me here, Dave.

David Washburn:

Craig, tell us um let's go back to sort of your undergrad days and tell us sort of what your path was uh coming out of undergrad and how you got to where uh you are today.

Craig Wesley:

Yeah, I had a great experience at Michigan State University and proud father of three Spartans today, as a matter of fact. So yeah, uh it was a Communication Arts and Science major, learned a ton there, really great program, and that set me up for what turned into starting my career in sales. So there's lots of different paths so you can go with that degree, you know. But it was so helpful for me in sales to be able to understand how people think, the art of persuasion, leadership, you know, those sorts of things that were really a big part of their program. Yeah, so I started my career in sales in Toledo, Ohio, and spent a few years there and realized that, you know, there's probably other places that I should spend some time in my youth. Yeah. And that led me to going out to Silicon Valley and felt, eh, you know, I'll be there for a couple years. I actually transferred with the company and ended up staying in Silicon Valley for a couple decades. So, you know, it's uh it was a fun place to visit, really hard place to leave. There's just so much density of career opportunities, and uh particularly at the time that I was there, there was so much pent-up energy on the computer industry, obviously, but coming out of chips and into you know what has been the groundwork for the internet and now of course getting into AI. All of that was very formative at the time that I was there. So for a guy like me who just seeks opportunities and looks at ways that I can be surrounded by really smart people and do fun stuff, I mean it was the perfect environment for me. It was great.

David Washburn:

Oh, that's great. So uh a long, long career in Silicon Valley, and um, I'm sure we could talk for hours on on that. But um uh at some point um you made your way back to Michigan and ended up in um Traverse City. There are uh that's a pretty nice place to end up. So uh when did when did you move back and what inspired the move?

Craig Wesley:

Well, we moved back in 2013, okay, and it was really uh a personal decision. You know, I have three daughters and my oldest at the time was 10. Okay, and my wife and I were just talking, hey, do we want to raise our family here in Silicon Valley? You know, it's a little nuts. I mean, it's great for your career, yeah, but it you know it can be challenging from a family standpoint. Uh so we just felt that for them to have aunts and uncles in a way that really couldn't in the Bay Area would be really impactful. So uh she, like so many people, and she's from Northern California. Okay. So, you know, had never spent a winter here. And like so many people, comes to northern Michigan in the summer, falls in love with it. Hey, great place to raise a family. I'm like, well, yeah, you've never been here in the middle of February. And and by the way, you know, the job opportunities aren't quite the way they are in Palo Alto. Right. So, you know, we kind of negotiated that for a year, but then just decided, hey, this is an opportunity for us to really focus on our family. And um her words to me were, hey, you'll figure it out. She was very convicted about it, and it's worked out great. Yeah, really great.

David Washburn:

Well, let's talk about 20 Fathoms, the front porch. Um give us the history of 20 Fathoms and uh uh how did it start? What's going on there today?

Craig Wesley:

