Tech Businesses Thrive in Lafayette, LA

by Media | Aug 1, 2024 | Media, Startup Stories

Lafayette, LA, is a land of opportunity, as startups are met with a strong business environment that’s primed to help them grow. A sturdy pillar in the region is Opportunity Machine (OM), an organization whose mission is to support and elevate early-stage technology, research-driven, and innovative startups. Various tech businesses, including those that specialize in research and health care, benefit from the programming and collaboration available through OM. Over the years, Opportunity Machine has produced several success stories – all of which illustrate that Lafayette, LA, is an ideal city to launch a tech business. Read on to learn about two success stories.

Whitney Savoie
Vice President of Marketing, FlyGuys

Tell me about your business and its growth.

FlyGuys is an online marketplace for reality data capture. We connect businesses seeking data with our nationwide trusted network of data providers. The company started in 2014 with just the founder, Adam Zayor, and a couple of employees. He was able to find investors and most of our funding here in southwest Louisiana. Since then, it’s been in hypergrowth mode, with about 48 full-time employees and 11,000 pilots.

What is your next goal?

We’ve set into motion a new platform with software that provides customer, operations and pilot portals. Our operations team is now able to manage missions, our customers can directly access their data, and pilots can accept missions and upload their work.

How has Opportunity Machine helped?

OM has been essential for networking opportunities, investor introductions, subsidized employee space and job growth in Lafayette. I’ve personally taken their classes, and we’ve held board meetings at OM. It also gives us a chance to mentor younger companies.

What is FlyGuys’ takeaway from OM’s services?

There’s always someone there willing to help in what I call this perfect little ecosystem. There’s no reinventing the wheel or doing it alone – all these tools and resources are free and instrumental in helping you build your business.

What kind of support have you received from the community?

Through OM, we’ve worked with the Lafayette Economic Development Authority and Louisiana Economic Development. We’ve taken advantage of economic incentives for growth at various stages of our business. Lafayette is not a small town, but it feels like it. Everyone helps one another and networks, and even the local press covers the company and is genuinely excited about what we are doing as a startup. We all want growth, diversity and a tech industry beyond the traditional oil and gas. We’ve seen what happens when your community depends on one industry – with variety, we can sustain our economy.

Why would you recommend Lafayette and Opportunity Machine to other startups?

It’s that ecosystem of networking and helping one another. Startups share their experiences and learn from and help one another succeed. It’s not a competition. We grow our companies collectively and work together for the betterment of our community. And Southern hospitality is entrenched in everything we do.

Carleena Andrepont
Founder & CEO, Keepers

Tell us about Keepers and the services it provides?

We are a short-term rental cleaning company that is reshaping the industry by introducing technology that standardizes the cleaning process, allowing us to take on 100% of property management.

The business is brand-new to Lafayette, LA?

Yes, we launched in April 2023, and we are already opening in another market. We are taking everything we learned from our initial test market and expanding to Austin, TX, then Florida, then Arizona and beyond.

How have you been able to expand so quickly?

Lafayette, LA, is a fantastic place to base our business because we can manage everything remotely. For example, Orlando has 47,000 short-term rentals, and because of our technology, we can manage it all from our office at OM. Our goal is to spread across the nation in five years.

You were an OM Pitch Competition winner. How did that benefit you?

OM has been a tremendous resource. I won the competition twice, and that brought community awareness, advisers, mentors and funding. But everyone can benefit from OM’s abundance of connections and builder programs for doing deep dives into viability, customer needs, feedback and how to build a pitch deck. I currently have a growth mentor and another mentor well-versed in fundraising and marketplace. I wouldn’t have had those connections otherwise.

What other support have you received from OM and the community?

For startups, this community is valuable. Even though building a global tech company is different from a local business, it’s helpful to get in front of the community. People have connections that can help you, especially if you’re like me and moved here in the last 10 years. Today, I learned that University of Louisiana at Lafayette tech students help startups with coding and other tech needs. Now, I have six students to help with the buildout of my company.

What thoughts do you have for entrepreneurs considering Lafayette?

The city and OM have an open-door policy. They are resources willing to provide the momentum to help any company move forward and grow.

See the full article originally published by Livability Media here.

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