Student business owners promoted their companies in a student business exposition, and two student entrepreneurs shared their success stories in LSU’s first Louisiana Entrepreneurship Day on Tuesday.
Jarett Rodriguez, associate director of the LSU Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute, said the exposition and speakers are part of a week-long series of entrepreneurship events being held around Baton Rouge in celebration of global Entrepreneurship Week.
“We’re trying to have activities for people of all ages and backgrounds,” Rodriguez said.
Other events around Baton Rouge include “starting a business” boot camp, an address by Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings, a technology networking social and various workshops.
Tuesday’s events, including a “Breakfast 2 Business” featuring Jared Loftus’ discussion of social media use for business purposes and Entrepreneurship Day, were dedicated to LSU student entrepreneurs.
The student business exposition was an opportunity for any student business owner to showcase his or her business, free of charge.
One of the businesses represented was a babysitting referral service, Bayou Time Babysitting Agency, owned by Niki Hansen, University veterinary clinical sciences doctoral student. Hansen’s business has been running for 14 months, and her 20 babysitters are available every day, including holidays.
Hansen said she participated in the exposition for the exposure. She said students attending entrepreneurship events like this one may find inspiration or even a job.
Solben Energy founder Daniel Gomez and MyYearBook.com founder Catherine Cook, who began their businesses while in school, presented stories of their personal roads to success and entrepreneurship tips to attendees.
Cook’s social networking website, now worth $100 million, began when she had difficulty making friends as a new student at her New Jersey high school. She and her older brother decided to create a new tool for meeting people. Their older brother funded their project initially, and their site now has 33 million members.
“If you have a good idea, you will get funding,” Cook said. “It’s a matter of putting yourself out there.”
Cook said her accommodating high school teachers and college professors aided her with the difficulties of running a business as a student.
Solben Energy, a biofuel company, garnered more than $1 million in revenue during its first year of operation. Gomez, who launched his company in 2009 at the age of 18, said a person’s ideas and ability to convince others of his or her ideas, not age, factor into entrepreneurial success.
Gomez said his business experiences began at the age of 8, when he sold nuts from a tree in his family’s backyard. He said his experiences as a high school basketball player and cyclist taught him perseverance, “mind over matter,” and the value of teamwork.
Gomez advised audience members to avoid calling unfortunate outcomes “failures” and to instead treat every outcome as a “result.”
“If everything is a result, you always learn,” Gomez said.
Gomez said his vision for the company is a multinational contributor to the green energy sector as a whole. He also wants to increase the quality of life for people in rural areas in the regions where his company’s operations are located.
Rodriguez said he hopes entrepreneurship events will become annual occurrences in Baton Rouge.
 
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Contact Catherine Parsiola at [email protected]