Baton Rouge is climbing the ranks of entrepreneurial cities, and the Louisiana Business and Technology Center has given it an advantage over the competition.
The August issue of Entrepreneur Magazine recognized Baton Rouge as one of five new entrepreneurial hot spots in the United States because of the access small companies have to investors and “the operational footing they need to grow big.”
Executive Director of the Louisiana Business and Technology Center Charles D’Agostino said that a big reason for this recognition is the LBTC’s business incubator, which has an 80 percent success rate.
Owners of Red Six Media and Tin Roof Brewing Company, two companies that resulted from the LBTC business incubator program, attribute their success to the incubator’s resources.
“You don’t know where to start when starting a business and the consultants there are really great and helpful,” Red Six Media co-owner Matt Dardenne said. “The business incubator gave us an office, general business advice, conference room, receptionist, even something as simple as a phone line and a place to send and receive mail.”
The most recent addition to the incubator program is the student incubator, which D’Agostino believes is one of LBTC’s
greatest achievements.
Red Six Media inspired the creation of the student incubator in 2010. The program aims to help students throughout their time at college, and to form and grow business ideas.
“As recent grads of LSU, we felt really confident in our abilities to write, design and be advertisers, but had no experience in running a business,” Dardenne said.
D’Agostino said the goal of the student incubator is to eliminate the graduation day worry about finding a job, because students have already invented their own business.
Since its start, 19 businesses have graduated from the student incubator and are employing people and raising capital in Louisiana.
Despite his confidence in the student incubator, Dardenne said prior to starting the company, he and the other five owners did not anticipate Baton Rouge becoming such an entrepreneurial hot spot.
“This business was a spur of the moment decision for us, and as we got going and learning more in the business incubator, it became clear that there was a big opportunity for us and other young people like us in Baton Rouge,” Dardenne said.
“We were thrilled to hear that news [the entrepreneurial ranking]. Baton Rouge is definitely deserving of that recognition,” Dardenne said.