BATON ROUGE – LSU, BRAC and NexusLA are partnering to create Startup City Launch, a new, 10-week training program to help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into scalable businesses.
The program builds upon The Idea Village’s proven IDEAinstitute program that has served over 300 founders in the last four years and is an expansion of the Baton Rouge partners’ recently released Startup City magazine.
“The IDEAinstitute training complements LSU’s efforts in innovation and technology commercialization,” said Andrew J. Maas, associate vice president for research in the LSU Office of Innovation & Ecosystem Development. “We are excited to partner with The Idea Village to build in Baton Rouge and for the Startup City Launch program and look forward to offering even more resources to entrepreneurs in the Capital region.”
Jason Boudreaux, assistant director of entrepreneurial services at LSU Innovation, and Adam McCloskey, director of the LSU Small Business Development Center, will serve as coaches for the program.
“We’re excited about this partnership and look forward to working alongside The Idea Village to expand opportunities for entrepreneurs in the capital region,” said NexusLA Management Consultant Calvin Mills Jr.
Participants will attend hybrid classes, enabling them to learn the fundamentals of creating a scalable business, while building connections with a community of peers locally and across the region. The live classes are supplemented with in-depth curriculum, readings, and suggested “homework” assignments and 1:1 coaching from local coaches. Participants will also connect with mentors from The Idea Village and local networks.
“Startup City Launch is a natural progression of the collaborative business ecosystem we are elevating within the Baton Rouge area, alongside our partners NexusLA and LSU Innovation,” said Chris Spalatin, Baton Rouge Area Chamber manager of small business services. “This will build on our region’s small business offerings, allowing innovative entrepreneurs the opportunity to grow their startups into scalable ventures.”
“Startup City Launch represents a major investment in building a dynamic startup community that is local rooted in Baton Rouge. As an organization that has been focused on supporting founders and building startup communities for over 20 years, we’ve seen repeatedly that some of our most durable economic development wins comes from identifying, nurturing and supporting homegrown entrepreneurial companies,” said Jon Atkinson, CEO of The Idea Village. “This local collaboration will help empower and connect the wealth of talent in our region to the opportunity to make their promising ideas a reality,” he said.
Full story: LSU, BRAC, NexusLA Present New Startup Accelerator
