Hello From The Idea Village





Dear Friends of The Idea Village, It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since The Idea Village was just a crazy idea on a cocktail napkin. We’re looking forward to a 10th anniversary full of activity for the New Orleans entrepreneurial community and are counting down the days to celebrating New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. From March 20-27th, 2010, The Idea Village is putting on the type of event that New Orleanians know how to do best – a festival of entrepreneurship, centered around action and impact. New Orleans Entrepreneur Week is set to be one heck of an event – Jim Coulter (Founding Partner, Texas Pacific Group), Walter Isaacson (CEO, Aspen Institute,) James Carville and Mary Matalin (CNN’s odd couple) and dozens of MBA students from Stanford, Berkeley, University of Chicago, Northwestern and Cornell, alongside corporate volunteers, are converging on the city to shine a spotlight on entrepreneurship and innovation in New Orleans. We're cheering on the New Orleans Saints this weekend - and they believe in us too! The Saints are a founding sponsor of New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. Visit ideavillage.org for updates on New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. Here’s your monthly scoop on entrepreneurial activity from The Idea Village: Updates from The IV: Schedulist “Turns Urgency Into Currency” on the homepage of Entrepreneur Magazine The Idea Village Visits Bay Area and Chicago To Engage MBA and Corporate Volunteers for New Orleans Entrepreneur Week The Idea Village Hires Entrepreneurs in Residence Harvard MBAs Volunteer Winter Break to Create Pipeline of Talent to NOLA Sustainable Environmental Enterprises Open for Business Companies to Watch: The Receivables Exchange Closes $17 Million Dollar Investment Deal KODA Hires Job Recruitment Expert as New COO TurboSquid and GNO, Inc. Discuss New Orleans’s Business Opportunities on AC360 NakedPizza signs franchise deals for Florida, Colorado Bideo Online Auction House for Media Images Launches New Opportunities for Entrepreneurs: Inc.com Is Looking for the 2010 Fastest-Growing Companies in America IDEArooms Take Over New Orleans Do You Have What It Takes to Be An Investor Idol? Remember to go out and vote and cheer on the Saints! Who dat! The Idea Village Team www.ideavillage.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schedulist Featured on Entrepreneur Magazine: “Turning Urgency Into Currency” The Idea Village has partnered with Entrepreneur Magazine to showcase entrepreneurs with fresh ideas coming out of New Orleans. In this month’s edition, Chris Laibe talks about how his technology company, Schedulist, is taking on the immense challenge of workforce retention in the healthcare industry – with help from like-minded entrepreneurs in an innovative workspace. Schedulist is participating in The Idea Village 2010 Entrepreneur Challenge. Watch how Schedulist is tackling a $60 billion dollar problem on Entrepreneur Media. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Idea Village Visits Bay Area and Chicago to Engage MBA and Corporate Volunteers for New Orleans Entrepreneur Week The Idea Village took a road trip this week to get participating corporate and MBA teams ready for New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. Daryn Dodson, director of the IDEAcorps program, and Lauren Baum, Chief Idea Officer, visited participating companies Google, Salesforce and Cisco to make the week an unforgettable experience for the New Orleans entrepreneurial community. Entrepreneur Challenge clients Drop the Chalk, REpurposingNOLA, Tutti Dynamics, and NOLA Couture were along for the ride to meet with their MBA teams at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Kellogg and University of Chicago. The MBAs will work intensively with the companies over the course of New Orleans Entrepreneur Week on key business opportunities. The countdown to New Orleans Entrepreneur Week begins – stay tuned at ideavillage.org for updates! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Idea Village Hires Entrepreneurs in Residence The Idea Village is pleased to welcome its new Entrepreneurs in Residence, Israel Rollins and Doug Ryan. Israel and Doug are hard at work with the companies participating in The Idea Village Entrepreneur Challenge, and are lending their extensive entrepreneurial, managerial, and financial expertise. Israel is a clinical, financial, and operating professional with significant experience in health care services and information technology. His career spans 18 years of working with leading organizations and new business ventures in roles including clinical pharmacist, consultant, finance, product development and entrepreneur. Doug’s background is in corporate finance and accounting and he is a Certified Public Accountant. He also has experience in investor relations, treasury operations, internal controls, and business development. As Director of Finance at Freeport-McMoRan, Doug served as the senior financial executive for approximately five years on the development of Main Pass Energy Hub (MPEH), a multi-billion dollar energy import and storage facility. