When I moved back to Arizona in 2023 to build Freeway, I had one goal: listen.

I'd spent time in places like Miami and San Francisco watching hundreds of thousands of dollars flow into startup communities through sponsorships, partnerships, and ecosystem investments. It wasn't just about events it was about companies making long-term bets on the founders, talent, and innovation happening in their cities.

I remember thinking...

So I started having conversations.

Hundreds of them.

With founders raising capital. Investors looking for the next great company. Employers growing their teams. Civic leaders shaping our economy. Universities. Community organizations. And just as importantly, the brands and service providers that support startups as they scale.

Many of those conversations have been with national and global companies that know very little about Arizona's innovation ecosystem. More often than not, I find myself demystifying what they thought Phoenix was, walking them through our ecosystem dashboard, sharing the data, and painting a very different picture than the one they expected.

Eventually, almost every conversation arrives at the same question:

It's a great question.

In fact, I'd be concerned if someone didn't ask it.

Whether we're talking about sponsoring the Tech Talent Summit, investing in founder programming, or becoming an annual partner, every organization wants to understand the return on its investment.

But after more than 250+ conversations, I've realized something.

The question isn't the problem.

It's how we expect the answer to look.

We tend to look for ROI in things we can immediately measure leads generated, meetings booked, customers acquired. Those things absolutely matter.

But the most valuable outcomes in an innovation ecosystem rarely happen on a predictable timeline.

They're built through trust, repeated interactions, and relationships that compound over time.

One of the questions I get most often is about our audience. How many companies are Seed stage? Series A? Which founders are likely to exit in the next few years?

I always smile because I understand why people ask.

We all want certainty before we invest.

The truth is, I can't tell you who's going to build the next billion-dollar company.

What I can tell you is that remarkable things happen when ambitious people keep finding each other.

That's the part I have seen, over and over again.

Here's the math I keep coming back to: Over the last three years, nearly 3,500 people have walked through the doors of a Tech Talent Summit. If each person met just three new people and honestly, if you've ever been in that room, that's probably conservative—that's more than 10,000 new connections.

Some of those conversations never went beyond a handshake.

Others became hires, customers, investments, mentors, friendships, and business partnerships.

We can't predict which ones will matter most.

But we can create more opportunities for them to happen.

A few weeks ago, during our Startup Bootcamp at Kiln, one participant struck up a conversation with a CEO while walking to the restroom.

Forty-eight hours later, they signed a job offer.

No one planned it.

No one could have predicted it.

But that's exactly how so many meaningful opportunities begin.

Those moments have fundamentally changed how I think about ROI.

The greatest return rarely comes from a single event. It comes from being part of a community long enough that people know who you are, what you stand for, and how you can help.

That's why we've become incredibly intentional about who we partner with. We're not looking for companies that want to sponsor one event and disappear. We're looking for organizations that believe Arizona's innovation ecosystem is worth investing in for the long term companies that want to grow alongside our founders, build genuine relationships, and become part of the fabric of this community.

That's also why we've shifted Freeway to annual partnerships.

Not because one event isn't valuable.

Because one event was never the point.

The point is creating meaningful opportunities for the right people to continue finding each other through our Tech Talent Summits, monthly Happy Hours, newsletter, founder programming, and all of the conversations in between.

Startup ecosystems aren't built overnight.

They're built through trust.

And trust is built by showing up long before you need something in return.

I'd love to hear your perspective.

When you think about investing in a community, how do you define ROI?

If this week's note resonated with you, we’d love to meet you in person.

Kamp throws some great startup and investor events. Since 2018, they've brought founders, operators, and VCs together across dozens of cities for the kind of high-signal, no-fluff rooms that actually move deals and hires forward. They've got their own take on an event ROI calculator worth reading.