The seedlings can be disappointing. Pawpaw is a lot like peppers. Selected cultivars are good, but wild ones can be awful. I strongly advice to plant certified cultivars of your preferred flavor. My Shenandoah has a lot of banana mixed with caramel and the texture reminds to a lemon mousse that does not taste at all like a lemon. Also wait for them to be really ripe but not overripe (The flavor spoils). The fruits fall when are ripe and then is a speed race with slugs, coons and squirrels.
It needs water and grows well were hazelnuts also grow. Take advantage also of the relatively brief but good butter yellow fall color placing for example some chokeberries (melanocarpa Viking for fruit, arbutifolia Brilliant for red color), or a Japanese maple like Seiryu fast grower vertically providing a decent canopy, rusty fall color and great under spring lights, Hogyoku or Emmet's Pumpkin have great oranges and reds in fall and a decent sized leaf that unlike Seyriu will not dissappear around the huge leaves of the paw paw but is a question of personal taste. Put each tree well spaced but close enough to be seen as one scene and plan in advance as this trees don't like at all to be moved later.
Paw paws grow happy under canopy, specially for its first years, but produce much better at full sun (flies don't like shadow). Can be hand pollinated in any case.
This is great info. I've wanted to grow some for years, but I live in CO, and won't be moving to a region where these are viable for a few years yet, so I've got plenty of time to plan. I had no idea there even were cultivars for this fruit, but I was aware they like to start in shade, then explode once started.
In the Southwest, there are many environments where a tall, shady plant grows quickly, sets the stage for plants that need only initial shade, and then the fast-grower eventually loses out on the plot once the slower-growers have a chance to establish themselves. Once those slow growers are in place, a new generation of smaller, shade-loving plants will often follow, filling in the area that the fast-growers left.
I wonder if there are analogues you're meant to plant first, to get the pawpaw going.