What the Louisiana Angel Tax Credit means for you

Last Friday HB 597, the Angel Investor Credit Program was signed into law by Gov. Jindal.   I fully expect this incentive to have a major impact on the flow of early-stage risk capital in Louisiana, but its important that you understand it and get an early jump in it to be best positioned to benefit. Now its time to figure out what this means for you.

Here are the bullet points:

  • A credit of 35% of the money invested by an accredited angel investor in a certified Louisiana business, credit delayed by 24 months
  • Credits capped at $1 million per year and $2 million total per business.
  • The total angel investor rebates are capped at $5 million.
  • Credit is transferable.
  • Program effective from Jan. 1, 2011, through July 1, 2015.

Beyond this, I have been getting some questions for clarification so I reached out to Erich Rapp at Kean Miller.  My questions and his responses are below.

1) The company has to be a Louisiana based company – can the investor be anywhere since it’s transferable?

It would appear that the investor could be from anywhere. I see no prohibition on out of state residents investing in Louisiana companies and I would not think that the La DED would object to having someone from another state invest in a Louisiana business.

2) Can the investor credit pass through to angel groups?

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The Facts about Tulane Computer Science – an Interview with Dean Nicholas Altiero

We all know the talent pipeline is critical to the success of the tech community in New Orleans. After the storm Tulane was forced to cut their Computer Science program.  They are now working to bring it back online.  I reached out to Nicolas Altiero, Dean of the School of Science and Engineering to get a progress report.

Altiero-2

1. After the storm, Tulane was forced to cut its engineering program, but has since brought it back online and is bringing degree programs back. Can you share a little about the progress and priorities for engineering?

Two engineering departments, Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, were never cut. These two departments have continued to offer excellent programs with high enrollment at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and both have very strong faculties that attract a high level of research funding.

There are task forces in place looking into several potential programs, including Computer Science, Geological Engineering, and Human Factors Engineering. Of these, the plan for Computer Science is the most developed at this point.

After Katrina, a new School of Science and Engineering was created and the two surviving engineering departments were merged into that School along with seven science departments: Cell and Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Mathematics, Physics, and Psychology. The new school has continued to grow since Katrina and is now comprised of 160 faculty members, nearly 1700 undergraduate students, and over 400 graduate students. External research funding exceeds $20M per year.

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Brad Feld’s 5 Components of a Sustainable Startup Ecosystem

  • June 19th, 2011 /
  •  Chris Schultz /
  • 1 Comment

I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Brad Feld speak several times in the last year, most recently at Launch Fest.   One of the things driving our work right now is building a sustainable startup ecosystem in New Orleans and Louisiana.  Brad set forth his premise about the five components required for a successful, sustainable ecosystem at the TechStars Network conference in May. Here’s my summary of his talk.

While small business is vital to communities, the vast majority of new job creation comes from high growth entrepreneurship, and that is what we are focused on in the startup ecosystem.  While there is much focus on ecosystems like Silicon Valley, Brad believes that there are 100 cities in us that can support vibrant long term entrepreneurial communities.  His premise is informed by from his work in and the growth of the Boulder startup community.

Working towards the goal of creating long term sustainable entrepreneurial communities, we need:

  1. Long View – a 20 year timeline – stakeholders must be committed to the community for long term.
  2. Entrepreneurial Leaders – it must be led by entrepreneurs – cannot be led by government, non-profits, big companies, VCs, lawyers, accountants, economic development, universities.  All of those stakeholders need to be engaged, but entrepreneurs must drive it.
  3. Fresh Meat - need new talent all the time – college graduates & people moving in.
  4. Engaging Activities – engage the entrepreneurial community from top to bottom – startup to serial entrepreneurs – get all involved – you need a thing that engages all those people. You want really active engagement for a moderate period of time because its impossible to maintain a high level activity by someone on something that is not core focus.
  5. Repeat – must have a rhythm with for a long time.  Must have a beat that last through economic cycles. The only way to build a community is to move beyond boom and bust and build something over extended periods of time.

Thanks to Brad for all the support he’s provided us through the TechStars Network.  I’d love to hear what you think is important to the ecosystem.

