Summer is a tough time to be a parent. School is out. The sun is scorching. You need a break for your kids. Maybe they need a break from you. That’s why they created summer camp, a Godsend for working parents if there ever was one. Kids get a lot out of camp: time to play and be curious, maybe a chance to learn new skills and meet some new friends. Summer camp is time-honored. It’s important. And if you’re in St. Martin Parish, you might send your kid to camp at Teche Center for the Arts . TCA i...
Aug 20, 2024•29 min
There’s a saying in the music industry: You have your whole life to make your first record. But one shot at making your second. Novelist Jennifer Moorhead , wrote three books before publishing her debut, Broken Bayou in 2024. It’s a thriller inspired by a real murder mystery, tapping into the nation’s ongoing obsession with true crime. Jennifer has always been a bookworm. She grew up in Shreveport and went to LSU, later moving to Dallas where she took up a novel writing class at Southern Methodi...
Jul 29, 2024•30 min
Why sell a product when you can sell an adventure? Experiences are a hot commodity in today’s marketplace. They make memories. The kids love them. And they come in packages that don’t need a warehouse. And when you sell an experience, you’re usually selling expertise. Let’s say you want to go scuba diving. It’s not as simple as throwing on an oxygen mask and riding a dolphin. You need training, equipment and certifications. It’s an ordeal, but for adrenaline junkies and lovers of marine life — i...
Jul 15, 2024•29 min
We tend to think of entrepreneurs as people with an obsessive vision. They have an idea that will change the world or at least make them lots of money. They take it to the workshop and hack away for days, hours, years until they bring their genius to market and find success. Sometimes, a business idea just sort of happens . Maybe it’s a stroke of luck. And that could be a stroke of bad luck. Savvy entrepreneurs can make whatever hand their dealt — work. Ari Dolegowski found his calling after he ...
Jun 24, 2024•29 min
Lafayette’s restaurant scene is famously difficult. There are more restaurants per person in the Hub City than there are in New Orleans, Austin and even New York City. Plus, you’re not just competing with the restaurant down the block. This is a place where everyone cooks. People set the standard in their own kitchens. So what do you do if you move to Louisiana from a culinary capital like New York? How do you get ahead? Well, to start, you don’t open a Cajun restaurant. Peter Cooke made that de...
Jun 18, 2024•31 min
Quality isn’t enough to sell a product. Consumers need to connect with what you’re selling. And the first way they do that, usually, is by connecting with your brand. What is a brand? Well, for one thing, it starts with a name. But any marketing agency will tell you it’s more than that. It’s your company’s values. It’s what makes your product stand out. It’s the warm fuzzy feeling loyal customers get when they see your product on the shelves of their grocery store. Of course, a name is important...
Jun 10, 2024•30 min
Most of us think about business in terms of the point of sale. I’ve got a product. You’ve got money. You give me money for the product and boom: we have an economy. But Adam Smith’s invisible hand didn’t put that product on my shelf. It likely came on a truck. And that truck was built with parts sourced from places near and far. Which in turn were manufactured with raw materials extracted from all four corners of the globe. That’s a supply chain. Ball it all up, and it’s the backbone of the Amer...
May 20, 2024•28 min
Some things are better left to the professionals. If you’re a VIP with a target on your back, security is one of those things. Protection Personal security is a highly specialized business. It takes discipline, preparation and the willingness to put your life on the line for your client. Risking life and limb isn’t for everyone. And that’s why few people get into personal security. Those who do, like Myron Fonseca, often come from backgrounds in the military or law enforcement. Myron comes from ...
May 13, 2024•29 min
At some point, you’re going to hand the keys to your business to someone else. That’s true whether you’re hiring employees or contractors or planning for succession. Life happens. And it’s just not in the cards for you to be able to run your business, by yourself, forever. For many entrepreneurs, selling big is the dream. In the startup space, they call it an “exit” — the point at which some big fish gobbles up your smart idea and pays you handsomely for it. But the unicorn exit is a rare thing ...
May 07, 2024•30 min
Marketing your new business idea can take a few different shapes. You might take a deep dive with market research and try to define the demographic slice of consumer you’re looking for. Before you even bring your product to the shelves, you’ll try to understand the potential for growth: How many customers are out there who would want what you’re selling? How much disposable income do they have? What services are they already using? It’s a way of measuring your potential. And that can be crucial ...