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harvard MBAs Volunteer Winter Break to Create Pipeline of Talent to NOLA In January, Harvard MBA students answered the call to service posed at the start of each day at Harvard Business School: “What will you do?” Over the Service Immersion winter break trip to New Orleans, Harvard Business School students partnered with nonprofit agencies to deliver business insights to social challenges. Eight students at The Idea Village spent an intensive week exploring how to establish an MBA summer internship program for New Orleans’s entrepreneurial community. Pouring over the city’s opportunities, the job demands of their peers, and the opportunity to create a hands-on and real world experience with start-ups, the students outlined a detailed program that can create a pipeline of talent to New Orleans year after year. See the students at work here. If you are an MBA interested in entrepreneurial opportunities over the summer, OR if you are a New Orleans entrepreneur interested in MBA talent, email us at innovation@ideavillage.org. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sustainable Environmental Enterprises Open for Business The Idea Village Entrepreneur Challenge and Innovation Fund participant Sustainable Environmental Enterprises, LLC (SEE, LLC) has opened its demonstration space in the heart of Central City and would love for you to take a tour! SEE, LLC is a for-profit mission driven corporation dedicated to opening access to renewable energy technologies to low, very-low, and moderate income households. SEE provides an end-to-end solution including system financing, customer education, installation, and on-going maintenance. All SEE solar systems can be purchased with NO UP FRONT COSTS and customers who do not have good credit scores can qualify for system financing. Visit SEE’s demonstration space and see the movement in action. Phone SEE at 504.975.2355 or check them out on the web at www.SEEtheMovement.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Receivables Exchange Closes $17 Million Dollar Investment Deal The Receivables Exchange (www.receivablesXchange.com), the world’s first online marketplace for real-time trading of accounts receivable announced on January 27th that it has closed $17 million in Series C financing led by Bain Capital Ventures, with additional commitments from existing investors Redpoint Ventures and Prism Ventureworks. Read the full Press Release from The Receivables Exchange here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KODA Hires Job Recruitment Expert as New COO KODA.us, a New Orleans-based start-up job recruiting site and “Opportunity Community” has a new expert on board – Michelle Slagle, the former Chief Financial Officer for both Jobfox.com and Careerbuilder.com brings more than a decade of online recruiting experience to the helm and nearly twenty years of finance and operations management experience in the high tech industry. “[Michelle] is a seasoned executive with startup, private, venture backed and public company experience in the online job recruiting space,” said Jeff Berger, KODA CEO. “She is a great leader who will help scale KODA’s operations nationally during our accelerated growth a period.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TurboSquid and GNO, Inc. Discuss New Orleans' Business Opportunities on AC360 Anderson Cooper 360 tells the story of TurboSquid, a digital media company in New Orleans, and how it has skyrocketed in post-Katrina New Orleans by using the city’s reputation as an art center to recruit talent. New Orleans’s aggressive efforts to improve schools and provide tax incentives are making the city a hotspot to start new companies, according to the CEO of GNO Inc., Michael Hecht. Now the world’s largest online vendor of 3D images (and Idea Village Board Member), CEO Matt Wisdom shares tips for growing companies: “Do one or a few things very well and build the best team of people around you.” Watch TurboSquid and GNO Inc. on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NakedPizza signs franchise deals for Florida, Colorado In a success story for the