Detroit Visibility Study
The Detroit Visibility Study
Mapping how Detroit founders get seen, found, and funded
The DISCOVERABILITY GAP
Detroit founders are building incredible things. But too many are invisible to the very systems that decide what gets surfaced, recommended, or funded.
The Detroit Visibility Study is a city-wide research initiative designed to measure how clearly Detroit-based founders show up across search engines, social platforms, and AI tools. Basically, we’re tracking how big, bold, and bright Detroit’s dot is on the map by determining what percentage of founders are shining.
Our goal: turn the grind of Detroit entrepreneurship into predictable discoverability.
Visibility Creates Economic Impact
Visibility is economic infrastructure. When founders become discoverable, customers find them faster, partnerships open up, and revenue accelerates. Strong visibility fuels job creation, stabilizes neighborhoods, and strengthens Detroit’s small-business economy. When the ecosystem knows who you are and what you offer, opportunity compounds.
Why I built the Detroit Visibility Study
I didn’t end up in marketing by accident. I grew up around Detroit musicians and later built my own businesses, where I learned that the money we invested in marketing is what helped us outperform veteran competitors in the security window industry. That’s when it hit me: if I learned marketing – really learned it – I could help more Black businesses and more Detroit creatives get the visibility they deserved.
Years later, as the marketing lead for a high-growth company that hit the Inc. 5000 five years in a row, that belief proved true. I wasn’t guessing about what would work; I relied heavily on data. And that data helped me build strategies that generated tens of millions in revenue and twice as much in pipeline. Half of it from organic visibility alone.
The Detroit Visibility Study is the data-gathering stage of a plan to ensure Detroit founders become clear, discoverable, and easy to find in a world where visibility determines opportunity and drives revenue.
The BIas Built Into the System
The biases baked into large language models are well-known, but not nearly as widely discussed as they should be. And when they are, the conversation tends to stop at naming the problem rather than structuring solutions.
Bias in AI isn’t a moral flaw so much as it’s a mathematical expression of institutional patterns that have existed for decades. And while you can’t always change hearts, math is predictable. Patterns are predictable. And that means the bias can be measured, mapped, and corrected.
We can operationalize a fix for the biases in LLMs and that starts with building the right data.
How DVS Data Feeds Corrective Data Sets
Every founder who participates in the Detroit Visibility Study contributes to a corrective data set that teaches AI what Detroit actually looks like.
What’s working for Detroit founders – where signals are strong, where visibility is breaking, and what’s missing from the ecosystem.
These datasets counterbalance national bias, elevate local market realities, and ensure that future AI recommendations reflect real Detroit conditions. Not outdated assumptions.
Over time, this becomes a visibility engine shaped by Detroit founders, strengthening how they’re discovered, recommended, and represented across digital platforms.
DATA THAT SHOWS WHAT DETROIT NEEDS TO GROW
Our work connects structure and story. We build systems that turn visibility into predictable growth across search, social, and AI ecosystems.
Every engagement starts with a Visibility Audit, then expands into a strategy tailored to your business model, market maturity, and message clarity. From there, we operationalize your visibility system, one designed to attract qualified attention and sustain momentum long after the campaign ends.
A personalized breakdown of how well your business is showing up in search, social, and AI.
Aggregated Detroit insights showing where visibility is and isn’t strong.
Actionable strategies built specifically for Detroit’s business landscape.
Become the Brand AI Recommends
Let’s Make Detroit Businesses Impossible to Overlook.
Every audit, strategy, and playbook we create is designed to help Detroit brands become known across search, social, and AI. When your story is engineered to be discoverable, you don’t chase opportunity. Opportunity will always find (and fund) you.