E007 / Let’s Talk Community - Carolina Climate Tech Community/ Ben Provan and Majela Fonseca

Written By Noa Ronen

In this episode of Peer Ripples, Noa and Ofir are joined by Carolina Climate co-founders Ben Provan and Majela Fonseca to explore what it takes to turn a group of people into a community.

One year after launching Carolina Climate, Ben and Majela reflect on the journey of building a grassroots movement for climate and clean tech founders across North Carolina. They share why they started the community, what they've learned about leadership, partnerships, and co-creation, and why the strongest communities are built with people, not for people.

The conversation explores community building, shared purpose, founder engagement, partnership, and the challenge of knowing when to lead and when to let go.

Takeaways

  • Communities are built with people, not for people.

  • Shared purpose creates stronger connections than shared interests alone.

  • Partnership accelerates community growth without reinventing the wheel.

  • Leadership means creating space for others to contribute and take ownership.

  • Sometimes the most important step is to stop planning and start.

Chapters

00:00 Why Start a Community?

12:00 From Silos to Community

24:00 Principles of Community Building

35:00 Leading and Letting Go

More About Our Guests

Ben Provan

Entrepreneur, startup operator, and co-founder of Carolina Climate. Ben works with startups, innovation programs, and climate-focused ventures across North Carolina.Connect with Ben Provanhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/benprovan/

Majela Fonseca

Marketing and business development leader, ecosystem builder, and co-founder of Carolina Climate. Majela works closely with founders, startups, and entrepreneurial communities across the Triangle.Connect with Majela Fonsecahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/majelafonseca/

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Episode Transcript

Ben (00:00)

I have a side hobby of doing ⁓ CNC woodworking, is like, where you ⁓ it's like a digital carving machine, sort of similar to 3d printers, that's a 3d printer. instead of using plastic to build up stuff, it uses wood or other objects and then carves away material. So you can do cool things like this. And that one you can't really tell as well as like an ocean surface.

Noa (00:24)

You need a lot of patience for that, which you are a patient person.

Okay, so let's start gossip. ⁓ We have Ben and Majela in the room and because we are all about the ⁓ Peer-Ripple effect, ⁓ we thought that there is no better way to talk about a community than talk with people from our community that create an amazing Peer-Ripple with the climate tech community that they started.

a year ago. So now it's May 2026. And last year, they came with an idea. And we're gonna join them on the journey. So welcome, Majela and Ben, and hi, Ofir And ⁓ before we jump into wherever the conversation will take us, because we just joined you on the journey.

Ofir (01:13)

All right.

Noa (01:23)

⁓ If you can just introduce yourself to the people that listen in whatever way feels right to you.

Majela (01:30)

I'm to go ahead and start Ben. Yeah. Thanks Noa and Ofir for having us today. This is very exciting. I know it's hard to get nervous on podcasts and conversations. Whenever there's a camera in front of me, I will panic. So we'll see how this goes. I would say one of the things that I actually learned from Noa and our facilitated sessions that she's been a part of is to introduce myself with

something beyond what I do professionally. So I'm start with saying that I am curious and inquisitive, which is kind of what led me down a lot of the path and different journeys that I've been on in my life. ⁓ Professionally, that led me to work as a marketing and business development director at Hutchison, where I really get to connect with founders and

the technology and life sciences space, ⁓ startups, ecosystem or entrepreneurial communities quite a bit. And so through that journey, I've learned and I've been part of the partnerships side of things. But I was also searching for an opportunity to use my skills, my drive and my passion in something that I felt like was meaningful. And so when...

Ben and I connected over a year ago. I felt like just like the right moment and the right opportunity to put those skills into something that I cared about deeply. And ⁓ so I also became the co-founder of Carolina Climate. So it's been a really exciting ⁓ journey, which we'll talk a little bit more about today.

Noa (03:07)

Yeah, well, everything is going to be about Caroline. Nothing about you.

