The Shreveport - Bossier Startup Community
Is Shreveport - Bossier the next Silicon Valley? No; it’s something different and better. Shreveport - Bossier is a place where you can get a cold locally brewed beer from Red River Brewing Co. or Great Raft Brewing, grab some great local seafood, take in great art, scenery, and culture, and build a great startup.
As of August 30th, 2014 we have almost 20 Shreveport - Bossier startups (mapped on StartupGenome.co) and they’re not going anywhere else. Let’s recap where we’ve come from recently, where we are, and where we want to go.
Milestones
2010
March
Cohab, Shreveport - Bossier’s first co-working space (“shared workspace”), opens in Downtown Shreveport at 610 Commerce Street.
Cohab quickly becomes a hub for local and regional creative talents as startups, freelancers, and small businesses mix, mingle, and launch new ventures like never before.
2012
September
The Bossier Arts Council holds the first DigiFest South, a digital arts and tech expo that strives to connect creative workers and inspire a new generation of artists and entrepreneurs.
2013
September
Cohab moves to a new location and tests out the first Shreveport - Bossier kitchen incubator.
The Bossier Arts Council and DigiFest South hold the first DigiPitch pitch contest, an entrepreneur-to-investor pitch contest that is similar to the t.v. show “Shark Tank”
2014
Feb
1 Million Cups - Shreveport, a weekly entrepreneurial education program that connects community members, entrepreneurs, and investors, is launched at Cohab.
April
Shreveport - Bossier startups are mapped for the first time on StartupGenome, an online startup community mapping website - backed by the Kauffman Foundation.
The Louisiana Startup Prize, Shreveport - Bossier’s first startup competition is launched by The Louisiana Film Prize Foundation and Cohab.
May
The Shreveport - Bossier StartupDigest, a bi-weekly startup community event calendar and newsletter, is launched.
July
Cohab and Twin Engine Labs partner to launch the first Summer of Lean, a series of bi-weekly Lean Startup methodology classes.
August
The Shreveport - Bossier Startup Community Facebook Group is established to spread the word in our community about successes, failures, and events.
Winrock International and Digifest South hold the first G60 Pitch Contest in Shreveport - Bossier, a 60 second cash prize pitch contest designed to connect entrepreneurs, at The Bossier Arts Council’s East Bank Theatre.
The first Ignite Shreveport - Bossier, a night of lightning talks and creative idea sharing, is announced and scheduled for October 23, 2014.
Now
1 Million Cups has helped galvanize our community into a more cohesive group, the Louisiana Startup Prize has brought new entrepreneurs into the community, various pitch contests have raised awareness of our growing community, StartupDigest has helped spread the word far and wide about startup community events, Ignite Shreveport - Bossier has promised to bridge the gap between creative thinkers and entrepreneurs, and Cohab is still the place to network and meet entrepreneurs and startups locally.
Beyond
Where do we go from here? A lot of ideas are floating around, from fail nights to accelerators to more pitch contests to open coffee clubs.
One thing that we need are more “feeders,” as Brad Feld calls them. We need more feeders [or institutions] to churn out new entrepreneurial and technical talent locally. The technical talent issue is being addressed in a university setting to a degree by BPCC and others and outside that setting by innovative partnerships with private instructors, such as the Twin Engine Labs / BPCC Software Developer Bootcamp Course. Churning out the young entrepreneur talent is another game entirely. We have a long way to go in that regards, but the path is bright.
We’d like to eventually get to the point of having a Shreveport - Bossier Startup Week, a week jam-packed with at least 3 startup related events each day. This isn’t an impossible task, but we do need more startups / entrepreneurs to engage with the community and more community leaders to emerge and help organize events.
We’re at an exciting time in Shreveport - Bossier’s startup community life-cycle. We’re growing from having disparate entrepreneurial events to being a cohesive startup ecosystem. As a startup community leader I have one wish as our community grows. I want Shreveport - Bossier to be the “smallest” big place to grow your startup. We need to be “big” in talent and opportunities, but “small” in the sense of forging new connections / friendships, going the extra mile for fellow entrepreneurs, and building a lasting culture of the “give to get” mentality here in Shreveport - Bossier.
I want Shreveport — Bossier to be the “smallest” big place to grow your startup.
