How we got into this business in the first place.
Before Launch Pad, I had an office at the corner St. Charles Ave & Julia. It was a great space, with a balcony overlooking the parade route. I didn’t need all the space though, so I put up an ad on Craigslist to rent out “Voodoo Pods” — individual offices in my office with utilities, printing, etc included.
Barre Tanguis burst into my office one day with a check in hand. If I’d give him an office, he was ready. I didn’t have a lease or anything, but I cashed the check and Barre moved in.
Will Donaldson was an MBA student at Tulane, and he headed up a team of interns I brought on board in the summer of 2007 on a project called siteMighty. It never went anywhere, but I realized Will was a sharp guy, so when he was graduating, I pitched him on starting a business.
Barre Tanguis and I plotting out the layout of offices in the building we tried to buy on Julia. We’ve done this countless times since then on potential projects, I think Barre could do this in his sleep.
We tossed around a few ideas, and started to hone in on the idea of creating a workspace concept. A place for people who didn’t work together to share resources and hang out together — to help each other build businesses. Barre had a real estate background so he got involved and we had our initial team.
We set our sights on buying a building, and started targeting a building owned by Lanny Chouest on Julia. Barre was able to get a meeting set up with Lanny, and he showed up in our conference room in a Zebra t-shirt and flip-flops and we pitched him on our concept. He chomped on crushed ice from a styrophome cup as he heard us out.
Long story short, we quickly learned that commercial real estate folks were used to 5 year leases and no-one got why we would want to slice and dice that into month-to-month renting of desks and small offices. So buying a building was out.
Around this time, Leslie Jacobs launched 504ward with Idea Village — a $100,000 business plan competition that catalyzed the burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit in New Orleans in 2008. Three years post-Katrina, people were getting back on their feet, houses were getting rebuilt and there was a tremendous energy to make the city better than it was before. We decided to submit our business plan for Launch Pad.
The original Launch Pad pitch video for the 504ward business plan competition shot by Benjamin Reece. http://vimeo.com/3401999
Meanwhile, Tim Williamson at Idea Village had dreamed up a concept for an entrepreneurial hub — a building where all the tech companies in town could work under one roof. He called a meeting at the Idea Village office. Nic Perkin of Recievables Exchange, Matt Wisdom of Turbo Squid, Kenneth Purcell of iSeatz, Chris Reade of Carrolton Technology and Michael Hecht of GNO Inc all attended, and we did too. Around that table sat what amounted to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in New Orleans in 2008. Somehow the stars aligned, and we all agreed we’d sign leases in the former McGlinchey Stafford law offices in a building that was to be named the Tech Quarter.
On Saturday April 18th 2009, Will, Barre & I pitched Launch Pad to a panel of judges at the 504ward business plan competition. We had signed the lease on 3200 sq. ft. in the building the week prior. The energy was palpable in the audience of 200+ people — $100,000 cash was on the line. After deliberation, the judges announced that PlayNOLA had won, but Leslie Jacobs decided on the spot to award a 2nd place prize, and we walked away with $25,000.
Putting the finishing touches on things just days before opening.
Construction was moving fast on the building, and we started to ramp up our marketing. We showed up at all the networking events in town, posted pictures of the progress online, and even launched a live web show to promote entrepreneurship in New Orleans called Launch Pad TV.
On June 1st, 2009, Launch Pad opened.
Barre and I sat at desks opposite each other, and for the first few days we wondered if anyone would show up. Chris Laibe, Tom Fischman and Al Robert Jr. were in the 3 offices, but otherwise it was pretty quiet. We hosted a Social Media Club one night, and a bunch of people showed up for that.
Soon, people did start to join. A community started to form. People started showing up to work. And the story of Launch Pad began.
This picture was taken for a marketing piece Andrew Larimer produced for us three months after we opened with the early Launch Pad members.