Let's Go
If you want to go fast,
go alone.
If you want to go far,
go together.
About
Us
-
Purpose
- We gather builders, creatives, and technologists who believe in shaping the future from where they stand. Together, we create the momentum needed to turn overlooked regions into global hubs of innovation.
-
Proven
- Since 2005, our methods have sparked ecosystem growth worldwide. Our track record proves that with the right approach, real outcomes can emerge from the most unexpected places.
-
A Movement
- This is more than an event series — it's a movement to unlock talent, circulate capital, and offer true support in regions where creators are often underestimated. We move together because that's how impact scales.
-
Community Driven
- Local leadership matters. We ensure each initiative is shaped by the community it serves, with profits and decision-making staying close to home. That’s how long-term relevance and resilience are built.
-
Designed by Entrepreneurs
- Our playbook was shaped by founders who’ve built under pressure — not theory. Every part of our model comes from lived experience, with a focus on what actually moves companies forward in real conditions.
-
High Growth Markets
- We don’t chase headlines — we invest in regions with untapped energy, rapid youth adoption, and deep cultural capital. Growth doesn’t just mean GDP. It means opportunity waiting to be unlocked.
-
Kind Guidance
- We believe kindness is a strategy. Builders hit walls — and when they do, they need real support, not platitudes. We offer honest feedback, clear guidance, and safety nets that turn setbacks into comebacks.
-
Our Approach
- We use the BUILD FRAMEWORK by Jessica Tams — a field-tested model rooted in action, traction, and community ownership. It’s built for real ecosystems with real constraints, and it’s working.
Shared Values for a Shared Journey
build
Build is a call to return, to rebuild, and to reimagine what’s possible when the future is shaped locally.
If you’re reading this, you probably already feel that pull — that sense that your region, your people, your ideas, deserve more. You don’t need to be convinced. You need support, insight, and a way forward.
Build is about being strategic without selling out. Being proud without being closed off. It’s about building with humility, with urgency, and with others who are just as committed.
You don’t need perfect conditions to begin. You just need to begin.
- Our Unified Vision
-
YOU ARE NOT LATE
- Strength isn't rushed—it’s rooted. | Everyone worries about being too late. Like there’s a caravan that already left, and if you weren’t on it, you missed your chance. But ecosystems don’t grow on a schedule. They grow when a group of people decides it’s time.
You don’t need to rush. And you don’t need to compete with the timeline of a place that had different conditions, different history, and different support. Your journey is your own. That’s not a weakness — it’s an advantage.
Building slow lets you build strong. If you skip steps, you miss the foundation. What looks like catching up can actually be a shortcut to collapse. Take your time, not because you're unambitious, but because you're building something that lasts.
This is also where collaboration matters. The fastest progress doesn’t happen in isolation — it happens when you find others who are building, too. Maybe not in your industry. Maybe not in your country. But somewhere, someone is walking a similar road. And they’re looking for you. -
BUILD WHERE YOU ARE
- Where you are isn’t the problem. The belief that success only lives elsewhere is. Most people waste years chasing cities they think have magic — places with glossy accelerators, curated startup cultures, and celebrity investors. But momentum doesn’t come from geography. It comes from focus.
Founders in Shymkent, Tbilisi, or Goa don’t have fewer chances — they have different ones. Less infrastructure, maybe. But fewer distractions. Less hype. More reality. That’s an advantage, if you use it.
The myth of perfect conditions is a comforting lie. No one builds under ideal circumstances. The idea that won’t leave you alone — and just enough pressure to do something about it — that’s the real beginning.
Constraints filter ideas that only work when money is easy and attention is cheap. If you can’t convince ten people around you to care, ten thousand strangers online won’t either. If your product can't survive in a rough climate, it was never ready for scale. Resourcefulness isn't the backup plan. It's the core strategy.
This isn’t advice. It’s observation. Every strong ecosystem started with people who stayed long enough to build something that mattered. If you can do that — if you can build where you are — everything else can follow.
The goal isn't to escape. The goal is to build something so strong that others can stay. -
LIFT. PUSH. CATCH.
- Every ecosystem wants more success stories. But most forget what those stories actually require: support that’s real, responsive, and grounded in respect.
Lift. Push. Catch. It’s simple — and it works. You lift someone up when they’re unknown, overlooked, underestimated. You push them to reach their potential — to do more than they thought they could. And when things don’t go as planned? You catch them. Not with shame, not with bureaucracy, but with a soft landing that lets them rise again.
Real builders don’t need to be dragged — they need to be lifted, challenged, and supported.
