He may not be Mark Zuckerberg, but Sean Simone created a social network as a University student, and it’s finding success.
SeNSEbr.org is a website and organization for Baton Rouge entrepreneurs to meet, share ideas and build the foundations of business relationships, Simone said.
“When I got here three years ago, there was no place for local people interested in entrepreneurship to talk,” Simone said.
Simone, an agricultural business senior, said the idea was born out of admiration for similar networks in other cities.
“I saw New Orleans. I saw Austin. I saw all these other cities with cool organizations,” Simone said.
Little more than a year after its creation, the website has grown to more than 200 members.
Members on the website can locate other entrepreneurs by the type of businesses they run. When they find a member they want to contact, they can send that person a message or write on his or her wall through SeNSE.
However, the most important aspect of SeNSE takes place away from the keyboard, Simone said.
“We have monthly meetings where we hope to do three things: connect, innovate and inspire,” Simone said.
At this point, the biggest SeNSE events are the “pitch nights,” when local entrepreneurs from various phases of business have 10 minutes to pitch their business models to a panel and a gathering of SeNSE members, Simone said.
The panel is composed of two local venture capital business leaders, an official from a local business incubator and a local “celebrity entrepreneur” like Todd Graves, who sat on the panel previously.
While the group started with the reputation as being student oriented, Simone estimated the membership was now “35 percent students, 65 percent professionals.”
“The students bring the youth and excitement, and the older crowd brings the money and experience,” Simone said.
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Contact Frederick Holl [email protected]