Greater New Orleans region that tastes good – and is good for the economy, too – NakedPizza has awarded area development rights for 58 units in Central and South Florida and Boulder, CO. in its first stage of expansion. Co-founded by anthropologist Jeff Leach and investment banker Randy Crochet, the New Orleans-based firm seeks to offer a healthy, functional alternative to the traditional pizza chain. "Fast food is arguably the most successful commercial enterprise in the world in terms of marketing, product, distribution, and economies of scale," Leach says. "We're hijacking that with a pizza that is physiologically aligned with the way people should eat – that offers health instead of harm and that's contributing to epidemics of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and unsustainable healthcare costs." Follow NakedPizza on Twitter to See Where They Go Next ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bideo Online Auction House for News Images Launches A tornado tearing across a field, a plane landing in a river, an amateur dunking on an NBA star, or exclusive shots of celebrities and athletes misbehaving, some pictures and videos are rare gems that are often the direct result of a camera phone being in the right place at the right time. Bideo.com, a New Orleans entrepreneur, made its debut to the public this week connecting in-demand video with the ever-growing market of media images. Brittain Stone, Photo Director for US Weekly, sees Bideo as a great resource for publications to obtain newsworthy material. “The Bideo format can be the efficient and trustworthy intermediary between those user creators and the buyer. It will be a way for us to tap into formerly ambivalent and often unattainable sources with ease and immediacy.” Check out how Bideo connects the content that YOU generate with media outlets. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inc.com Is Looking for the 2010 Fastest-Growing Companies in America Get the attention your company deserves! Our community is proud to be joining Inc. Magazine in their search for the fastest-growing private companies in America – the 2010 Inc. 500\|5000. The Inc. 500\|5000 list ranks companies by overall revenue growth over a three-year period, from 2006 to 2009. Each company honored on the Inc. 500\|5000 list will be profiled on Inc.com, and the top 500 companies will be featured in the September issue of Inc. magazine. Securing a spot on this coveted list would provide public acknowledgment for your hard work and success, and it would also promote your company to thousands of potential customers, partners, and members of the media. Click here to apply now. Deadline is Friday, April 30, 2010, but if you apply early, you can be eligible for special Inc. drawings and giveaways. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDEArooms Take Over New Orleans What’s more powerful than telling people about your ideas? Showing them. The Idea Village is proud to announce the IDEAroom program to bring the power of brainstorming to homes, schools and offices across New Orleans. Our vision is that, one day, New Orleans will be the IDEAroom capital of the world! Whitney Bank trusted our crazy idea and joined us for the inaugural installation of an IDEAroom in its New Orleans office. Learn more about IDEArooms across New Orleans and how to install your own. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do You Have What It Takes to Be An Investor Idol? The 2010 National Interagency Community Reinvestment Conference is holding a competition to select five businesses to pitch their plans to a panel of investment bank “judges” and receive valuable feedback on the investor’s perspective. Winners will receive time to present before the judges before the afternoon of Thursday, March 18, 2010. For more information on the conference please go to: www.frbsf.org/community --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- News From The Idea Village Louisiana Life Magazine Best Places to Work Allen Bell, COO and co-founder of The Idea Village, notes in the article that he is honored by the local, regional and national recognition but even more impressed with his staff. “They are an incredibly talented and committed group of people who see their individual roles more as a ‘calling’ than a job.” The Idea Village The Idea Village Announces Portfolio Of Entrepreneurs To Participate In Inaugural Entrepreneur Challenge Tim Williamson, Co-founder and CEO of The Idea Village, said of the Entrepreneur Challenge portfolio, “We are part of a movement in New Orleans where entrepreneurs are using New Orleans as a laboratory to test new concepts and ideas. This group of companies