If you’re always pulling, you’re always above — choosing the direction, setting the pace, staying in control. That’s not empowerment. That’s dependence. And eventually, it becomes a ceiling they can’t break through.
And this is how you create glass ceilings — even unintentionally — you cap the very people you claim to support.
Because when you back a real builder, the ROI isn’t just financial. It’s cultural. They become proof. Inspiration. Evidence that excellence is possible from here, now, under these conditions. -
ELEVATE THOSE WHO ELEVATE OTHERS
- In a new ecosystem, who you support sets the tone. Early support shapes the story — of what matters, who’s credible, and what success should look like. If you give resources to extractors or performers instead of builders, you don’t just lose money. You lose momentum.
The wrong people take what they can and leave. They pitch well, talk loud, and vanish when things get hard. The right people stay. They reinvest. They build companies that create more than just returns — they create opportunities for others.
Look closely at who’s being elevated. Are they exporting profits? Are they hoarding credit? Are they building something others can build from — or are they just building their nest egg?
External extractors don’t follow the LIFT, PUSH, CATCH model. By definition, they pull others up from a distance — never getting close enough to fall with them. They’re not in the work. They’re above it — creating a glass ceiling for your ecosystem.
If you want an ecosystem to grow, fund the ones in the middle of the mess. The ones who are building for something bigger than just themselves. That kind of funding doesn’t just create better companies. It builds better culture. -
TRACTION BEFORE TALK
- A lot of people know how to talk about building. Far fewer know how to actually build. And in early ecosystems, it’s easy to confuse activity with momentum — panels, demos, meetups, press coverage. But until someone wants what you’ve made enough to pay for it, you haven’t started yet.
Traction is proof that your idea lives outside your head. It’s the first customer, the repeat user, the pilot project that turns into a contract. It doesn’t need to be big. It just needs to be real.
Talk is cheap — but traction builds trust. Not just with customers, but with funders, collaborators, even policymakers. When you have something real in the world, the conversation changes. People stop asking what you’re trying to do and start asking how they can help.
This is especially important for first-time founders. There’s pressure to look impressive, to chase exposure, to craft a perfect pitch. But the better strategy — every time — is to get something working. Start small. Start specific. Build something useful, not just visible.
No one remembers who won the pitch competition. They remember who solved a problem.
So forget the hype cycle. Focus on results. If what you’re building doesn’t work for a handful of people right now, it won’t work for a larger audience later. Traction is not a milestone — it’s a mindset.
And when your ecosystem builds around that mindset — solve first, show later — it changes what’s celebrated. It rewards resilience over performance. It grows founders, not just performers. And that’s how real companies begin. -
BUILD AN ECOSYSTEM, NOT A FANTASY
- Every portfolio wants a unicorn. But when building an ecosystem, chasing one big win can blind you to the value of everything else. Real strength doesn’t come from outliers — it comes from the middle. From the consistent, the sustainable, the quietly excellent.
A strong ecosystem reflects the community it comes from. It’s made up of export-ready tech, yes — but also local services, creative projects, small manufacturers, and cultural exports. It includes things that won’t scale, but that make your region richer, more resilient, and more relevant. Fantasy portfolios are built on headlines. Real ones are built on traction. If every company in your ecosystem is pitching a billion-dollar market with zero paying customers, you’re not building. You’re gambling.
When non-commercially viable projects are repeatedly given exposure and funding, the culture of your ecosystem shifts — and not for the better. It creates false signals. It elevates optics over outcomes. And over time, it becomes harder for real entrepreneurs — the ones solving hard problems and building sustainable businesses — to succeed. The noise drowns out the signal. The wrong incentives take root. Every healthy financial portfolio is diversified. Your ecosystem should be too. You need small exits, slow growers, steady revenue. You need founders who care more about being profitable than being famous.
The best founders start by solving a real problem for a real group of people. Not everyone will build something big. But the right mix gives you enough surface area to let something great emerge — without betting everything on the most polished deck.
And when the ecosystem works, so does the culture. It starts to look like a forest, not a single tree. A place where many kinds of growth can happen at once — not just the tallest or fastest. It tells new founders that there’s more than one path to success. It builds a community where different kinds of wins are possible. That’s how you build momentum that lasts. It tells new founders that there’s more than one path to success. It builds a community where different kinds of wins are possible. That’s how you build momentum that lasts. -
DECENTRALIZED DOES NOT MEAN ALONE
- For a long time, the assumption was that innovation only came from the center — from major cities, elite schools, powerful institutions. But that model is breaking down. Power is shifting outward. And that shift creates space for new players to lead.