So 20 Fathoms was started in 2018, and really it was designed to be just a meeting place for people wherever they are in their entrepreneurial walk, a lot of people in their basements and their coffee shops, whatever. So this has become obviously a very common model now, but in Traverse City was very unique. There's really no place for people like that to gather. So that was the original concept behind 20 Fathoms was let's let's have a space, let's have a right downtown, let's make sure it's attractive, and make sure that anybody who wants to be part of learning from other people and have a sense of community can have a place. And also inside of that, uh at the original location we had offices where we had fledgling companies involved. And at that time it was more of an incubator model, also. Yep, you know, where the companies came in, located in the co-working space with their own office, got coached up, mentored, accessed to resources, and then you know, graduated. Uh, so that worked out pretty well to get the organization going. There's, as you probably know, uh the deal flow in northern Michigan isn't quite substantial enough to warrant that as an ongoing model, but it it really got the organization going. And then, of course, you know, COVID hit. So, you know, being in the people gathering space was kind of challenging in those days. And uh 20 Fathom certainly felt that. Coming out of COVID, there was a real interest in okay, how do we really set up the organization to do more of what we see the area needs, which is to be able to identify entrepreneurs, meet them wherever they are, and provide programs or services or resources that would help them really further their journey. And through those conversations, the organization applied for a couple of grants, uh, hoping to get one, and then lo and behold, both of them hit. So this was really transformational for 20 Fathoms and for the customers we serve. The uh organization at the time was four people with the influx of the grant dollars, expanded the staff to 16, 17 people. And also one of the mandates from one of the grants was to be able to expand our geography. Uh-huh. So instead of just being focused on Traverse City, which you know makes sense because it's always gonna be the center of gravity there, to be able to take our programs and services out through a 10-county area. So that was a major expansion for the organization too. I mean, trying to cover 7,300 square miles, you know, and and do the work that we do. Yeah. So that was what last year was all about, 2024, which was you know, bringing those people on board, developing those programs and starting to execute. This year's been all about execution and what are we learning? You know, what are we learning from all these programs, boot camps, workshops that we're doing, and then factor that into thinking for the organization for the future, and particularly when we think about the post-grant cycle. I mean, as you know, uh grants are designed to come in and spark things. That's right. They're not designed to come in and be there forever. So we have been very effective at sparking a lot of activity, and we've uncovered a lot of things well beyond the Traverse City area that are worth preserving and worth carrying on. So, what we're talking about as a team right now is as we think about Q4 of 2026 when the grants roll off, how do we ensure that this good work continues? And that really kind of leads to the partners, you know, that we've built in the area. Right. So we're just one aspect of a broad ecosystem that exists in Northwest Michigan because people realize, you know, if you're gonna live in northern Michigan, you know, there aren't a ton of large employers, you kind of have to figure it out. And there's this that natural entrepreneurial kind of grind that's built into some people. And because of that, it's really important that we have thriving partnerships that everybody kind of plays their role and really helps each other out. Um what I'm focused on is not only that, but also how do we develop connectivity throughout the rest of the state where some of these activities are more organized. For instance, your organization, you know, here at Michigan State. So there is a lot of collaboration with what we're attempting to do with what is important to Michigan State and your organization and you know the venture world here as well. So if I could, for instance, just talk about an example. Yeah, please. Uh it's been great the last couple days. So we had an entourage of Michigan State students ranging from seniors to graduate students that are uh early in their entrepreneurial journey, and they made a tour of Traverse City and included 20 Fathoms on that, as well as other companies, you know, in the region. And so that was just great for us to have an opportunity to hear from them, learn what they're doing, and just you know, just the energy that people of that age and the aspirations they have bring. It was just fantastic. And then last night at the end of their tour, we held, since this is Rivalry Week between Michigan State and U of M, we held a pitch competition at one of the local brew pubs and invited the community. So there were three teams from Michigan State and two teams from U of M that presented and just gave them an opportunity to get in front of a live audience and kind of do their thing. So those are the sorts of things that you know we'd love to promote and we'd love to be connected with Michigan State to continue to foster that collaboration.

David Washburn:

And was uh did you judge or were there judges and was there a prize or was it pride or what... Generally uh those sessions of course do, but it was intentionally not done so last night. Okay. And actually they gave their pitch and there uh we was requested no questions. Okay. You know, just an opportunity for them to pitch and then to save plenty of time for networking because hopefully a number of the people that were in the room from the community could provide avenues for some of these students, whether it's you know, potential distribution or connections into other people or thoughts about hey, let me learn more about your business. I'm an investor, I might be more interested. So the the influence of that group we thought was more important than actually, you know, having the standard award type set up. Yeah. I mean it's an interesting community there. I'm I'm you know, without a major um research university like a like a Michigan State or uh or a Wayne or U of M. Um But you're still seeing pockets of innovation. I know that um Michigan State, for example, has uh some research projects up there in freshwater, for example, and there's probably other areas. So what types of things are you are you seeing come through um you know the the sort of technologies that entrepreneurs are bringing to bear?

Craig Wesley:

