Opinion: It’s time for a mentorship-based seed fund in Louisiana

Chris Schultz, a New Orleans-based internet entrepreneur and founder of Voodoo Ventures, wrote an interesting article yesterday discussing the potentiality of a mentorship-based seed fund program in Louisiana. For those of you unfamiliar with venture capital, it’s basically a program that provides initial capital—including money, office space and mentoring from some top entrepreneurs—to startup companies. It’s a system that’s been around for some time and has turned out some really awesome companies.

When I think about the real-world impact that a program like this would have and the allocation of economic development and grant dollars that are being spent in Louisiana on advertising, conferences, infrastructure, administrative staff, workforce development, it seems like a drop in the bucket to get a program like this off the ground and I believe it is an investment worth making.

The entrepreneurial spirit within Louisiana is strong, as clear from the numerous interviews we’ve conducted with local entrepreneurs. I think this is a program that could not only work, but also perform extraordinarily well in Louisiana. the Baton Rougean supports this initiative because of the potential economic impact. If a program like this every comes to fruition, we’d like to help in every way possible, because when any Louisiana-based company succeeds, we all do.

You can read the full article here →