demonstrates that they are committed to growing their businesses here by leveraging the unique opportunities that the city offers.” CNN Back in Business After Katrina Sean Callebs reports on how Rock ‘n Bowl bounced back after Hurricane Katrina. Rock ‘n Bowl discusses with CNN the generous grant he received from The Idea Village which made it possible for them to quickly open their doors to the public post-katrina. Where Y'At The New NOLA Tech Zone According to Tim Williamson, President and Co-founder of the Idea Village, New Orleans possesses, among other things, a university system and a creative culture. New Orleans is also a “worldwide brand.” “The good news is that the foundation is there,” Williamson says. 1012 Corridor A Place of Their Own "If you’re a young, bright entrepreneur, New Orleans looks pretty interesting right now,” [Idea Village CEO Tim] Williamson says. “There aren’t hundreds of thousands of layoffs; there’s actually a growing, entrepreneurial community. We’ve got our coolness, but there’s also a sense of opportunity here, because we’re going through a transformation. “ The New York Times Entrepreneurs Leverage New Orleans’s Charm to Lure Small Businesses “Competitive gets you nowhere. It’s about being collaborative. And this city is so like that, from the people helping each other rebuild their homes to building businesses,” said Seema Sudan, the owner and director of the knitwear company LiaMolly. Social Earth Introducing the Entre-pioneers of the “New” New Orleans Clusters are a validation that entrepreneurs can create economic and social change. The Washington Times Persevering in New Orleans Driven by the mantra "Trust your crazy ideas," The Idea Village is a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the city's for-profit entrepreneurial culture. Through a combination of talent attraction, technical support and connection to financing, the organization has supported more than 255 entrepreneurial ventures representing 946 jobs and more than $69 million in revenue. WWL-AM Think Tank Think Tank hosts Tim Williamson, Miji Park, Jo Ann Minor and Amy Cosper, Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, on July 24th to discuss entrepreneurship in New Orleans and the grand opening of The Entergy Innovation Center. Entrepreneur Magazine Entrepreneur Magazine Highlights the New Orleans Entrepreneurial Ecosystem “When The Idea Village was founded in 2000, we were building the framework for vibrant entrepreneurial community. 9 years later, this nascent spirit is alive and growing” says Tim Williamson. Christian Science Monitor Laid-off Wall Streeters Find Entrepreneurial Spirit “Clustering entrepreneurs is quite useful,” says Tim Williamson, President of The Idea Village, a New Orleans business incubator. “It allows people to interact closely, bump into each other at the water cooler, [and it] forces conversation,” he says. The Times Picayune Entrepreneurial Hubs Are Springing Up Across the City And Spurring Economic Development “The hubs operate under edgy names -- Entrepreneur's Row, The Icehouse, The IP and the Entergy Innovation Center -- and place an emphasis on providing more than office space to their tenants... The hubs encourage networking and collaboration among innovation companies while seeking to recreate a freewheeling culture reminiscent of Silicon Valley.” The Times Picayune New Orleans is Attracting a Wave of Workers Pursuing Entrepreneurial Jobs "New Orleans is attractive because there are lots of opportunities here and less layoffs than in other places like Boston or San Francisco," Tim Williamson said. St. Charles Avenue Magazine On The Cover The group’s mantra and modus operandi, “Trust Your Crazy Ideas,” is now the title of a book Idea Village is publishing to salute New Orleans’ leading entrepreneurs, past, present and future. Associated Press A home for entrepreneurs in New Orleans Williamson said the Idea Village has been turning over the idea of a hub for entrepreneurs for almost 10 years. Michael Hecht, the new chief executive of GNO, Inc., begun mulling a similar idea, and the two managed to recruit a number of companies whose leases happened to be running out this year. The six anchor tenants they assembled have scooped up almost a third of the building's 85,000 square feet. Inspired Economist New Orleans: A Hotbed of Entrepreneurship Whether they are “social” entrepreneurships or just plain entrepreneurships, it is clear that New Orleans is laying the right groundwork for a full-scale “and then some” recovery. CityBusiness Feds Award Idea Village $800,000 to Grow Businesses “The Economic Development Administration is pleased to partner with The Idea Village to boost