It's New Orleans: Out to Lunch

Generally, by the time someone gets invited on a show like this they’ve figured out how to tell the story of their business in a way that makes their journey seem like a steady climb from humble beginnings to current success. In telling these histories, entrepreneurs will talk generally about setbacks, but they don’t typically elaborate on specific obstacles. Like, for example, this sc...

As human beings, we have many shared experiences. Most of us, one way or another, get a haircut. And most of us appreciate the fleeting beauty of flowers. You might think those two mundane observations are devoid of any kind of potential entrepreneurial re-invention. After all, whether your mom cuts your hair or you go to a salon, a haircut is, well, a haircut. Right? And whether you pick your own...

When you walk into a home, a room, or a business, you typically have a single sensation. A place feels a certain way. That specific reaction is actually the culmination of a whole range of perceptions that include observations about dimensions, light, color, furniture shapes and sizes, painting on the walls, decorative touches, rugs, even scent. You take most of these cues in at the same time and...

Fewer than 400,000 people live in Orleans Parish. Every year we  also have around 19 million temporary residents. Also known as “tourists.” New Orleanians tend to think of these two populations as distinct – even at odds with each other. But in fact, our local economy is entwined with our tourist economy in ways you might not expect. A great case study is a business called C...

As a society, we’re generally focused on achievement. We celebrate when a person gets into college. And we celebrate when they graduate. In between, when it comes to winning monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily battles - like structuring your day to attend classes and study for tests; and how to budget to afford tuition, books, transportation, food, and rent – well, we typically leave...

There’s a difference between an unintentional and an intentional experience. For example, you could be wandering down Oak Street at night and unintentionally hear music coming out of The Maple Leaf. It might sound great, but it sounds a whole lot better if you intentionally go into the club and stand in front of the stage. Likewise with heat and humidity. Living in New Orleans you no doubt g...

People who own or run factories and refineries love to complain about how onerous it is to comply with the rules and regulations laid out by OSHA – the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration . On the other hand, these same businesses brag about their safety record to attract and retain good employees. A local New Orleans company, American Safety , combines both of these elemen...

If you’ve got a high school kid in public school in New Orleans and your kid is interested in pursuing anything in the arts – like music, dance, theater, film, even creative writing – you find out pretty quickly, the school doesn’t have a budget for that. To put on a play, publish a newspaper, learn dance, or most other musical and artistic pursuits, the funds required gene...

I’m sitting at a table with two people: Patrick and Conway. In front of me, there’s a knife. I could use the knife to cut the food on my plate. Or I could lunge across the table and stab Conway with it. If I did that, what would you say Patrick is supposed to do? He could do nothing. He could call 911 – to get an ambulance for Conway and a cop to arrest me. Or he could inter...

New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods. 73 of them. Each one of these neighborhoods has its own flavor, its unique characteristics, and residents who can tell you about people who were brought up there and went on to do something notable. Claus Sadlier grew up in Old Metairie. It’s possible you don’t know who Claus is. If you’ve stopped at a coffee shop to grab a cup of joe to go...

You may have heard people who started up businesses talking about how they found investors. Typically, they’ll say something like, “We pitched our idea and raised X amount.” It sounds simple. But when you dig a little deeper, delivering a successful pitch to investors is not quite as straightforward as describing your business as “The Uber of dating” or “Air BnB...

There are countless myths and reports throughout human history of places where spirits come down to earth. Where the intangible meets the material world. In the US, there are few places that better demonstrate this crossroads than New Orleans.  People have tried to explain how the joy of living here triumphs over everyday things like dysfunction and potholes, with slogans like “The Big...

In the 1800’s Thomas Edison invented, among other things, the light bulb, the record player, and the first motion picture capture device which paved the way for the birth of movies. Was Thomas Edison a genius? In response to that question Edison said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Meaning, you can have a great idea, but you also have to have the tenaci...

Maybe this has happened to you. You stumble onto a great new show on Netflix - and when you tell your friends about it, everybody seems to know about it already. But for some reason you never got the memo. Peter's lunch guests today don’t have shows on Netflix, but they both have unique stories and successful businesses that maybe you know all about, but in Peter's orbit they’ve flown...

I’m going to hit you with some statistics. About women. Here’s the first one: Around 50% of the population in the US are women. You probably knew that one.  Here’s another one. Women-owned businesses. According to the National Association of Women Business Owners, 42% of existing US businesses are owned by women. So, pretty good. Right? Now, we move on to entrepreneurs. This...

People typically get invited onto shows like this because they’re successful. So, it will come as no surprise to you that my two guests on Out to Lunch today have success stories. What might surprise you, is the magnitude of their success. Cathy Deano is the founder of Painting With a Twist . It’s a pretty simple concept: you get one or two friends together, you go to a Painting With A...

If you’re a visual artist and you have an idea for something you want to create, there’s not much standing between you and making your vision a reality. Maybe just a piece of paper and a pencil. However, if your idea for a new creation is a business , well, things are a bit more complex. If you grew up in a community or a family who were not business-people, or you didn’t get a b...

You can do a lot with money. After you’ve spent it on necessities like food, housing, and education, if you’ve got money to spare you can buy stuff. Or, you can use your excess money to make more money. There are fundamentally two ways of doing this. Investing. And gambling. There are people who will argue that those two are actually the same. It’ll be interesting to see if my lu...

We use numbers to measure all kinds of things. Inches, pounds, degrees, birthdays… Numbers that denote height, weight, and temperature, are culturally neutral. Numbers that measure years are not. We give select numbers of years special  significance. 18, you can vote. 21, you can buy alcohol. 65 you can collect social security. We regard numbers that measure decades as milestones. One...

Not too long ago, people who had an office job talked about “being chained to a desk.” Today, a desk job is the most liberating of all employment options. Your desk can be at your house, in a coffee shop, in your van, or at what’s come to be called a “co-working space.” Co-working spaces are typically modeled after the re-imagined office that was born back in the day...

In most cities in the US, after you’ve blown it out on New Year’s Eve, if you want another socially approved excuse to party you have to wait a bit. Memorial Day is 5 months away. At best you might be able to get away with Spring Break – that’s about 4 months. Here in New Orleans, you have less than a week till the next round of society-sanctioned excessive eating, drinking...

We’ve long known, in the US, that our global economic advantage rests on an educated workforce. To that end, a couple of generations ago, America was virtually alone in providing free, readily available high school education. As knowledge-based industries have grown, so has the demand for a higher-educated workforce. Today, over 60% of US high school graduates go on to college. That’s...

New Orleans has given the world all kinds of music. We refer to ourselves as the birthplace of jazz. We’re one of the principal breeding grounds of funk, bounce, and brass band music. And then there’s a style of piano playing that’s so identifiably from here it’s simply called, “New Orleans piano.” Generations of legendary New Orleans piano players became identi...

If you’re not a musician, you might occasionally think how great it would be to be a musician. If you are a musician, you might occasionally think how great it must have been to be in The Beatles. New Orleanian Bruce Spizer is not a musician. He’s a lawyer and an accountant. But, not only has he occasionally thought how great it must have been to be in The Beatles, he’s written 1...

Hi, it's Peter Ricchiuti. I’ve got a scenario I want to run by you, and I want your opinion. Here’s the situation: It’s morning. I get ready to leave the house. I pick out an outfit, get dressed, I look great. Then my wife says, “You can’t go out looking like that. That shirt doesn’t go with those pants. That tie is hideous. And 1998 called and wants its jacket...