Yesterday's Times-Pic ran a great story about about the New Orleans Exchange, a daring new start up created by two transplants. The main story is a pretty good, but the thing that really caught my eye were the words of local developer Sean Cummings and Idea Village CFO Keith Crawford.
"New Orleans . . . is being seen as an entrepreneurial bohemia," he said.
Keith L. Crawford, chief financial officer of The Idea Village, a consulting firm that assists growing companies, said the New Orleans Exchange is among the first in a wave of businesses flocking to the Crescent City. He says about $15 billion in public and private money will be invested in New Orleans to assist rebuilding efforts, which will provide small and growing companies with "opportunities that we never dreamed of" before Katrina. "I've seen a renewed optimism and confidence in the entrepreneurial community here," Crawford said. "They are starting to see that this is going to be an exciting place to be over the next 10 years, and they want to participate in that."
New Orleans really is a great place for startups to come, because of the cheap rents, great people and all of the available money. My little company has greatly benefited from the low overhead, the abundance of recovery money and the lack of competition.
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