Majela (03:10)

I'm sorry. ⁓

Ben (03:16)

That's great. Well, Miheila, I'm gonna take your coaching, which I guess is Noa's coaching, you know, once removed. But ⁓ first and foremost, I'm a dad of two. two young daughters, Riley and Parker, who are next month gonna be four and six. And ⁓ I love being a dad. was, we had children a little bit later in life. And I think it took me longer to like, count the curve of loving parenthood. But now it's like, there's no turning back. It's been really also someone who's been

that sort of the intersection of business and climate and impact type work, ⁓ you know, it definitely is an additional layer of motivation around what I'm doing and sort of the ripple effects, you know, we hope to have into the future. ⁓ So I guess, yeah, for me personally and professionally, I'm from Pepple Hill, so I'm born and raised in Triangle, although I only recently moved back after spending most of my career. ⁓

kind all over the place, but initially in the Northeast and New York and Boston. Then I spent 14 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. So I'm a mechanical engineer by training, but a lot of my career has been more on the business entrepreneurship side. I'm a former founder of a startup out in California called Open Door Co-Living. So I spent 10 years in the intersection of sort of housing and social impact, sustainable construction, and then of course, just sort of startup life. ⁓

So I learned a lot about that, but also I've just always been, I would say, it took me a while to admit this, but more purpose-driven and kind of mission-driven than I am career-driven. So I have a very eclectic career. But when I moved back a couple of years ago to the Triangle, and this is both part of my personal journey, but even the Carolina climate journey, I was very quick to try to find the community of people professionally working in.

climate, clean tech, sustainability and in the startup space. And ⁓ it took a lot of work to find all the sort of nooks and crannies of people doing work. We're an interesting market ⁓ where we were split between three city centers. There's a lot of activity going on, a lot of research, but it also means we're sort of, there's a diffusiveness to the energy here. And so I met kind of incredible people in startups doing good work, but I also was early on was like,

Where's the center of gravity and the center of massive activity in the space? Like we have a lot going on, but people aren't talking to each other. And it was hard for me just to plug in, you know, just even my own professional journey. So that was a big motivation for me and why we started Come Out in Climate. But at this point, I wear a couple hats. I'm basically a fractional ⁓ executive for startups. And I work ⁓ in part for First Flight Venture Center, which is a startup, deep tech startup incubator in RTP. And I run our

hardware lab, which we do prototyping for startups creating any sort of hardware device. ⁓ And then I also work for a couple of spin outs, one from Duke and NC State, one's an ad tech startup and one's more of a kind of clean tech startup in the micro plastic space. So I've managed to ⁓ insert myself in interesting ways in the ecosystem here, both in the direct work I do, but also kind of this ecosystem building work that Mahal and I are doing with Carolina Climate.

Noa (06:34)

The moment you start talking about Carolina climate, if you see it in the video, he connected this is, yeah. his fingers Together. So, um, I was smiling, watching that. so here is the question that listening to the two of you, you have full-time job, uh, Ben, you have two little girls, which like four and six, that's, that's a lot of work. Uh, you have three different.

hats that you're wearing as part of your career. Majela you have your full-time job and beyond. So why start a community?

Ben (07:13)

I mean, in some ways, I'll be interested in hearing your answer, but in some ways it was the low hanging fruit, I feel, because the community in some way was already here. It's not like we had to make a community and the people were already around, but a lot of knew each other, but a lot didn't. Some are in Durham, some are in Raleigh, some are in Chapel Hill.

So I think they needed like a reason to get together. So it felt to me like maybe the path of least resistance. there's been a lot of work, think more kind of at the 30,000 foot level to try to create sort of a clean and climate tech ecosystem here and doing strategic planning and trying to get funds from the state or the federal government, which is fantastic, if we can pull that off. But we were like, where's the sort of in the trenches ground level work?

just to bring people together. Cause that's, I think for us that felt like the right starting point. And it's going to be lot easier to attract resources and partnerships and other players once we can kind of create that initial critical mass. ⁓ So that's my main answer. But the other thing is I spent 10 years ⁓ as a co-founder of a co-living startup building community houses across the West coast and three different markets. community, feel like I can do in my sleep. It's just something I've dedicated a lot of my.

adult professional life too, including having lived in a couple of our co-living houses for half a decade. So yeah, that for me, those two pieces were the why.

