At the business incubator of the Louisiana Business and Technology Center, located at LSU South Campus, students are hatching ideas for potential new businesses.
Marketing senior Brandon Gordon is the founder of a company called Dorm Room Tees, which features T-shirts he said are representative of things college students see and do on an everyday basis.
One of Gordon’s designs is a “Dear Professor” tee where students can have a letter directed toward a certain professor printed on a shirt.
Gordon described it as “Whatever you think to say to your professor, but you never would say.”
Another entrepreneur, civil engineering graduate student Stuart Adams, based his business concept on hurricane mitigation research. Adams and his business partner, MBA student Lexi DeBrock, plan to create a pull-apart pastry as a signature food for hurricane season — a “hurricake.”
The cakes themselves are shaped to resemble a hurricane and include a dipping sauce called “eyecing” in its center.
The company, Hurricake Factory, will make and sell the pastries for the duration of hurricane season, June 1 to Nov. 30, as well as cake pans and cookie cutters in the company’s invented shape. Adams said he wants the word “hurricake” to be recognized.
“We want a cake made for hurricane season to be called a hurricake, whether they buy it or make it at home,” Adams said.
Adams also wants to include an educational component to the pastries by having each box fold out into a hurricane tracking chart with a checklist of necessities.
A success story of the incubator is The Royal Treatment LLC: The Canine Salon & Spa. Owner Amanda Floyd is a University alumna and a former participant in the business incubator. Floyd said she had the idea for her business in her head, but her time in the incubator helped her to create a finalized business plan and work out financial matters.
She said the incubator had lots of technical resources available, such as computer programs to create personalized financial projections. The one-on-one time with MBA students in the incubator helped Floyd to make her idea into an operating business.
“[Someone’s] always behind you wanting you to succeed,” Floyd said.
 
 
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Contact Haylie Navarre at [email protected]