If your country hasn’t been the loudest, the richest, or the most connected — that’s not a weakness. It’s a strategic advantage. You’re not trapped by legacy systems or stuck protecting the old way of doing things. You can build with fresh eyes and move with fewer obstacles.
Decentralization isn’t just about tech. It’s about who gets to lead. The internet didn’t just give people access to tools — it gave them access to each other. And in a world where trust is distributed, so is influence.
The regions that win next are the ones that build together. Not in isolation, but in coordination. You don’t have to do it alone — and you shouldn’t. Other ecosystems are growing, too. Find the ones with shared goals. Trade knowledge. Share wins. Back each other.
This isn’t about forming a new center. It’s about building a new network. A web of builders who can lead without asking for permission. Who build not just for their city, but for a future that’s still taking shape.
If the old model was centralization and extraction, the new one is decentralization and value-sharing. The next leaders will be the ones who make that model work — not just for themselves, but for everyone connected to them. -
BUILDERS OVER ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACK
- You don’t need someone to give you advice from the sidelines. You need someone who’s building alongside you — in the work, in the mess, in the industry. Not a guide from above, but a peer who’s walking the same road, just a few steps ahead.
Too often, advisors and mentors show up with experience from another era or another context. That can be helpful — but it’s rarely enough. Especially when you’re navigating challenges that are specific to your industry, your market, or your moment.
Builders are different. They’re not just talking about building — they’re doing it. They still have skin in the game. They understand the decisions you’re facing because they’ve made them recently. And when you move with people like that, you move faster.
This is why we suggest first-time builder-founders partner with established builders when entering a complex market — established builders who are deeply embedded in the industries they operate — and with this comes guidance that is impossible in any other context.
Good builders don’t just cheer each other on. They ask hard questions. They point to blind spots. And when things go sideways, they’re there to help you course-correct — not just critique you after the fact. That’s why we talk about LIFT, PUSH, CATCH. It’s not a theory. It’s a way of working for all builders. -
FOCUS ON EXCELLENCE NOT COMPETITION
- You don’t build a world-class company by beating your neighbors. You build it by being excellent at something that matters — and being relentless about it.
Excellence has no external target. It’s an internal benchmark. It’s doing the hard work to be great — not just better than the person next to you. Real builders aren’t looking sideways. They’re looking inward and forward.
In fragile ecosystems, competition can become toxic. Everyone’s chasing the same spotlight. Instead of collaboration, you get gatekeeping. Instead of community, you get cliques. And instead of growing the pie, everyone just fights over crumbs.
That’s not how industries grow. That’s how they stall.
Excellence invites collaboration. When you’re serious about being great, you want to work with others who are too — even if they’re in the same sector. Especially if they are. Excellence is magnetic. It pulls the best talent, the best partners, and the best opportunities. It builds gravitational fields.
Local competition can feel urgent. But global relevance is what’s important. You’re not trying to win a local prize. You’re trying to build something that endures — something that can stand on its own in any market. Ignore the noise of what feels urgent but ultimately is not important. And that’s exactly where local rivalry lives — in the urgent-but-not-important quadrant. It distracts you with energy that feels like progress, but leads nowhere lasting.
Let others compete. You build. -
EVENTS ARE ECONOMIC ENGINES, NOT COMPETITIONS
- Most people think events are just for networking or visibility — an excuse to put on name tags and talk about the future. But the right kind of event does something more fundamental: it activates your economy. Events aren’t just gatherings. They’re signals. They tell your community, your investors, and your builders: something is happening here.
A good event makes it easier for people to collide — with ideas, with collaborators, with opportunity. When designed well, it becomes an engine. And engines, once running, generate force. That force becomes momentum. And momentum is what ecosystems are made of.
You don’t need a massive venue or a celebrity speaker. What you need is clarity of purpose and a reason for people to keep showing up. The best events create rituals — rhythms that reinforce community and make the unfamiliar feel familiar. You come back not because you’re invited, but because you feel like you belong.
Success doesn’t mean complexity. It means clarity. The most successful event series aren’t the ones with the most tech or the most stages — they’re the ones with the clearest reason to exist.
And here’s the part most people miss: events aren’t separate from your ecosystem. They are a visual representation of your ecosystem — especially in the early days. They’re the connective tissue between government, business, talent, and vision. They help you find your people.
How your events are structured says a lot about your ecosystem for those paying attention. Ask yourself: Are all parts of your ecosystem working together? Is your ecosystem focused on excellence or petty competition?
Every strong ecosystem can point to a moment — a room, a gathering, a shared experience — that helped it shift from potential to momentum. Events create those moments. And you get to decide when that moment begins.