Majela (08:51)

Yeah, I would say that for me, I come from a professional services background. So working in marketing and business development, but also through my work at Hatch I had built a lot of partnerships with current ⁓ entrepreneurial communities here. And so was really curious, know, especially we service the founders ⁓ and startups here, but I was really curious to learn from like from

You know from my own experience how what it takes to build a community I was already deeply connected but understanding what builds trust and what keeps people engaged and how to make this happen and of course for me I would say more personally Climate felt like a personal alignment just because I mean I moved from Miami to North Carolina to be closer to nature to be more connected and so it felt like a natural space that I wanted to really dive into and

Yeah, but mainly it was around seeing, how can we build a community here? What does it take? And it felt like, based on a lot of conversations that Ben and I have had, that ⁓ it was missing. It was a missing piece for climate tech entrepreneurs. There wasn't a space dedicated to them. And a lot of these founders are really mission focused. And so there's a huge technology community, tech focused community here.

but to really find a space that was meaningful to them, that aligned with their values and what they were looking for. And with a very unique, like nuances of how climate technologies, capital and access to different resources that they need. ⁓ So it felt like there was a need. And we realized that very quickly when we had the initial events and things like that, that brought our community together, that there was a huge interest. So.

Ofir (10:41)

Now, I have a couple of questions. I think the first one is to understand you both talked about the group of people that today are part of your community was already here, was already to some degree, ⁓ working together, collaborating So what's the difference between this group of people just being a group of people?

and them becoming a community.

Ben (11:14)

Yeah, I I would say there was not a singular community. That was the big thing. There's little pockets where people are more connected, especially around the universities. UNC, they have their clean tech summit.

Duke has their Nicholas School ⁓ for the environment and they're very actively trying to spin up more climate tech activity, Duke ecosystem and folks connected to that. I would say NC State as well. NC State to me probably is the most mature. But there's skews a little bit more towards ag tech, which has a huge climate tech component. But it's sort of very much the flavor of NC State.

There's a little in RTI, but anyway, there was no singular community. think one of our premises is, know, there is building this community, but then what comes after that? I think we see this community as this core asset, but then attract resources that they're, you know, to be frank, there are a number of challenges in starting particularly like a hard tech, deep tech, capital expensive, climate tech company in the triangle, because it is capital intensive compared to software.

startup and the access to that type of capital is much more limited here. So, it sort of seems silly to us that there wasn't, that's sort of that common. And how are we going to compete against New York and Boston and San Francisco, which have just...

much larger venture capital markets. So I think for us, was bringing all those fees together under one roof, both for the intrinsic value of being around fellow entrepreneurs in the space. And also it's gonna be easier for us to leverage that to then drive value and resources back to the entrepreneurs.

Majela (12:53)

I think that one of the things that I've chatted with a lot of ecosystem builders about is the silos issue that we have here. We lack that density that maybe a city like New York or even me coming from Miami, you have an area where everybody gets together, everybody's connected. And so it's easier, our arms length with a lot of the people that you want to be talking to on a daily basis. But since we're

a little bit spread out, I think, even on the university side or even on the ⁓ entrepreneurial community side. You see everybody working in their silos, creating programs and ⁓ putting together events for their communities. But what we are missing is an opportunity to bring those together to really build that critical mass that's gonna help us ⁓ fend at a national level and position ourselves as an innovation hub.

in order to get access to those resources like Ben was mentioning that are a little bit more difficult to gain and that this particular community needs. And so for me, it's really what I think it was missing is that one space that can funnel and pull those resources together, bring all those people into a room. It's a lot of what Ben and I have talked about. We don't want to reinvent the wheel. We want to really utilize the resources that are already here, ⁓ but utilize them to

⁓ build this specific community, which is climate tech, clean tech entrepreneurs. And so I would say in summary, it's like, how do we bring all of our individual efforts and create a really strong collective ⁓ community that is inputting from everybody and everything that everybody's working on already to really ⁓ build that critical mass.

