Breaking Lean is a brand new 11-month startup development program designed to support businesses in the Shreveport-Bossier area and to help them develop roots in Northern Louisiana. The program was launched by the innovative shared workspace in the area, CoHab.
Already into its second startup class, four companies were selected on a number criteria including whether their startup is scalable, if they have the characteristics to positively impact the community around them, and whether or not they have a viable path to traction in the next 12 months.
The startups will receive training, support from mentors, and the office space or facilities to grow their businesses.
The second Breaking Lean class includes:
Undda Dog, an ecommerce-based specialty athletic pet apparel manufacturer and retailer.
Unity for People, a platform connecting people together to build social capital and generate tremendous strides in technology, development, education, business and nonprofits that would be unachievable alone.
Innolyzer Labs, a company providing innovative, accurate, and cost-effective, lab-on-a-chip analysis devices to multiple industries including scientific research and clinical applications, water and waste water, and sewage treatment applications, and oil and gas applications.
And Hydra Interchange Systems, a gap management and consulting agency focused on the video game industry. They focus more on Independent developers and game projects.
“We’re continuing to work hard with Breaking Lean’s first cohort of startups to help them develop successfully, but as we got close to the end of quarter one of 2015, we saw there was a need around us for even more support. These budding startups in our community, they can’t wait a year for us a put out a call for applications and offer them help. They need assistance now. We had the program bandwidth to help this new group, and we can’t wait to get working with them,” said Cohab’s Director of Programs, Jessica Schiele.