Sam Lolla is one of the creators of MadeinA2.com and the founder and director of Directed Works, a company focused on product development and user experience design for startups. Lolla taught product design at the University of Michigan, and these days works independently with clients from Ann Arbor to the San Francisco Bay area to create products using a new app he put together to make collaborative design more efficient, called Shuffleboard. Recently, Lolla put together a video series on his journey designing and building a startup and documenting every step on Youtube.

Did you ever wonder how candidates land jobs at hot tech companies like Duo out of Ann Arbor and StockX in Detroit? It's a high-growth space, but operates mostly through back channels--or at least it seems that way in a landscape that is still frequently underrepresented in media coverage of business and local news. Ryan Landau is founder of re:purpose, a tech-focused startup recruiting firm that works with fast-moving companies. Startups and tech firms including Duo, StockX, WeWork, Bloomscape, Atomic Object, Detroit Venture Partners and the like come to Landau to source talent in an environment that still has trouble holding talent from leaving for the coasts.

Heather Martel is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of ProjectFRED, a new fintech, blockchain-powered commercial real estate startup launching this month out of Ann Arbor that allows the individual small investor to get into the world of commercial real estate investing through a fractional investing app. ProjectFRED was founded by a neurosurgeon turned blockchain coder, a marketer, and a real estate broker, who wanted to make it easier for commercial real estate listings to meet their investment goals and for people just starting investing or wanting a portfolio across the United States through smaller investments to jump in to real estate using only an app. Investors are alerted to new properties coming on the market and can swipe through investment properties as they are available, which creates a targeted way to help $100 million in commercial real estate in Ann Arbor move more quickly.