Yeah, and you said the key word, you know, it's innovation. And that that's really what 20 Fathoms is focused on. Yeah. You know, again, we have a lot of partners in the ecosystem that all kind of are in their lane. Our lane is clearly top of the funnel, early stage, where are the innovators? How can we help prime the pump with that? And how can we take them forever wherever they are, you know, further along in their path? I mean, our our mission is to accelerate the growth of tech startups, entrepreneurs, and scalable businesses. So that that accelerate is really important to us. How can we accelerate innovation? And one of the probably marquee things that people are gonna start to hear about going on in Traverse City is related to freshwater. We've got a couple of things going on. You talked about research that are gonna be transformational for Traverse City in Northwest Michigan and quite likely the Midwest. So the Freshwater Research and Innovation Center, we just had a groundbreaking for that facility last month, and this is gonna be a 38,000 square foot facility that's gonna house seven or eight wet labs as well as a communal wet lab space, and it's gonna be located right across the bay or right across the road from the West Bay. So anybody who is doing any kind of freshwater research to have access to wet labs to do their research, but then have the ability to go across the road and actually, you know, submerge something in the water, I mean, it it's truly remarkable. And the fact that this is going to be in in a small town, you know, in Traverse City, yeah, is quite astounding. Yeah. So we're very excited about that, but we also think that it's very aligned with that region. I mean, uh, everybody knows, you know, the water and everything that's Traverse City is all about. So for us to be leaders in freshwater research, we think is very much uh on brand, you know, with Traverse City. Along with that is a lesser known initiative, but it is is also quite remarkable. So the Boardman River, which runs right through downtown Traverse City and then you know comes out into the bay, uh, has a series of dams that have been removed. So a few dams have been removed. There's one remaining that's an earthen dam that was there from the 30s, and that's in the process of being removed to return the river to its natural state, which will create great advantage for the fish that have a native habitat that they haven't been able to experience for decades and decades. The uh Michigan Fisheries and Wildlife has been looking for a location to do some research and uh infrastructure, and they were looking at different sites, and then when they heard about the move to remove that final dam and started looking at it, they thought this is a perfect location for us to do what we want to do. So I know sometimes these things take years and years and years because you have so many different entities that you know are involved, but again, in the spirit of partnership that Traverse City is, I think, known for pretty well, they were able to come together relatively quickly, get this plan worked through. And so now we are gonna have another research facility. That's great. It's coming online about the same time as the Freshwater Research and Innovation Center, spring of 2027. And this is gonna be dedicated to keeping sea lamprey out, you know, essentially keeping the bad fish out and allowing the good fish in. So it's gonna be a diversion of the fish that are, you know, coming in and being able to, using technologies, be able to identify, you know, what those fish are, how long they've been around, and to be able to sort them accordingly. And this is gonna be a living laboratory on a river in a downtown city that people are literally are gonna be coming from places as far away as the Netherlands to see what's going on here. So that's another aspect. In addition to the the center, where 20 Fathoms interest is hey, are there is there some research being done there that is potentially commercializable that could create companies? Same thing here with the fish pass. You know, is there research being conducted that's interesting that could become a commercial entity? And at the end of the day, like all the other partners, that's what we're interested in is you know, how do we help create jobs, create companies, and diversify the economy in our case, uh to not be so reliant on the tourist industry, but enable jobs and companies that can allow people to actually live there.

David Washburn:

Yeah. Well, and you have an interesting um mix of uh of residents where I I do think that because it's such a beautiful place to be, yeah, I think you uh you have maybe maybe there's other folks from Silicon Valley that have you know come home to Traverse City or or uh uh maybe people have homes there. Uh but I think there's there's sort of interesting and interested sort of individuals who have been out in industry and been successful who you know are probably you know partnering with you, interested in sort of looking at opportunities either to mentor or maybe to invest in. Um can can you talk about the sort of business community surrounding uh you know 20 Fathoms and looking at all of this stuff because that's so critical.

Craig Wesley:

Yeah, you know, and anybody who's been to Traverse City or you know, who's eaten out in one of the incredible restaurants there or done any of the many things that are there recognizes that that town punches way above its weight class for the size it is. And the same thing holds true for the people like you're talking about. So it attracts people, uh, and we we do have a lot of people who have gone out in the world and done really interesting things and have some level of means that are interested in investing back into the community. It's it's uh the the issue in northern Michigan generally for a long time has been the lack of organized capital. You know, obviously in major metros, you've got institutions that have been in place for years and uh it's much more organized. That's not the case in northern Michigan, and unlike Silicon Valley, it's very quiet. So uh it's that's part of what we try to do at 20 Fathoms is to provide connections for people that you're describing, yeah, you know, that are interested from a business standpoint to support the community and to make them aware of some of the opportunities that are available there, as well as introduce them to founders, technologists, or entrepreneurs, you know, that they may have an interest in. So I would say there is an abundant, again, for a town of that size, there is an abundant amount of people that can bring a lot of value to the entrepreneurial community. And they do. And and that's part of the mix that I think really makes Traverse City a unique place for an entrepreneur. I mean, as you said, first of all, it's a place of people want to live. Yeah. So, you know, we've got a great advantage there. But you are surrounded by very successful people, by groups that are interested in your success, that will seek out your resources and are eager to help you on your journey.

David Washburn:

Well, it's just fabulous, and I appreciate the the sort of culture around entrepreneurship that that that you and your partners are building in that community. And and um we're we're just we're excited to partner with you and the ways that we have and look forward to it um, you know, continuing that. I was curious if, you know, water's a huge deal up there, obviously. Yeah, but if you expand outside of, you know, to you mentioned a number of counties, I assume you see a lot of ag related things.

