When people tell you to stop, you’re probably doing something right.

A true story of if you build it they will come.

A true story of if you build it they will come.

Photo by Meg Brogan

“When people tell you to stop, you’re probably doing something right.” was the point from the talk I gave at the Feast conference in New Orleans that Brian Bordainick always told me resonated most with him. I think I’ll start calling this the Bordainick Rule.

Robbie Vitrano ignited more fires in New Orleans by believing in people who were capable of great things that anyone I know. Whenever I get an intro from Robbie, I take it and run with it.

Shortly before Launch Pad opened, Robbie Vitrano introduced me to a Teach For America teacher who was trying to raise money to rebuild the football stadium at George Washington Carver High School.

Soon, I met Brian in person. Here was this 23rd-old teacher, who had volunteered to be the schools athletic director, and decided to take it upon himself to give the kids at this proud football school a proper field to play on again.

The 9th Ward Field of Dreams project became a symbol of New Orleans’ post-Katrina recovery and inspired people across the country. Brian shared the story and galvanized support from all over the country.

It wasn’t hard to rally Launch Pad behind Brian’s efforts. In the early days after we opened in 2009, we gave Brian a free co-working membership, and he set up operations there with Meg Brogan, his tireless partner. I remember talking to Brian about putting a giant fundraising screen on the wall of Launch Pad to visually showcase the donors from across the country.

In what must have felt like a Sisyphean task, Brian spent the next 3 years fundraising, eventually making the 9th Ward Field of Dreams a reality.

Had I read this closely, I would have noted how crazy Brian already was — “We are going to start small, try out a dinner, and if we like what we have we are going to open up with an existing restaurant maybe once a month.” — Amazingly, the one restaurant a month goal doesn’t seem crazy anymore.

Some time after the 9th Ward fundraising was over, Peter Bodenheimer and I got an invite from Brian to attend a dinner with a Thai cook he was friends with. Brian didn’t think there was enough ethnic food in New Orleans and he had this idea to prototype restaurants and gather the opinions of people who attended the dinner to see if it made sense to open up these restaurants.

Peter and I showed up with wine, had a great dinner and told Brian how much we enjoyed it. “Seems really hard to make a business out of it though”, I thought to myself.

Three years later, Brian and the Dinner Lab team are building an empire. I love telling people I was at the first Dinner Lab ever.

Brian Bordainick is the founder of Dinner Lab, and you can follow him on twitter @BrianBordainick