You can feel the energy when you’re close to electric people.

I felt it a few weekends ago when I found myself in a room of entrepreneurs at Grand Rapids Startup Weekend. The event, which is put on by Techstars, a startup accelerator, and was sponsored by Google for Entrepreneurs, invited anyone from the community to climb onto the Start Garden stage and pitch an idea in one minute. As the rules go, if the room likes what they hear, the winning ideators get to recruit a team to develop their idea over the next 54 hours.

Something crackled and snapped as the attendees, ranging from high schoolers to seasoned professionals, spoke about their ideas through their jittery excitement and stage fright. Ideas pitched ranged from an application that would recommend what to wear, a social justice app, a remote lighting control solution, jewelry that would double as a distress beacon, virtual reality skill training, and more.

We voted. Top ideas were chosen and people gathered into groups to begin the night’s work. That night and into the early morning, teams learned names, skills, scrawled things on white boards, on Postit’s, on the walls. They prototyped, tested, brainstormed, reset, and pressed onward, fueled by coffee, snacks, and New Holland beer.

The hours became a day, then two, and slowly the teams chipped away the raw stuff the initial idea into something more.

By the time Sunday morning rolled around, teams had websites, app prototypes, physical models of products complete with business models, and, for many, even more enthusiasm than when they started. One team presented a pet-finding device, complete with digital renderings, a marketing plan and the beginnings of a physical prototype. It was incredible.

I’ve attended two events at Start Garden in the past year: this one and Weekend for Good, in which many of the same people come together to serve local non-profits. Both times, I’ve been struck with what a community we have here in West Michigan. There are brilliant coders, marketers, big thinkers, details people, empathizers and ideators here, and to see all of them in one space, problem solving and  enjoying the time as they progressed toward a common goal was a beautiful thing. I walked away both nights charged with the electricity that these people brought into the room.

The innovative spirit is alive and well here in West Michigan, and I have been deeply inspired by the spirit of service that I saw in many of the region’s entrepreneurs. It’s a good time to create something new here.