Wendy Overton

Posted on 04/14/2013 by Bernhard Fraling

Wendy is the founder of “Start Up Weekend” events in Lousiana. She is from the capitol Baton Rouge and organized the first ever event in New Orleans on April, 5-7, 2013. I had the honour to be a part of it as a participant. There were around 60 participants and 25 idea pitches on Friday. Eight groups were formed to work on their idea and pitch at the end of the weekend for the three prizes. This video was taped at the beginning of the event….

Another short clip shows what matters to the New Orleans jury…

And finally the final 8 presentations of the “Start up Weekend” in New Orleans. (Nola.com)

The community favorite was Bloom Box presented by Brian Guidry.

The winner of the event is CareLinkNola.

If you wanna get a prize in New Orleans the best way to achieve it is by introducing a food related concept. The second prize FrequentFoodies is a sort of a mobile based “waiter quality control system”.

I participated in the team which won third place called FundDat: Crowdfunding for the local crowd of New Orleans.

All other presentations you can watch at my #SWNola Channel

Sam Zemurray

Posted on 04/01/2013 by Bernhard Fraling

We spent Easter with some friends in Houston, Texas. Two girl friends grown up in New Orleans meet there. Stories after after stories about the past and their youth filled the time. Both husbands sit “aside”. Of course, we also talked about books. One catch-ed my interest in particular: Rich Cohen wrote a book called “The fish ate the whale” in 2012. It´s a book about the life of the unbelievable successful entrepreneur Sam Zemurray who was also known as the “Banana man.” Russian grown up in Moldavia , Europe he came over Alabama where he spend time working for his uncle to New Orleans. He created his Banana Emporium from New Orleans mainly in Honduras. Later he became the largest shareholder of the famous United Fruit Company in Boston and even became it´s President. It´s a very unusual story, but well written.

Jeff Pulver

Posted on 03/26/2013 by Bernhard Fraling

Jeff Pulver was the best presentation at the NOEW. Actually – was it a presentation? No, he just told us his life story: from childhood until today. And he did it his own way. He is the founder of the 140conf. Down to earth. No script while he spoke for over an hour. No power point. Just interaction with the audience. He took his time. His speech was fully packed with humor. All eyes were glued to him while they listened to what he had to say. Jeff became famous for marketing the VOIP know-how which he just discovered “by mistake” as he said. A man without big gestures. He invests in start ups these days at a seed level. At the Q&A someone asked his opinion about the most important thing in terms of technology and success. His answer: it´s you and how you communicate!

Walter Isaacson

Posted on 03/19/2013 by Bernhard Fraling

Walter Isaacson was the highlight on the first day at the NOEW 2013 of the IDEA VILLAGE in New Orleans. Walter described entrepreneurship in the city from a historical perspective. The key potential of New Orleans is its CREATIVITY. Creativity seems to be one of the key elements of the NOEW this year.