Noa (14:42)

So, you know, you talked about silos and that's the word I was thinking about and actually there is an interesting book. I will try to find it and put it in the show notes about silos. And one of the first questions they ask are silos bed. And I think what I hear from you are those two sides that there is a need for the different universities ⁓ pockets or areas for the groups to meet on what they need.

but you're trying to kind of like create an umbrella that brings everyone together. And I'm pondering because there are leaders to all those other groups what was cool about it, what you were doing is really bringing all the leaders of the other groups to this community and partner with them. So what was the magic or what was that thing that you were doing that was different maybe than other people that build communities?

Ben (15:39)

Well, yeah, think I'll build off what Majela is saying there because ⁓ by design, we wanted to be very sort of partnership centered and not reinventing the wheel. Like there is something that we believe uniquely wants to exist around this community and climate tech, but then there's also incredible resources in the sort of entrepreneurial support organization realm.

we've got a lot of resources already that are doing programming, like accelerated programs, pitch events, whatnot. Of course, we have the great co-working spaces it felt like we did not, just from a resource efficiency standpoint, didn't want to reinvent the wheel there, but also how can we still not just water down the nature of this community?

What we've done is at the core, have this community that meets once a month. We call it the Founder's Circle. And that's very curated around people who are truly founders and sort of the core leaders of their organization, which we found is important because a lot of events, you have people coming and marketing their services which is great. There's a need for that too, but there's already a lot of that. So this core community, that's something that we sort of directly do.

literally everything else we're doing, we're doing in partnership with other organizations. And so, you know, we, we, ⁓ just last month had our inaugural climate tech day, which was part of Raleigh Durham Startup Week. So we partnered with Raleigh Durham Startup Week and Tim Scales in particular there, ⁓ and applied for and received a grant from the Raleigh impact partners grant. Yeah. So, ⁓ so it was, it was Yeah. So Raleigh showed their support.

Noa (17:15)

Yeah.

Ben (17:18)

It was, yeah. It really for us capitalized this sort of more ecosystem building program beyond just the core founder circle. And the other half of that grant is going towards a climate tech week this fall,

So yeah, I think the partnership model is a way for us to, on one level, eliminate silos, but then also not reinvent the wheel. So, you know, we'll see how this all plays out, but we're hoping we can have our cake and eat it there.

Majela (17:43)

in a way, it's a way for us to be that web, right? That is connecting all these silos together and how can we, you know, take the things that these various entrepreneurial communities are really good at and bring those benefits to our founders. Like CED and First Flight

really well established organizations here that support founders in a lot of different ways. And so we just maybe utilize the space or tag along to some of their happy hours and spread the word about the community that we're building in order to share what we're doing, ⁓ identify supporters, future supporters, future founders that can join our community as well, but also identify programs that work for our community of founders as well as

that they're putting together for their founders in general, so that we're not having to reinvent the programs and recreate it. Just, hey, how can we tag along? How can we partner? ⁓ Similar to Raleigh Durham's Startup Week, which is a flagship event in North Carolina, really focused around bringing tech community together. How can we work with you to create a space for climate and clean tech entrepreneurs there?

So I think that's the beauty about partnerships is like, we're really just taking the best things and all the great things about these different communities and bringing it to our funders.

Noa (19:04)

And if I can just add as an observer that I think one of the most unique things about what you do is instead of coming to the founders and saying, here is what we're doing for you and coming with a full vision, you actually partnering that peer to peer that we believe in ⁓ idea and really asking the founders what will be a value to you and let's build it from there. You didn't promise, but you wanted to hear.

what is their need, what they see value of and how they want to collaborate with you. And I think that was very unique to founders that they being asked, hey, how you would like it to look like as climate tech leaders in this community. So that was really cool and unique.