Craig Wesley:

Yeah, certainly ag is a is a big opportunity in northern Michigan, as it is all along the fruit belt, all along Lake Michigan. Right. So yeah, there's you you know, you never know where innovation comes from. Yeah, that's probably what we've learned coming from a kind of a Traverse City-centric organization to looking under the covers around what's going on, and like in Manistee or Potoskey or other areas. So innovation can start anywhere, and it's someone with an idea that thinks about things differently, yeah, as you know, right? And this has really enabled us to have our eyes more wide open to other opportunities there. I mean, certainly fresh water is gonna be an enduring thing that we're gonna be focused on. There's also interest in uh drone technology. Uh-huh. Again, you know, Northwestern Michigan Community College, which again punches way above its weight class. Yeah. Uh just world-class programs, they uh have gotten the attention of the National Guard and the federal government because of the topography that we have in northern Michigan in combination with the lack of population makes it a ideal area to test beyond line of sight drones. Interesting. Yeah. Once that becomes allowable via FAA rules. So there's a community of people there in front of that and are looking at, okay, is that a you know potential opportunity that we can continue to innovate? Uh so there's things like that that are bubbling up, you know, all around us that it's it's just remarkable.

David Washburn:

It's fabulous. What other things that I did I not ask about that you want to mention?

Craig Wesley:

I would say, yeah. Certainly the connectivity with the great universities in the state of Michigan, you know, Michigan State, uh are really important to us. So when we think about the work that we're doing, you know, we can't take them on the whole journey, right? So for instance, the accelerator program that you have here and you've been running for years. Conquer Accelerator. Yep, Conquer Accelerator. You know, we've encountered a number of entrepreneurs who've taken advantage of that program. So as we think about, okay, how do we at 20 Fathoms really deliver impact? How do we live to our mission of accelerating? Well, we could go like go try to build an accelerator, but why do that? Right. So that that type of partnership with Michigan State in that regard is really, really helpful. So for us to be able to provide pathways for people, again, wherever they are in their journey, to be able to help them move forward, uh, and that that's really great. And obviously, we're looking for that to continue. We've had some recent successes with that.

David Washburn:

Our PitchMI, our business plan competition that we were awarded by MEDC that we did in uh phenomenal late September and October. Uh, we did four cities, uh sort of um uh you know, Grand Rapids, uh Ann Arbor, Detroit, and and Traverse City was our fourth. So we had a a great experience and brought uh a number of folks up there and and and got to have a number of of startups come and compete in Traverse City through our PitchMI competition. And so um I think that was a great example uh of of working together. And and of course the the winners of the PitchMI competition, the four regional winners are gonna hopefully be in Lansing in the spring of 2026 for for the finals.

Craig Wesley:

So what an event that's gonna be.

David Washburn:

Yeah, it should be great. Yeah, it should be great.

Craig Wesley:

Yeah, we love pitch competitions. As a matter of fact, 20 Fathoms hosts a quarterly pitch competition, okay, TC New Tech. Yep. And actually, you know, we'll get 150, 200 people at this, a lot of people from downstate, you know, who recognize hey, there's some entrepreneurial things buzzing in Traverse City, and they like to take that opportunity to come up and see what's happening. So it's really become kind of a part of the fabric of the entrepreneurial community there.

David Washburn:

Well, I think I think what you've done to uh help help sort of build out that culture has been incredible. And I'm I'm just excited and and um to see where it goes because it's it's definitely a unique uh a unique sort of geographical setting. And uh I think with the population uh and the types of of research institutions you're sort of attracting to the community, it's um I think there's just great things to come.

Craig Wesley:

So we certainly hope so. And uh, you know, we like to talk to the community about innovation as being a community asset. And it and a lot of people don't naturally think about that. They think about, you know, there's lots of wonderful assets in Traverse City, but you know, innovation doesn't naturally come to people's mind. So I think we have a responsibility to the community to be able to help them understand why innovation is important and why fostering this entrepreneurial community really provides the resilience and the flexibility in the community that makes it such a desirable place to be.

David Washburn:

Well, I can certainly vouch for 20 Fathoms having uh been there, and uh it it's a it's a great facility and um it's it's fun to see all the activity there and your view is uh uh pretty good, I'd say. I've seen the plans for the new building that you're that's under construction. Uh so I'm glad to hear it's under construction and I'm looking forward to to seeing that when it's uh when it's completed. What's the timeline on that? Do you know?

Craig Wesley:

Yeah, it's gonna be completed, ready for move in in Q2-ish 2027. Okay. Yep. Very good. Well, thank you. Oh, it's gonna be fabulous.

David Washburn:

Yeah. Well, my guest today has been Craig Wesley. He's the executive director of 20 Fathoms in Traverse City, the front porch of the entrepreneurial community of Northwest Michigan. Craig, thanks so much for visiting with us today.

Craig Wesley:

My pleasure, Dave. Great being here. Thank you very much.

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