Three months. One cafe. Season 0 is announced.
GM! Carl Studios sets a season-long experience at Haven Cafe — coffee, cocktails, and code — with GM Spaces keeping the receipts and OnlyLemon pouring.
Milwaukee, Wis. — August 31, 2026 — GM! Carl Studios today announced Season 0, a three-month build challenge and event series running September through November 2026. The whole season lives under one roof: Haven Cafe, the coffee-and-cocktails spot at 1201 N Van Buren St in downtown Milwaukee, is the season's home floor, with lemonade makers OnlyLemon on as drink partner.
Season 0 is a bet, made in the open: that a city will show up for what its own people are building — and that showing up should count for something. GM Spaces, the studio's activity-discovery platform, is how the count is kept. What's happening in Milwaukee sits on one live map; walk in, scan at the door, and the receipt lands in your register. Every point has a receipt. The numbers stay public all season — and if Milwaukee holds the loop for one season, Season 1 gets built.
Three checkpoints, one roof
☕ Coffee with Carl — September. Find the opportunity. The season opens with conversation: meet the builders and neighborhood people worth knowing, and pin your idea to the “What Should We Build?” wall — real drops at Haven Cafe that outlive the night. The challenge, the prizes, and the timeline are announced from the floor.
🍸 Cocktails with Carl — October. Find the people. Builders meet collaborators, mentors, and Milwaukee business owners; selected builders get ninety seconds each. The night's drink perk — poured by OnlyLemon — is a promo drop redeemed in the app at the counter, live: the product demos itself.
💻 Coding with Carl — November. Build and show the work. Two lanes — a Sprint for anyone starting that day and a Finish Line for teams polishing a season of work — then Demo Day, where the community votes each track's winner inside the app.
Attend all three checkpoints and the three timestamped receipts in your register are the Season Zero Pass. No plastic badge; the receipts were already true.
The build challenge
One question runs the whole season: what could you build that brings people together? The challenge runs in two tracks — the GM Spaces Track, built for or with the platform, and the Custom Track, bring your own creation on any stack. Come alone or bring a team. The prize pool splits evenly between the tracks, one winning person or team per track — and the judging belongs to the community, which votes inside the app at Demo Day. The full spec — timeline, team rules, submission format, voting — is public in the field manual.
Dates & registration
- What
- Season 0 — presented by GM! Carl Studios, the experience at Haven Cafe
- Where
- Haven Cafe, 1201 N Van Buren St, Milwaukee, WI 53202 (havencafemke.com)
- When
- September – November 2026; exact event dates announced at gmcarl.xyz/season0 and inside the app
- Join
- app.gmcarl.xyz — free, in any browser, nothing to install; joining takes about twelve seconds
“Milwaukee doesn't need another place to scroll about what's happening. It needs credit for showing up. Every point in Season 0 is a timestamp that says you were in the room — and three of those receipts are the whole season pass.”
— Carl, GM! Carl Studios
Sponsors
Red Foundry, the employee-owned custom software studio, holds the prize-pool seat — seeding the Demo Day awards at $300, split evenly between the two tracks. Haven Cafe and OnlyLemon hold the venue and drink-partner seats on the season's sponsor wall. Two ways in stay open all season: grow the prize pool and be on stage as each Demo Day award is given, or sponsor for visibility and join the featured-guest reveals. One door: me@gmcarl.xyz.
Availability
GM Spaces is live now at app.gmcarl.xyz. It is free, runs in any browser, and installs to a phone home screen without an app store. Season 0 is Milwaukee only.