Ben (19:52)

And to give credit where it's due, you were more than just an observer. were very central to facilitating that initial experience. mean, just to say a word about our pilot program, the Founder Circle, because you were sort of pointing to this. when we first started and we got this grant from NCID, we intentionally, we didn't want to do the if you build it, they will come approach. We wanted to have it be co-created.

⁓ with the community, know, sort of, I think of it as kind of in the same moment, intermingling customer discovery with co-creations. And instead of doing customer discovery first, and then this is what we build, let's just do it all together all at once, which I guess is maybe just what co-creation is. ⁓ But I thought that was an incredible program. You know, we did three sessions and ⁓ we had over 40 founders participating. This really was the sort of seminal initial bringing together of this community.

we spent most of the time listening to them, just sort of hearing what they wanted, ⁓ providing some probing and questioning and structured discussion. But ⁓ one of the big things that came out of that was this clear need for a specific clean and climate tech community. Because I think it's, if you are a founder in this space, or not even a founder, if you're just involved in the space, this is sort of self evident, but if you're not, it may not be.

being sort of mission driven first of actually like most people in cleaning climate tech don't start with something like I have a way to make money or I have a really cool business strategy. It's like I have a problem in the world that I hear deeply about or actually in most cases like I'm deeply bothered by like I lose sleep over this or this is like something doesn't sit right with me around it. And like I'm gonna now try to solve that using the tools of technology and business.

And I think that's a very different way to approach business. And in fact, it's also something that in my experience attracts a lot more founders and professionals that maybe would not have otherwise been involved in business. Like, you know, they're not motivated by building a business itself. It's more of a means to it. And so I think that that piece really came out of that. Maybe not as a surprise, but just seeing how much these participants were hungry to be around other people.

running up against the same problems that they are thinking in similar ways. So I think that was really powerful to kind of not just have an idea on that front, feel the energy of people engaging in that way. That was really helpful. But I think that core piece around connection was very helpful for us.

Majela (22:34)

I would just reiterate, and this is just one thing that I wanted to add about kind of the emotion in the room, the energy in the room that Ben was talking about and the format that we utilized, which Noa was instrumental in making that happen and creating that energy in the space was really focusing on why, what and how. And I think that really took them down a journey of understanding and asking and learning from each other.

why are they doing this work and understanding that key portion around like what does this mean to you? What are the challenges that you're facing in your community? For us to really be able to understand, you what are the things that we need to support founders with because we may think they need more events and more program, but that's not really the challenges that they have.

and really invite them to work with us on the how. And I think in bringing them along in this journey, it really ⁓ created a strong connection. They were part of building this. They were committed to this community. And so that in turn created a community that's really there for each other because they feel like they, you know, a piece of them is embedded into it.

⁓ They formed part of its inception, its creation, and that's really what we wanted to accomplish with that process.

Noa (23:56)

And Ofeir, before you ask your question, I will just add that to see those people then ⁓ co-organizing with Majela and Ben, the Raleigh-Durham Startup Week Carolina Climate Day was really cool because they took the lead. And I think this is what's unique about this experience, how fast people took the lead and start co-leading with these leaders.

Ofir (24:19)

If I want to build a community tomorrow, And it can be in climate, can be in any other area. What are the learnings that you take from ⁓ the last year in building your community that are kind of transferable across topics? Obviously, the passion in every community goes elsewhere, but what are the things that you say, these are two or three principles that if you follow the principles,

you can build a successful community.

Majela (24:50)

The only thing I feel we could have, or it's a learning experience for us, is that think Ben and I spent a lot of time, and maybe this was needed, right, for us to hit the right chord and the right timing because I think we've had really great momentum since our first event that we had like 85 people attend.

And so maybe the timing is, you know, it happened the way it did for a reason. But I do think we spent a lot of time thinking and over-engineering it. And ⁓ in the end, what I've discovered is that we just had to do it. We had an intention, we had a mission that we wanted to accomplish. We just had to reach to our network, the community that we were already a part of, and just say, hey, we're trying to do this thing. Would you help us? Would you be a part of it? And we probably would have had the same results. ⁓

You know, we did spend a lot of time, helped us, at least me and Ben, connect to understand, like, you our alignment, what the mission was for us, and spend a lot of time really thinking about all the different iterations of what this could be. ⁓ But I would say if we had just kind of jumped in, it would have still worked out. So don't overthink it. It's the summary of that.

