New Orleans is experiencing a resurgence of entrepreneurship, or a “third wave.” Through over 55 events highlighting 51 entrepreneurs, the Idea Village’s Entrepreneur Week showed the world this city can be a global leader when it comes companies who are solving big problems.
The annual Coulter IDEApitch, created by Jim Coulter during New Orleans Entrepreneur Week in 2010, took place just before The Big Idea last Friday (March 22). Four companies– Audiosocket, Bioceptive, ChapterSpot, and Tutti Dynamics– were chosen to participate because they are all raising more than $1M. The companies pitched in front of a panel of national VCs, including Coulter, for a chance to be flown to San Francisco for meetings with potential investors.
ChapterSpot Co-founders Finke and McMenemon after winning the 2013 Coulter IDEApitch.
After all pitches and question and answer sessions were complete, Kickboard’s Jen Medbery got up on stage to pass the torch. Joe McMenemon and Co-founder Brendan Finke of ChapterSpot were announced the winners of the 2013 Coulter IDEApitch.
ChapterSpot currently specializes in fraternity and sorority management and has provided its services to more than 3,000 chapters nationwide by helping site administrators collect dues, plan events, and interact with other members. After Finke and McMenemon meet with potential investors in San Francisco and hopefully secure the $1.5M round, they plan to expand into other member-based groups, including religious and sports organizations.
“It is an entrepreneur’s dream to have Jim Coulter and TPG Capital in your corner,” said McMenemon. “We’re incredibly excited about what this opportunity could mean for our users, large national clients and our team.”
Finke said, “we look forward to working with TPG to make our product even easier to use to solve large scale organizational issues for different member-based organizations.”
As Entrepreneur Week came to a close, CEO and Co-founder of Idea Village Tim Williamson wanted to remind everyone what Entrepreneur Week is really about. “This is not a conference. Calling this a conference is like saying Mardi Gras is just a party or jazz fest is just a conference. It’s so much more than that, it’s a culmination of a season.” He said that Katrina has catalyzed the movement in New Orleans and we are in the third wave of entrepreneurship. Much like Williamson, Coulter also believes entrepreneurship can create change, which is why he is one of the people already riding the third wave.
———————————————————————————————————————————-
We’d like to thank our sponsors for SBN’s involvement in New Orleans Entrepreneur Week: Federated Sample and Search Influence!