Apr 29, 2024•29 min
If you’re gonna be first, you’re gonna take a risk. All the more so if you’re going to market with a foreign concept. People are creatures of habit. We look to the world we know to understand new concepts. And if something we’re trying is unlike anything we’ve tried before…that can be a recipe for failure. Think of it this way: People who are remembered for being ahead of their time aren’t usually remembered for being wildly successful. It’s a contradiction in terms. To illustrate: Imagine tryin...
Apr 22, 2024•31 min
I had a journalism student approach me a while back for a story. I asked him, “what kind of a journalist do you want to be when you grow up?” He said, “A food writer. Because AI won’t take my job.” Won’t it though? I suppose if they create a neural simulation of what it’s like to eat boudin, they could. But the panic around AI is big; mostly because few people really understand it. The models making headlines, like ChatGPT, are really only the latest in a long line of advances in technologies de...
Apr 08, 2024•28 min
America has had a complicated relationship with Downtowns. When we invented the suburbs in the mid-20th century, Downtowns were left behind, only to make a roaring comeback in the 21st century. That story should sound familiar for folks in Lafayette. Lafayette’s Downtown was left for dead in the 1980s and 1990s. It was practically a no-man’s land in the late 20th century but started coming back to life at the turn of millennium. That turnaround didn’t come from nowhere. In 1983, some local busin...
Mar 19, 2024•30 min
Fitness is a big industry. Over the last decade, the global market for fitness has nearly doubled to around $100 billion. You’ve probably seen the results of that boom around town. Think of the world of 24/7 gyms and fitness centers, smoothie shops and personal trainers. That world is expanding not just in size but in variety. And it’s drawing in ideas and disciplines from the world of the arts, too. There are fitness programs based on ballet and dance. They combine movement, performance, expres...
Mar 12, 2024•29 min
Who doesn’t want a taste of the sweet life? Most folks are looking for a chance to indulge. Even when times are tough. Maybe especially when times are tough. When the economy goes down, ice cream sales go up: in the two years after the 2008 mortgage crisis, ice cream sales went up 25%. even when times aren't bad, there’s never really a bad time for dessert. You can eat cake or frozen yogurt year-round in Acadiana. And that’s not just because it’s always hot. The local dessert market is on the mo...
Mar 05, 2024•30 min
Ask any business owner in a small town: What’s the secret to success? And they’ll tell you: relationships. When everyone knows you, where you go to church and whether your mom can make a roux, you're trading on a reputation bigger than your own. Relationships drive business development and they can define success. That’s true if you’re selling barbecue sauce or underwriting commercial loans. Your word and your values mean something. So when a small town business endures, that’s usually a mark of...
Feb 20, 2024•28 min
Kids hate math. You’ve probably heard that before. Except, it’s not exactly true. One survey commissioned by Texas Instruments found that kids were twice as likely to say they like math than hate it. Now, Texas Instruments sells calculators. Make of that what you will. That same survey found that about 70% of kids said they would like math more if they better understood how it applied to their future. I’m a simple country journalist. I use numbers all the time: probabilities, data analysis, read...
Feb 13, 2024•29 min
East to New York City. West to Los Angeles. Pick your poison as the saying goes. Out of one swamp. Into another. For the Louisiana diaspora, home is hard to quit. Home is where the heart is, after all. Many transplants become boomerangs, a demographic term of art for people who go away and come home. At least, that’s the hope if — like Louisiana — you’re a net exporter of people and talent. Coming home can be a double-edged sword. It’s comforting. But, in creative industries, it can mean making ...
Feb 05, 2024•31 min
There are few words in the english language that more poetic when strung together than "coffee" "weed" and "cobbler." Yes, this is another "only in Acadiana" episode of Out to Lunch. So let's dive in. For a lot of entrepreneurs, the dream of owning a business is about independence. The money helps, of course. But what they’re really after is a kind of self-expression or self-determination. They want the satisfaction of working on their own terms, of doing things their own way. Working for someon...
Jan 23, 2024•28 min
Acadiana is famous for ingenuity. Look no further than a crawfish boat to see what I mean. You might say that innovation is in the water. And that’s because the peoples who settled here needed to be clever to survive. Of course, these days, necessity isn’t the only mother of invention. We live in the sportsman’s paradise, after all. Fishing is what led Brian Signorelli to his signature invention. He was out on his boat one morning, fishing in some familiar waters, juggling a handheld flashlight ...
