N.O. Entrepreneurs Given Boost
By GARY PERILLOUX
Advocate business writer
Published: Apr 24, 2009 - Page: 1D
Ishaneka Williams and Lavonzell Nicholson shared their big ideas for transforming New Orleans while working at the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations.
Saturday, their big ideas rocketed to a bigger platform.
Williams, a 26-year-old graduate student at Tulane University, and Nicholson, a 31-year-old manager in the nonprofit world, won the 504ward Business Competition in New Orleans and $200,000 in cash and services to launch their business, PlayNOLA Sports and Entertainment Group.
The eight-month competition drew more than 140 entrants from 14 states. Led by The Idea Village and 504ward, it sought models for drawing 23- to 35-year-old people to New Orleans and retaining them.
“We went through a number of ideas and we came up with playNOLA, looking at large cities that have similar business models,” Williams said. “And we felt that it definitely would work here and it would retain the target market.”
“A big part of what we wanted to look at is quality of life,” said Nicholson, who recently returned to New Orleans from Baltimore.
PlayNOLA Sports and Entertainment Group will create competitive leisure sports leagues for 23- to 35-year-olds and conduct social networking events, such as a New Year’s Celebration on the Lake, Beer Bash Golf, The Ball of Balls: Mardi Gras Rooftop Masquerade and the New Orleans Great Race Scavenger Hunt.
A taste of what’s to come is online at http://www.playNOLA.com, including an opportunity for participants to receive e-mail and text message updates about the fall launch.
PlayNola won the contest steered by The Idea Village, which has helped more than 250 startup companies in the city since 2003, and 504ward, a group working to connect young professionals in the city. Seeds of the contest began when Leslie Jacobs — an insurance executive and social entrepreneur — donated $100,000 for the competition. A host of businesses donated such things as office space and legal and technical services, and the ante rose to $225,000.
In a surprise move Saturday, a runner-up prize of $25,000 was granted to Launch Pad LLC, which will open 2,500 square feet of open work space June 1 in The IP building, a high-tech office of 80,000 square feet where Launch Pad tenants will be connected via a glass wall with a new restaurant in the Warehouse District.
PlayNola will be based there as well.
Williams and Nicholson said they’ll draw revenue from Web site advertisements, sponsorships, team membership fees, event registration and brand products from playNOLA.
In five years, they’d like to be serving thousands of people with a staff of six and a multitude of volunteers. PlayNOLA’s Nicholson is an example of professionals moving to New Orleans post-Katrina.
“I wanted to be part of the rebuilding,” said Nicholson, a Nicholls State graduate who worked eight years in Baltimore. “It was the perfect time for me both personally and professionally to come back.”
PlayNOLA hopes to base sports leagues in Audubon Park and City Park, Williams said. Requests are coming in for such things as alternative Frisbee leagues, basketball leagues and golf events.
Lauren Baum of The Idea Village said playNOLA’s reach impressed judges, who included Harvard MBA students and text-messagers at the Saturday event.
“What impressed us in their business plan and in their presentation,” she said, “is that a lot of jobs and job creation come through social connectivity.”
Chris Schultz, a 34-year-old principal in Launch Pad, said he’s stoked by his $25,000 prize. He moved from Los Angeles after meeting his future wife at the 2002 Jazz Fest.
A serial entrepreneur who operates a Web strategy company, Voodoo Ventures, Schultz and partners Will Donaldson — a Tulane MBA student — and Barre Tanguis, a real estate developer — will be based at the Launch Pad’s offices.
There, they’ll rent desk space to technology and business professionals at monthly rates of $750 for a closed-door office, $450 for a desk in the open environment, and $275 for a shared “co-working desk.”
“Getting into office space is very expensive, especially with three-year leases,” Schultz said. “We’re going to work with startups and creative class knowledge workers who may be freelancers who otherwise would work from home and who might need office space.”
Part of the allure will be collaborating with like-mind entrepreneurs and building business opportunities in a decidedly cool, dog-friendly environment with a bike storage room and fitness center on premises, Schultz said.
He recently visited Lafayette, and is considering Baton Rouge locations for branches of the Launch Pad.
“It’s office space but the reason people will be there is not just office space,” Schultz said. “It’s community, and we’re going to have a lot of entrepreneurial activity.”
Schultz and playNOLA’s principals said the 504ward business competition spurred their ideas into reality months, possibly years, sooner than they might have gone down the business creation path.
“It made us feel that even if we didn’t win the competition, we definitely were going to move forward,” Williams said.
504ward thinking
WHAT: 504ward, formed in 2008, connects talented 23- to 35-year-old New Orleans people with social and business opportunities.
SUPPORTERS: The Idea Village and 17 other business and nonprofit groups banded together to create 504ward as a post-Katrina work force and quality of life solution.
COMPETITION: The 504ward Business Competition awarded $225,000 in prizes to startup firms agreeing to expand opportunities for the 504ward demographic in the next three years.
Source: 504ward, Idea Village