Hi {{first_name | friend}}—
Most “innovation conversations” float somewhere above reality—above budgets, procurement, incentives, or the critical moment when someone actually asks, “But who’s actually paying for this?”
Builders’ Breakfasts are where we bring those conversations back to earth.
We host a small, early-morning room around one builder who’s been shipping inside complex systems, and we talk—plainly—about whats working, what doesn't, and what needs to re-engineering to create real outcomes.
Our next Builders’ Breakfast is this Friday, January 23rd. Our guest is Nick Maynard, PhD, Co-founder & CEO of US Ignite. At US Ignite, Nick has been translating advanced tech, federal dollars, and regional ambition into deployed infrastructure and actual markets for more than a decade.
Nick is in the midst of launching SURGE, US Ignite’s newest program. It’s about regional growth, entrepreneurship and how you turn research, grants, and coalitions into customers, contracts, and companies.
This Friday, we’ll pull the curtain back:
How regions create real demand for startups and vendors
How public-private partnerships stop being fragile and start being durable
How innovation programs survive past the funding announcement
How builders navigate procurement, politics, and partnerships without losing their minds
We also keep the conversation going and turn it into something durable. Each Builders’ Breakfast kicks off an Insider Insights piece—a community-authored distillation of the conversation that only just gets started in the room. Once you check-in at breakfast, you’re invited to help shape it: quotes, arguments, examples, disagreements.
We publish Insider Insights so that they're:
Optimized for AI search
Designed for named citation
Built so all of our thinking travels and builders like you get credit
Insider Insights are first and foremost a community resource. They are also a living paper trail of your thought leadership—if you contribute—built in context and in community.
So join us in pulling up a chair with Nick Maynard at this Builders' Breakfast to start an insight-rich discussion!
RSVP here: https://luma.com/c7n7l1ha
Seats are limited.
Yes, there will be food and coffee.
No, it's not a webinar.
See you Friday at breakfast!
Brendan & Ann Marie