I’m writing from 30k ft over “flyover country” en route from San Francisco to New York for the second stop on the New Orleans Startup Roadshow.
We had a great day yesterday that began with a pitch at Andreessen Horowitz, a top Silicon Valley VC firm and ended with a NOLA happy hour at Pacific Brewing.
The startups on the roadshow are hustling, over the course of three days rapidly growing their networks. I wanted to share a few highlights for our #NOLAtech family back home:
- Neil Turner of NOLA-bred startup AdverCar sat down over coffee with the founders for some “fundraising real-talk” and emphasized the importance of building momentum and knowing the investor you are pitching inside and out
- I had several comments about what a strong collaboration this was between Launch Pad, Idea Village and GNO Inc, and how good it was to see Tim Williamson taking part (thanks for being there Tim!)
- Justin Osofsky hosted us at Facebook in the New Orleans themed conference room, complete with Saints flag and Jazz Fest poster.
- Jay Zhao from Granite Ventures talked to us about what an EdTech reputation New Orleans has in the Valley and asked about connecting some Valley companies to New Orleans because we are an early adopter market in EdTech
Connecting to New Orleans krewe in Silicon Valley definitely made us appreciate being from somewhere where we have such hometown pride – thanks to everyone is doing what they can to help these companies.
Stay tuned for an update from New York, until then we’ll be:
MSY > SFO > NYC > MSY
– Chris