Blog: A Visit to Detroit’s Green Garage
By Phil Ginsberg
How innovative can a startup incubator possibly be? I had no idea - until I visited Detroit’s Green Garage with SvF’s Urban Revitalization Circle. In the course of our afternoon with Green Garage’s management, its entrepreneurs and many other members of the community, we learned much about how deep the roots of innovation really lie at this particular organization.
The Green Garage is one of the most well known incubation spaces in the region, along with institutions such as Ponyride, TechTown and the M@dison Building. It has already been profiled by the New York Times, and the beautifully renovated former Ford Model T showroom in which it is housed is arguable one of the best hidden architectural gems of the city.
Three ways in which Green Garage conducts its business particularly stand out:
1. Commitment inspires commitment
This organization is not just a project for the management team. Supporting entrepreneurs and Detroit is their mission. From talking to any member of the staff, it quickly becomes clear that they see the Green Garage as contributing to a much wider revitalization of the city and region, and that no corners will be cut to maintain the integrity of that objective.
For example, much of the furniture in the building was salvaged and refurbished. The team even remodeled and an entire alley running along Green Garage’s side. They host weekly lunches open to anyone, and the building’s main meeting room was renovated to open out into the street - when it is warm enough - so passers-by can engage without even entering.
That has given the incubator deep respect among social entrepreneurs. After all, they are also striving to improve all of the community and do so with just as much integrity.
2. To truly innovate, you have to go beyond the boundaries of your field
While the team that advises entrepreneurs at the Green Garage contains former entrepreneurs and venture capitalists with decades of success, they do not only depend on received business wisdom alone. Instead, they go beyond the boundaries of business to inspire entrepreneurs even more deeply.
For instance, one learning module that Green Garage companies can complete relies on systems theory and deep sustainability thinking. It adapts approaches from thinkers in the humanities to engage entrepreneurs on a personal level. From speaking to the entrepreneurs and seeing the materials they produce during this module, you can see how true unconventionality can really energize and clarify a business’ purpose.
3. Community means everyone
Green Garage is not just available for those who happen to be entrepreneurs. Instead, it actively seeks to engage a much wider community of social change agents. Green Garage understands that everyone needs to be brought into the process of social change, and that an incubator can be a part of the community rather than merely a community unto itself.
So apart from the many different entrepreneurs we talked to that afternoon, I met a young fiction writer who has just moved to Detroit from New York, a digital marketing executive who is also a well-followed blogger about Detroit’s continuing rise, and several retirees who had simply popped in for an architectural tour of the site.
When our visit came to an end, I realized how many relationships we in the Urban Revitalization Circle have been able to form that day. As a circle, this is one of our most important priorities, because it enables us to identify, fund and otherwise support the up-and-coming entrepreneurs that will accelerate Detroit’s rise even more. I would not be at all surprised if the ideas of some of those entrepreneurs first began to sprout their strongest shoots at the Green Garage.