Ben (26:03)

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. think having that sort of bias towards action. when we, when Hale and I first connected, it was part of a broader conversation around some sort of climate tech hub in this region that was, again, this more top-down initiative. let's see if we can get like a $500,000 grant to do a big strategic planning effort and then present that to the General Assembly, which is like, want that to happen.

But we were just sitting in a couple of the conversations being like, this is going to take a long time. And then it's going to be done sort of in the abstract, know, maybe risk being kind of a, what's the saying, castle in the cloud or castle might've sand. Anyway, I'm maybe mixing metaphors, hopefully you get. So, yeah, I think that for just like, just doing it, you know, I mean, obviously you should have some thought and.

Noa (26:46)

the wrong people.

Ben (26:56)

strategy to some extent, but just putting it out there, let's just start meeting up, I think is ⁓ the most important. And then I think the other thing that, Noa, you were instrumental in executing this. I just have a firm belief after, with my previous startup, Open Door, we had 19 communities of people living together.

Residential communities are a different breed. mean, that's a much more intimate community where you're literally every day with people. So, you know, it really takes a lot to get the community right there. But I would say what we learned time and time again there that absolutely has been the case here with Carolina Climate is if you're building community, it has to be bottoms up. you cannot, if something's truly community, it cannot be top down. We hear a lot about, like, like in marketing, you know, we want to build a community around our product. I mean,

by all means do that, but that's not a community, right? Or I want it being even a community around like social media or something. It's like, those are followers and you get some comments, but like if something's truly a group of people that are sharing an identity that are co-creating something, it has to be bottoms up. So I think that for us ⁓ worked and I would, you know, I guess it depends a little bit on the nature of the community you're creating, but if you want people to run with it and you don't want to be always, I don't know, sort of the,

bottleneck on everything and you want the people to have a really strong sense of shared ownership, then it's important that you ⁓ maybe let go of the reins a little bit and create space for them to contribute and take ownership.

Noa (28:28)

I want to ask you one of the things I think you you learn as a leader of a community, which is a volunteering experience and not for money. And the people that partner with you, I'm not going to use the word follow love because it's old school, but partner with you, collaborate with you. ⁓ There is no money there. No compensation. So what have you learned about your leadership?

being a leader in a community.

Ben (28:58)

you know, I think in the early days, not just be able to throw money at the problem has been, you know, it has forced us to

to be scrappy and creative. think that's the other part of that partnership approach is it means you also can sort of leverage resources without necessarily having to fundraise. ⁓ So that can be helpful. ⁓ But also it's meant us being more kind of lightweight and sort of minimalist in our design, not over designing it because we just, I just don't have the time to do a heavy handed programmatic lift. ⁓ So I think it has

focused us and kind of honed the edge of like what are the most important things we could be doing. So having us land on this core founder circle as the heart of what we're doing and then partnering to be able to get more scale and more impact and more resources for the things that have a wider reach. So those are the things that come to mind for me.

Majela (29:57)

Yeah, I would echo what Ben said about really traveling light and making sure that you're really focusing on the things that you need to be doing. I would say very important, a couple of the things that we've done, right, when we've partnered, we found partners that are other entrepreneurial organizations to be part of the planning process with us as well.

To also gain that visibility through our community, but also vice versa, help us get visibility through their communities has been really a key partnership dynamic that we've developed since we started, ⁓ which has helped there be some type of benefit to both of us collaborating and working together. But ⁓ deep down, there's also a deep interest in alignment in our goals.

founders that have been part of our planning ⁓ community. We've had ⁓ other ecosystem builders like, know, with Raleigh Durham Startup Week. And so ⁓ there's a shared interest in building and creating and uniting. There's a shared interest in climate. And then we found ways to help and support and elevate each other because at the end of the day,

There's also that partnership has to be a two-way street.

