What's Being Built in Traverse City Right Now

I've been digging into the TC tech world from afar, trying to understand what's actually happening here before I make the move north. One of the first things I found was TCNewTech — a monthly pitch competition at City Opera House run by 20Fathoms, TC's startup incubator and coworking space on East Traverse Highway.

The July 14th event caught my attention for one specific reason: for the first time in TCNewTech history, every single person who pitched was local to northwestern Michigan. No imported founders, no fly-ins. Just people building things right here.

Here's what they're building.

Score Canvas walked away with the $5,000 first place prize. Ted Kocher's pitch landed on a real problem — video games are a $200 billion industry and the music behind them is a serious craft, but almost no music school teaches it. The ones that try run into a wall: expensive software licenses, game dev lab setups, the need to find a working industry pro willing to come teach. Score Canvas collapses all of that into a web browser. It's curriculum, software, and textbook in one product. A community college can be up and running on day one.

As someone who runs 10K Game Studio — a small indie studio focused on building games with lean teams and honest budgets — this one landed differently than a typical startup pitch. The barrier to entry in game development has been dropping for years on the creation side, but the education infrastructure hasn't kept up. Score Canvas is filling a gap that the industry has been quietly ignoring. The problem is real. The solution is elegant.

Ride Cave is building what they call the all-in-one platform for cyclists — training, racing, and community in one place. The hook is bringing velodrome racing to anyone with a screen, through immersive 3D track experiences paired with AI coaching that adapts to your goals. If you've ever tried to find a velodrome in Northern Michigan, you understand the appeal.

Little Loop is solving something much closer to the ground. It's a mobile app for families of medically complex kids — built to help everyone in a child's care circle, from grandparents to school nurses to babysitters, do things the same way the parent does. Anyone who's ever had to explain a complex medical routine to a new caregiver in a parking lot ten minutes before leaving will immediately understand what this is for.

squarefoot.earth is the one that made me stop and think longest. It's a video game where the game world maps 1:1 to real conservation projects — play the game, engage with and fund actual land conservation happening in the real world.

It immediately reminded me of Earth2, a project I've been following and invested in for a while now — a virtual world platform where parcels of land correspond to real geographic coordinates on Earth. The underlying idea connecting both projects is something I find genuinely compelling: that a digital layer mapped onto physical reality can create real engagement, real stakes, and eventually real impact. Earth2 approaches it from the virtual real estate and metaverse angle. squarefoot.earth approaches it from conservation and environmental education. Different entry points, same fundamental belief that the map and the territory can mean something to each other.

It's the kind of project that sounds like a pitch deck concept until you actually think about what it could become with the right audience and the right moment. The TC team behind it is worth watching.

20Fathoms also announced a new Executive Director at the event — Stacey Feeley, co-founder of GoSili, a consumer products brand she built right here in TC through multiple funding rounds and two acquisitions. New leadership at a pivotal moment for the organization.

The September 29th TCNewTech applications are open now if you're building something and want a room full of people who are paying attention.

I'll be there.