How to reach busy people

  • June 15th, 2011 /
  •  Chris Schultz /
  • 1 Comment

It’s a simple formula: the higher level the person you are trying to reach, the busier they are.

Meaning they will have less time for lunch, coffee, phone calls, and to respond to your email.

Many entrepreneurs I work with get frustrated because they aren’t getting emails back from investors, or upset because I don’t have time to meet with them at their whim.  Don’t let this discourage you, they probably still want to help, but you have to know how to ask.  Here are some tips:

  • Send 3 sentence emails. Not 3 paragraphs, 3 sentences.  If it can’t be read in 15 seconds, it won’t. (ref)
  • Don’t ask for meetings, ask for the one thing you want.  If I can have a conversation over email rather than in person, that’s what I want.  I definitely prefer to meet people at networking events or have them drop in Launch Pad then to schedule lunches or meetings without a clear agenda.
  • If you don’t hear back, ping her again. Try a DM or a quick email.  The reality is most busy people can’t / don’t read all their email, so if you’re off the front page, you’re probably buried.  Don’t get frustrated and send a passive agressive email, just ping her again nicely.  You’ll be surprised how persistence pays off.
  • Don’t send attachments, send links.  I’ll click through to blogs & projects way before I read resumes.  I’d much rather get an actionable eventbrite invitation than a PDF attachment invitation I have to send an email reply to.
  • Make it easy for people to do what you want.  Pre-write a tweet and send it to them and ask them to tweet it.
  • Use good plain text formatting.  HEADERS are great capitalized and phrases are emphasized by bolding them.
  • Write a clear subject.  I like giving context at the beginning with brackets [Invite] or [Response needed].  Assume that the subject is the only thing they will read on their phone and give them enough information to want to open the email.  Subject lines of “hey” or “following up” get deleted.

What tips do you have on reaching out to busy people?

What to do between Jazz Fest weekends? The Work Week.

  • April 27th, 2011 /
  •  Chris Schultz /
  • 1 Comment

Are you headed to Jazz Fest this weekend?  Um… YES! It’s my favorite time of year.

And this year, it’s getting even better with the inaugural Work Week Conference Series.  Using the world-class music festival of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival as a building block, we’re filling up the entire week with incredible speakers and sessions where you can learn to launch a startup, inspire innovation and succeed in the music business.

Our vision for the Work Week is to build a business conference series complement to the great music experience on the scale of what SXSW has become in Austin.  There are 3 great events that you won’t want to miss.

  • Sync Up – 4/29-30 & 5/6-7 @ NOMA – This is the 4th year of Scott Aiges’ music industry conference.  Swing by the conference in the morning before you headout to the fest and learn from musicians, festival bookers and film producers technologists.  Sync Up has a talent packed lineup including Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, Mystical sitting down for a chat with Wild Wayne and PJ Bloom, music supervisor for Glee. A special addition this year is a screening of the Arcade Fire film ‘The Wilderness Downtown’ with Thomas Gayno from Google produced by Bryan Bailey.
  • Second Line -  5/2-3 @ XLIV at Champions Square – The inaugural Second Line conference launches this year with a focus on disruptiveinnovation, value creation, and sustainable social impact.  Hot of the success of last year’s TEDxNOLA, Gerard Cox is producing the conference and has lined up an impressive roster of talented speakers.  James Carville & Wendell Pierce headline in addition to Scott Gerber, John Besh Matt Candler and Matt Galligan of SimpleGEO.
  • Launch Fest – 5/4-5 @ NOMA – With two half-day sessions, Launch Fest returns for year two, and takesonnew significance this year as the demo day for New Orleans’ only startup accelerator, Launch Pad Ignition. Day one features programming for entrepreneurs and those who are thinking about starting a company.  Day two features investor focused discussions by Brad Feld and a Startup America panel with Scott Case, CEO of Startup America and Sean Greene of the SBA.  Highlight speakers include Leah Culver of Convore, Stephen Dimarco of Compete.com, Brent McCrossen of Audiosocket, Anne Driscoll from Ning and Bob Dorf a Customer Development guru.

Jazz Fest has grown into more than just a music festival with the arrival of the Work Week. Look forward to feeding the mind during the week and the soul on the weekends.  I highly recommend all these great events and can’t wait to see you at these events and out at the fairgrounds!

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