Ofir (31:19)

So I hear from one end, it needs to come kind of a grassroot movement, right? Build it from the bottom up. ⁓ But then you talk about a couple of things that you as leaders had to do in order to support, build the infrastructure, maybe create the mission statement or the great vision for the community.

So how do you balance this in a way that on one hand, someone needs to lead this, right? ⁓ It's not gonna happen of itself. And on the other hand, you want the members of the community to be the ones that are putting the agenda.

Ben (32:03)

In my experience, that's definitely more art than science. I don't have a singular answer. ⁓ I think in some ways, inviting in the co-creation is, I don't want to say that it's sort of nominal, but there's a reality which the people that we're inviting in are, well, they're all busy founders, right? So they actually, they don't want to have a say in everything, right?

So I think it just in bringing that invitation where they know that if they have something to contribute or offer, they can, gives them a greater sense of ownership, but they also do kind of look to us to provide some level of service because they don't want to be ones bugging people every month to show up for the next meeting. so I think it's like ⁓ inviting it in, but also realizing that there is like a user experience that you're providing that is valued. ⁓

But I don't have any single, because it just depends also on the people you get. Some people like really want to be involved with every decision. Other people are hands off. Fortunately, we haven't had anyone that I feel like is super like overly involved or overly controlling or anything like that. But we do have some folks that have just rolled up their sleeves. like, you know, we do have a number of volunteers, both that came from the Founders Circle community, but also not from that community that are helping with various programs and events.

becoming like, you know, it's, I think something you, when people just raise their hand and start showing up, that's how you know. And those are the ones, you know, I think there's sort of an informal governance process where it's like the level to which you're willing to show up and contribute is, waits to your opinion. We don't have any like official numerical framework for that, but if you're willing to show up and put time in, then like, you know, you have a bigger say. And that's probably true in most informal or more organic communities.

Majela (33:52)

Yeah, I totally agree ⁓ with Ben's.

this two flagship events that we have, the NC Climate Tech Day with Raleigh Durham Startup Week as a response to that, and then NC Climate Tech Week in the fall. It's another flagship event that we plan to put together, but we also have a series of other programs that are happening monthly, and they're a direct result of the feedback that we receive from founders and what they wanted out of this community.

Noa (34:18)

I will just add before we move into the round of reflection that many years ago when I led a different ⁓ community, I learned from one of my mentors that if you ask who's willing to raise the hand, who's going to help here? And no one is raising their hand in the community. You just let it go. And maybe it will come back later when people are ready to do the work.

But if not as a leader, sometimes you just have to put it aside and ⁓ it's kind of like, yes, but not now. So that was a good learning for me because I wanted to act on everything. that mentor told me, nope, if people don't raise their hand, it's next.

Ofir (35:03)

Yeah.

Ben (35:06)

It's a litmus test for how much it really matters.

Majela (35:09)

Yeah.

Noa (35:10)

That's when you really know if people move into action. So, Majela and Ben, ⁓ we always have a quick round of key takeaway as part of having a conversation and then reflect with what are we taking away from this conversation.

Ofir (35:25)

I'll go first because I was thinking through the conversation about my reflection.

Ben (35:35)

We kept interrupting you.

Noa (35:38)

Can I just say something before you go? One of our episodes is about consistency and Ofir was consistent to be the first in each episode, so ⁓ go my consistent partner.

Ofir (35:41)

Thank you.

I think what I hear is that if you're building a successful community, you need to be ready to kind of let go of your baby. It's like you're starting, you have to take the lead in order to build, to form the community, to form the infrastructure, the mission, Validate the purpose. But if you are successful,

the group, the community, the team around you will start taking ownership and define the direction in certain ways. ⁓ And to be really successful, if you want this grassroots movement to be the lead of the community, you need to be willing and ready to let it go, let go of your control, sometimes your ideas going in maybe different directions. So it's kind of a good, interesting kind of mix that's

important to be prepared in advance. It's kind of when you started talking about your girls, like when you're a parent, you're basically giving up your freedom for the next 18 years. ⁓ And you're it willingly. You want them to kind of take their own routes. It feels to me very, ⁓ very similar.