business development and job growth,” said Sandra R. Walters, EDA's chief financial officer and chief administrative officer. “This EDA grant will help significantly strengthen the competitive advantage of the New Orleans region by spurring cluster-based business development.” Baton Rouge Advocate N.O. Entrepreneurs Given Boost PlayNola won the contest steered by The Idea Village, which has helped more than 250 startup companies in the city since 2003, and 504ward, a group working to connect young professionals in the city. Seeds of the contest began when Leslie Jacobs - an insurance executive and social entrepreneur - donated $100,000 for the competition. BusinessWeek Bootcamp for New Orleans entrepreneurs The Idea Village, a NOLA group fostering entrepreneurship, held a weeklong event that brought top B-school students (plus folks from companies like Google and Salesforce.com) to New Orleans to help six startups refine their business plans. The Times Picayune IDEAcorps Was a Huge Help "I think everyone needs to take a step back and realize what the Idea Village has just pulled off. Phenomenal." Kyle Berner, CEO & Creator, Feelgoodz CityBusiness Birthing Business in The Big Easy At a time when the rest of the country is beleaguered under the pressures of a recession, it is nice to know New Orleans not only has some insulation from its worst effects but is also poised to prosper - one small business at a time. The Times Picayune Business Students Aid Entrepreneurs "I was just so proud to be a part of this," Kyle Berner, founder of Feelgoodz said. "My business is poised for rapid growth. Now I really have the a plan to carry it out." NewOrleans.com IDEAcorps 2009 Brings Bright Minds To New Orleans Businesses Something amazing has been quietly happening in New Orleans recently.This week was the annual Idea Village IDEAcorps Challenge, where business students and corporate volunteers from all over the country pay their own way to New Orleans to spend their spring break helping local entrepreneurs realize their dreams. USA Today MBA candidates test skills in New Orleans One of the main benefactors of this trend has been New Orleans, a city nearly destroyed by the 2005 floods. The Idea Village, a non-profit created to help businesses get on their feet, launched IDEACorps in 2006. It is a business-oriented Peace Corps concept that pairs MBA candidates with local entrepreneurs. WWL-TV Tim Williamson, President and co-founder of The Idea Village and Ashley Payton, Stanford GSB trip leader, join Eric Paulsen to share how The Idea Village and IDEAcorps teams are helping high impact ventures grow. NewWave, Tulane University Good Ideas for Business Idea Village created the workshop to help grow local businesses. The graduate students along with a group of corporate executives, will work with the six firms to write business plans and help with their expansion. The Times Picayune Help Wanted, N.O Tells Students New Orleans native Kenneth Purcell, whose company iSeatz grew from a $1M to a nearly $70M company in five years, said he moved his company back home because he wanted to be a player in the area's resurgence. ABC 26 IDEAcorps Brings 50 Top MBA Students to Help Local Entrepreneurs "We are excited to be hosting five of the leading business schools from around the country to help a number of New Orleans entrepreneurs solve the critical challenges facing their businesses," says IDEAcorps Director Daryn Dodson. WDSU Idea Village Plans To Increase the Number Of New Orleans Businesses 50 of the top business students from across the country are in the Crescent City to help local businesses grow. This is not about starting a new business as much as helping the most innovative businesses in our community expand quickly. And in some cases, nationally. The Times Picayune Local Firms Learn How To Grow The Idea Village created the IDEAcorps Challenge, with three goals in mind. The primary goal is to grow the local businesses, said Tim Williamson, President of the Idea Village. The other are providing hands-on experience to graduate business students and introducing them to New Orleans. WWL-AM Garland Robinette hosts Tim Williamson, President and co-founder of The Idea Village, Daryn Dodson, Director of IDEAcorps Program, entrepreneur, Randy Crochet of NAKEDpizza and Robbie Vitrano, Principal of Trumpet and co-founder of The Idea Village in the Think Tank to discuss the entrepreneurial opportunities and networks that are taking root in New Orleans. WWL TV Bright Harvard Minds Volunteer to Rebuild New Orleans They're arguably among the brightest business minds in America, and for the past week they've shared their time and their talents in New Orleans.