When the Startup Champions Network convenes this fall, it will do so in a city that embodies paradox and potential: Augusta, Georgia. Known worldwide for the Masters Tournament at Augusta National, Augusta is also a community of deep contrasts—a place where exclusivity and velvet ropes coexist with a majority-minority population and persistent poverty. That tension makes Augusta the perfect host city for SCN’s Fall Summit, where the theme is Open Invitations.
“Because of golf, there’s this concept around exclusivity and a velvet rope,” says Eric Parker, co-founder of Make Startups. “What we’ve tried to do is theme the Summit around the concept of it being an invitational—because we want everybody to feel like they can participate.”
The Augusta Summit is hosted by two people who have been building bridges in their community for over a decade: Grace Belangia and Eric Parker of Make Startups. Together, they launched theClubhou.se in 2012, Augusta’s first real gathering place for entrepreneurs, and have since grown Make Startups into a national force for ecosystem building, policy change, and workforce development.
“Nationally, people think of Augusta and they think of golf,” Grace explains. “But there’s more than that. We’re uniquely situated geographically, right on the Georgia–South Carolina border. Our startup community intersects with the arts, the medical college, Army Cyber Command, and the military base at Fort Gordon. We want attendees to see the full depth of that when they come here.”
For Grace, being part of SCN has been deeply personal:
“What I have come to love about SCN is the peer-to-peer network support,” she says. “These aren’t just colleagues. These are my friends, my community.”
Starting Up the Startup Community
Prior to opening theClubhou.se, the city had entrepreneurial activity but no cohesive community. “There was no focused, intentional direction for how we support entrepreneurs,” Eric recalls. Thirteen years later, that has changed. Augusta now has an angel investor network, state-backed innovation investment, and more than 500 companies launched from theClubhou.se community.
“We don’t think people in Augusta feel like entrepreneurship is outside the realm of possibility anymore,” he says. “Now, a lot of people start their own business. Our banks are even asking, ‘How can we better support entrepreneurs?’ That shift in mindset is a huge win.”
Still, Augusta is a city learning to navigate boundaries—social, economic, and geographic. “Half our community is in South Carolina and half is in Georgia,” Eric notes. “Those resources don’t like to cross the river. Navigating that river has been one of the core exercises of what we’ve done.”
The Augusta Summit will explore how ecosystems can move from exclusivity to inclusion, from closed rooms to open invitations. Attendees will experience Augusta’s downtown, taste its food, and connect with local entrepreneurs, artists, and innovators.
Grace shares:
“There’ll be history, excellent food, and connections across sectors—from the arts to the medical community to the military. We hope everyone will see something relatable and want to make the journey to Augusta.”
And of course, this is Augusta. On November 4, the day before the Summit officially begins, attendees are invited to a special Golf with Locals experience at Champions Retreat Golf Club, the famed venue for the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. It will be a refined kick-off on the green—an iconic way to start the Summit and connect with Augusta’s people and culture.
The Summit itself runs November 5–7, bringing together the nation’s leading ecosystem builders for immersive programming, policy conversations, and authentic local engagement.
The Work of Make Startups
What makes Grace and Eric’s work resonate nationally is how they’ve translated Augusta’s lessons into a broader framework through Make Startups. Their model focuses on three pillars: Advocacy, Resources, and Education. They help entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) unlock new funding streams—particularly through workforce development dollars—while building tools to manage programs and measure impact. They’ve authored policy proposals like the Startup Act and developed resources such as the Workforce Opportunity Calculator to help ecosystem builders quantify and advocate for support.
As Eric puts it, “Starting an ecosystem is just like creating a startup company yourself… Anytime you stray from being service-minded towards how you help your entrepreneurs, you succeed less. Everything has to be centered on the entrepreneur’s success.”
For Grace, the mission is as much about community as policy. “I want to amplify what we do nationally,” she says, “because it’s important for our country and our democracy to understand where job creation comes from. And entrepreneurship is at the center of that.”
For SCN, Augusta is more than a backdrop. It is a case study in what it takes to build an ecosystem in a complex, divided, and opportunity-rich context. It’s a city where entrepreneurship must bridge divides of race, class, geography, and politics.
“At the end of the day, the only barrier is our willingness to ask. Open invitations are about making sure everyone knows they belong in this conversation.” - Grace Belangia
The SCN Fall Summit in Augusta, Georgia is your chance to experience a city in transition, meet the people shaping its future, and engage in real conversations about building inclusive ecosystems in complex places.
November 5–7, 2025
Optional Golf with Locals: November 4 at Champions Retreat Golf Club