The Urgency to Build

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”
— Vladimir Lenin

Preface: Letters for the Next Generation of Builders

This is the ninth in a series of ten letters I’m writing to the next generation of founders in Ohio.

I’m writing them because the future of entrepreneurship in America will not be written solely in Silicon Valley or New York. It will be written in places like Ohio if enough of us choose to build.

These letters are about responsibility, about the act of creation as a civic duty, and taking an idea that lives only in your head and daring to bring it into the world.

The next ten years will decide who shapes the next hundred, and the cost of waiting is losing the moment.

Every civilization has its decisive decade, the period that determines whether it ascends or declines. For Ohio and America, that decade is now.

Artificial intelligence is very much here. Biotech is rewriting life itself. Climate technology is the scaffolding of humanity’s survival, and robotics, quantum computing, energy, and education — all are converging in a single, global transformation.

And Ohio is well-positioned to sit at the crossroads of it all.

We have world-class research universities, deep manufacturing expertise, the nation’s densest healthcare ecosystem, and one of the most resilient logistics networks on Earth. The Midwest is where the digital meets the physical, where code touches atoms, and ideas can become infrastructure. But that potential means nothing if we hesitate.

History is accelerating, and the window is open now — and it will not stay open forever. This is a time for building.

Why This Matters to Me

I’ve built companies in London, New York, São Paulo, and Columbus. I’ve raised millions, seen successes and failures, and always focused on building — building, building, building. I’ve sat in rooms where people debated what the future might look like, and then walked out to realize it was already here. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that sometimes timing matters more than talent.

You can have the right idea, the right team, the right vision — and still lose if you’re late. The world doesn’t pause for your readiness. Markets shift, competitors move,c windows open, then slam shut. Some of the greatest founders I’ve met didn’t fail because they were wrong but because they waited. They wanted the perfect timing, the perfect plan, and the perfect moment. And by the time they acted, it was gone.

That’s why urgency matters. Because the clock is not neutral.

The Ohio Moment

Ohio has the ingredients. We are the 7th-largest economy in the United States, with 28 Fortune 500 companies, 170,000 college graduates every year, and a geographic advantage that puts us within a day’s drive of 60 percent of North America’s population.

We have scale. We have industry. We have talent.
What we lack — painfully, persistently, is urgency.

Too many of our brightest wait.
They wait for more experience.
They wait for the “right time.”
They wait for someone to tell them they’re ready.

And while they wait, others move.

In the past five years, founders in Austin/Texas, Miami/Florida, and Toronto/Canada have built thriving ecosystems not because they necessarily had more resources, but because they moved faster. Meanwhile, Ohio captured just 0.54 percent of all U.S. venture capital in 2024. For every $1 billion invested nationally, just $5.4 million reached Ohio founders.

This gap is a mirror. It shows how much potential sits dormant. How many ideas die quietly in notebooks, classrooms, and coffee shops — not necessarily because they lacked merit, but because we need to fuel our ecosystem with more founders and more capital.

If Ohio wants to become a Startup State, we must build and invest with urgency.

Why Now Matters More Than Ever

1/ The world is being rebuilt from the ground up. We’re transitioning from the Industrial Internet to the Intelligent Internet, where AI, robotics, and biology form the new operating system of the economy. Whoever builds the infrastructure of that system will own the next century.

2/ Ohio’s key sectors are being reinvented in real time.

• Healthcare: The Cleveland Clinic, OhioHealth, and Nationwide Children’s sit atop data goldmines ready for AI-driven diagnostics and precision medicine.

• Energy & Infrastructure: Columbus and Dayton are seeing early waves of nuclear microreactor and EV manufacturing projects.

• Manufacturing: Additive fabrication, industrial IoT, and predictive maintenance (pioneered by companies like AssetWatch) are redefining what “factory” means.

• Logistics: Cincinnati’s global air hub is a testbed for autonomous and drone-powered supply chains.

3/ The cost of creation has collapsed. You can now prototype with AI in days, reach customers globally overnight, and raise capital without leaving your city. The friction is gone, but so is the excuse.

4/ Capital follows movement. Investors aren’t allergic to Ohio. They’re allergic to inertia. Momentum attracts money. Show traction, and the world will find you.

We are standing in a once-in-a-generation window. If we move, we lead. If we wait, we follow.

Urgency Drives Clarity

It’s the realization that time is not infinite, that opportunities decay, that inaction is itself a decision.

The greatest founders I’ve met share one trait: they operate with a sense of moral urgency. They don’t build to get rich, but because they believe something needs to exist, and it bothers them that it doesn’t yet.

Urgency is what made the Wright Brothers test flight after flight on frozen fields in Dayton until the machine lifted. It’s what drove Thomas Edison to make a thousand failed prototypes before the bulb lit. It’s what pushed Leslie Wexner to turn a single clothing store into a global brand empire. It’s also what built CoverMyMeds, Root Insurance, and Forge Biologics — all born in Ohio, all started by people who refused to wait.

Urgency turns vision into velocity.

The Cultural Shift We Need

For decades, Ohio has been defined by stability. Good jobs, steady industries, reliable institutions. That stability built prosperity, but it also bred caution. We reward predictability more than imagination. We honor risk-takers only after they succeed.

But the future belongs to those who act before success is guaranteed. So we must rewire our cultural defaults:

From wait until you’re ready to start before you are.
From play it safe to build with boldness.
From follow the path to make the path.

This mindset shift cannot just be personal — it must be generational. If we want our children to grow up in a thriving, inventive Ohio, we have to show them what it looks like to build with uncertainty.

The Founder’s Responsibility

I often tell new founders: you don’t just build companies; you create culture. When you start something, you send a signal, you show others what’s possible. That’s the civic power of entrepreneurship.

Ohio’s next era will be led by founders in co-working spaces, university labs, and garages, by people who are turning conviction into creation. Each new company, each prototype, each small success, makes it easier for the next person to believe they can do it too.

That’s how ecosystems are born — from momentum.

Urgency without discipline is chaos. Discipline without urgency is decay. The most effective builders combine both. They move fast, but not recklessly. They make decisions quickly, but they make them well. They treat time as capital — because it is.

Here are a few principles I’ve learned:

• Speed compounds. Every small action builds momentum. Momentum builds morale. Morale builds culture.

• Default to now. If something can be done today, do it today.

• Decide faster. The cost of indecision is almost always higher than the cost of imperfection.

• Simplify relentlessly. Complexity kills speed — clarity accelerates it.

• Build in public. Share progress, lessons, and mistakes. Urgency is contagious when others can see it.

In a world that rewards noise, quiet execution still wins. But urgency is the tempo that keeps the song alive.

A Final Note

The next ten years are decisive. The cost of waiting is losing the moment. Every generation gets one window to build the future. This is ours.

If you’ve ever felt the spark, that sense that maybe you could build something that matters, start before you’re “ready”, move before it’s “safe”, and act before it’s “certain”. This is all part of the journey of building. It’s not for everyone, but you’ll know if it’s for you.

We came to build.
Yon

(Missed the previous letters? Read them here)