Ben (37:06)

That's great. love that. Yeah, that now I'm thinking about parenting. I had all these visions for what my kids would be and then they're actually just who they are. I'm letting go of my visions, yeah, I mean, I'll just build off of that because I think that's, you know, we haven't really had the opportunity to reflect on our own process. We've just been doing it, but I do think, you know, there's this interesting part of that where the more this grows and other people are involved,

I think it helps, I've gotten clear, I've learned more about myself around what actually matters to me, what's my core, like what's my non-negotiable around this? And then what can I let go of? Because there is, I think if you take that too far, you can be just sort of bending over backwards to everyone else's desires. is some kernel, there's some sort of heart that is not changing even if maybe the specific manifestation or expression of it.

evolves over time. So this process, like for me, it's just, ⁓ it's just been at the core of like, I'm passionate about specifically clean and climate tech in the triangle, putting this area on the map, whatever it takes to elevate all the amazing things already happening here. And within that, I feel very open to how exactly it plays out and even my role in it. If there's some amazing person that wants to take the torch and make it bigger than I could myself, that's part of the

Maybe to connect the dots to the volunteering thing, think that also makes me, because I don't have any like personal financial compensation in this, I don't have any attachment to it either. So it frees me up in a way where, you know, my personal economics aren't biasing my opinion. So maybe that's another way to answer that question earlier as well.

Majela (38:54)

For me, there's a couple of things that I learned in this conversation that I would say are big takeaways. And I would say the first, it starts with the core leadership team. And I think the way Ben and I are really aligned in our mission and the drive, the driver behind what we're trying to create has been really essential for us to really be able to spin out this community and kind of expand.

⁓ Outwards into a founder circle. It comes from that core planning circle and the connections that we've been able to build and the people that we've led to Not follow but ⁓ join us and partner with us in this mission learning from Noa as well ⁓ It's a really a direct reflection of how we've been able to inspire ⁓ Others to come on this journey with us. And I think that's been really important ⁓ So having that really strong core believing

you know, having a clear path that you want to follow or mission that you're trying to accomplish is essential. And then everything else would kind of fall into place. And I think that also speaks to the incredible momentum that we've had as a community over the last year. I feel really, it me a little emotional, excited and happy to see how many people we've been able to inspire to join us in this path.

⁓ people that are not in the climate space, people that are just really excited about what we're trying to build. ⁓ Coming to us and validating that mission has been ⁓ incredibly exciting, and it just really keeps us fueled for what we want to continue building.

Noa (40:33)

And I think that's the attest to a true leadership when a large group of people inspired to be part of it, not for money, not for any benefits, just because there is a shared purpose. And for me, the key takeaway is the difference between the group of people ⁓ to a community or a team which has a shared goal in a team.

And in the community, it's more about a shared vision. And definitely ⁓ we can see that you established a community that everyone is there for a bigger purpose that is beyond, let's just bring more money to North Carolina, but let's take this climate tech and bring others to come and learn from us. And ⁓ let's make it something that brings value to this world and to our kids. So that's a huge ripple effect.

And I'm anyway very inspired by what the two of you are doing. So thank you for what you are doing, not just for this community, but the ripple effect for even next generations. Because we know that in a community, always people connect and bring more ideas and more resources. So there is a ripple effect that the two of you are creating with your partners. Thank you for that.

Ben (41:53)

four of us, we're all about partnerships. We're co-creating it right

Noa (42:00)

Yeah, so Ben, Majela, Ofir, thank you so much for being in this conversation. ⁓ Truly inspired here. Yeah, let's keep the ripple.

Ofir (42:13)

Thank you guys.

Majela (42:14)

Thank you ⁓

Ben (42:16)

Awesome, this is great. Yeah, thanks for having us.

Ofir (42:19)

Thanks so much, guys.

Noa Ronen
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E006 / Permission to Take Space As Leaders / Rob Ocel