James Chapman has always had a passion for entrepreneurial and creative development endeavors. While working for community development nonprofit Causeway in Chattanooga, that was his focus.
Chapman noticed that creative people who used the space were often workaholics who rarely kept normal hours, and they often liked to collaborate, or at least run ideas by other creatives.
He developed an idea for a program called Workaholics that would let these creatives know if one of the work labs was available and who else was around. Chapman’s work got noticed by a lot of people, including Dan Gilbert, owner of Rocket Mortgage and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Chapman, 35, was flown to Detroit by Gilbert several times and eventually hired to run the entrepreneurship and development programs associated with Detroit Demo Day, an annual event at which creatives pitch their ideas in hopes of getting up to $1 million in funding for them.
Contributed photo by J. Adams / James Chapman is the founder and chief executive officer of Plain Sight, a networking app for creatives.All the while, he kept thinking about his Workaholics idea, because it seemed to translate to his situation at the time.