Jan 16, 2024•30 min
We all like to think of our businesses are unique. We come up with a value proposition or a mission statement designed to stick out in the market. But the reality is, pretty much every industry is crowded with competitors and copycats selling pretty much the same thing. That’s capitalism. Now throw in the internet and the number of competitors explodes. It doesn’t just affect businesses that are used to locking down a local geographic advantage — like car dealerships, for instance. Krisitie McMa...
Jan 09, 2024•29 min
Service businesses are tricky. For the most part, you’re selling assistance. And even when folks know they need help, things can get tense. Imagine making a living when your clientele is by definition struggling. When someone brings you a mess, you need to be able to clean up with confidence, compassion and clarity. Savings Clarity is where Sonya Colliver starts with her clients. Sonya is the founder of the money management company Fix It Change It . And that brand about sums up her approach. Wh...
Nov 20, 2023•32 min
Follow your dreams. It’s what they tell you as soon as you learn to dance or play guitar. What they don’t tell you is — prepare for building maintenance and customer service. For entrepreneurs of any stripe, reality is coming and it’s a cold drink of water. It takes a lot of work and unglamorous work at that, once you get to the promised land. Really savvy operators can turn that insight into another opportunity. That’s what Tim Benson did after following his dream of working in the music busine...
Nov 14, 2023•28 min
Every business has an origin story: the moment where it all clicked and made sense. Most of the time, it’s the stuff of myth and legend. Successful businesses rarely fall from the sky and bonk you on the head. Unless, Sir Isaac Newton had it in his mind to bottle gravity and sell it. For most entrepreneurs, getting from the idea to success is more about force of will than innovation, especially if you work in a niche industry. For Brent Broussard, inspiration came from therapy. Brent took an int...
Nov 06, 2023•30 min
You know the saying: They don’t build them like they used to. When it comes to homes and buildings, that’s usually said like it’s a bad thing. But with a changing climate and changing marketplace, building things like we used to — brick by brick, nail by nail — just doesn’t cut it any more. Enter modular construction. The idea isn’t totally unheard of. Prefabricated buildings have been around for decades. But New Iberia's Tiago Atwi and his brother have brought a new twist on the concept with th...
Oct 24, 2023•29 min
Balance is everything. Greek philosophers thought of it as the key to happiness — the Golden Mean, the happy medium between extremes. When you’re out of balance —emotionally or physically — things can go wrong real fast. In the context of health, we often think of balance as a problem that primarily affects older patients. But there are a wide variety of illnesses and conditions that can quite literally knock you off balance. Our sense of balance is created by delicate, complicated systems. And ...
Oct 17, 2023•27 min
Making a living in healthcare is a pain. Whatever side of it you work in, at some level you’re dealing with people. That’s the case if you’re a doctor, a researcher or even an entrepreneur. When people buy what you’re selling, theoretically at least, they’re hoping to improve their lives. And not just in the way a nespresso machine would. This can be a matter of life and death. Or pain and comfort. No pressure. It’s one thing to conceive of a new way to brew coffee. Another thing entirely to thi...
Oct 10, 2023•29 min
Sometimes the best business ideas are hereditary. And I don’t mean family businesses. Every family has a secret sauce or skill: maybe a green thumb or a gift for gab. Turning the family tradition into a business may not be so easy — unless you’ve inherited the entrepreneurial gene. That’s because everyone is trying to sell the family recipe these days. Especially in Acadiana, where every last name seems to have a seasoning blend. But not every spice entrepreneur knows krav maga, like Kisha Formi...
Sep 19, 2023•29 min
A good product doesn’t just solve problems, it makes a customer feel good. And that can start with the buying experience itself. Smart retailers know how to balance a hard sell with a soft touch, making customers believe that they are in control, and most importantly they are special. For a lot of retailers, that means cultivating an experience. For Rusty Phillips, co-owner of The Bougie Bar in Downtown Lafayette , the experience is everything. Bougie Bar is essentially a candle-making activity ...
Sep 12, 2023•30 min
Lafayette is home to two hospital systems and has a deep bench of medical providers. It’s the Hub City in a new kind of way. It’s Acadiana’s medical hub. So it might surprise you to learn that access to health care is still a problem. Every parish in Acadiana, except Lafayette, has a federally designated shortage of healthcare providers. Why? Well, if the answer were easy, it wouldn’t be a problem. But suffice it to say the health business is complicated because health is complicated. And we can...
Sep 04, 2023•28 min
