James Zanewicz didn't plan on San Diego. He'd lived in Louisville, LA, New Orleans, DC, Illinois, and New Orleans again. He changed his phone number to a 504 area code. He was not leaving.

Then his friends started blowing up a group chat with a job posting. He applied mostly to make them stop. He got the job.

He's now the CEO of Connect San Diego, the first intentional innovation ecosystem ever built. Not just in the US. In the world.

We recorded this one at his patio table, which was the only furniture in his new apartment. We talked about why San Diego feels more like New Orleans than LA, the PhD sociologist who built Connect's community DNA at the founding in 1985, and why Austin and Miami have roughly 5% of San Diego's innovation output and four times the press coverage. We also got into what it actually feels like to be handed a 40-year legacy and told to reimagine it.

James is the kind of person who does office hours at a wine bar and hands out bottles of wine because that's what you do in New Orleans, and it turns out it works everywhere. San Diego got lucky when he said yes.

Connect Summer Social is June 16. Tickets are around $60. James says it's the one to go to.

Connect with James: Connect, James on LinkedIn

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Alex Waters got connected in San Diego by getting sandwiches.

Not metaphorically. He was volunteering at Startup Week when nobody could figure out who was going to feed the volunteers. He raised his hand. Walked down the street. Problem solved.

That's the whole philosophy, and it turns out it works.

Alex is the founder of The Program Labs, a nonprofit that helps organizations build entrepreneurship programs across San Diego. But before that, he spent years becoming one of the most connected people in the city by doing the things nobody else wanted to do. Moving chairs. Checking people in. Showing up every Wednesday to 1 Million Cups for eight months before ever asking for anything.

In this episode: why the most connected people in any ecosystem are almost always the ones who give the most, the difference between transactional networking and actually building community, the yacht theory of social capital, and why consistency is the strategy most people skip.

Connect with Alex: The Program Labs Alex on LinkedIn

Follow Into the Den: New episodes every week at howl.thesocialcoyote.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

Ross Young built Clinically AI from his living room. Literally. When Jonah showed up to plan a bootstrappers event at Ross's house, it was also the office. This conversation starts there, and goes deep on what it actually takes to build something from scratch in San Diego when you could have stayed comfortable.

Ross is the Co-Founder and CEO of Clinically AI, a platform that reduces clinical documentation time for behavioral health providers by up to 80%. The mission: help the people who help people.

The origin: a school district drowning in unread alerts, kids falling through the cracks, and one question: "If I built you something that could fix this, would you use it?" He built a prototype in a weekend. It went viral.

In this episode: bootstrapping vs. raising, building a team in San Diego on purpose, AI in the most human conversations that exist, and why Ross eventually moved his company out of his den and finally got a real office... that admittedly has way too much space.

Connect with Ross: Clinically AI Ross on LinkedIn

Follow Into the Den: New episodes every week at howl.thesocialcoyote.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.