According to the Global Wellness Institute, the global health and wellness industry is now worth $4.2 trillion. The industry has been growing with 12.8% between 2015 and 2017 and represents a whopping 5.3% of global economic output. For local entrepreneurs, that is creating a lot of opportunities – but that also means there’s a lot…

Down on Silicon Bayou, local Baton Rouge companies are carving out an amazing space in the tech sector. They’re designing impressive software platforms and tools that are attracting worldwide attention. Steve McKinney  is the Chief Operating Officer of Cell Control, a Baton Rouge company that, in 2009, came up with technology to help eliminate distracted driving….

It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve flown across the country or around the world, for that matter. There’s something that continues to dazzle and fascinate us wingless, human creatures every time we get in an airplane, whether a single prop or a jumbo jet, and get ready for take off.  When cars were invented,…

If you think “Silicon Valley” sounds cool but “Silicon Swamp” doesn’t, you’re probably not from South Louisiana. Here in South Louisiana we love the swamp, it’s a part of who we are. The reason “Silicon Swamp” might sound weird is that we are less inclined to identify ourselves as the home of tech innovation. Well,…

There aren’t many occasions to talk about fine art and movies in the same sentence. And you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s even less occasion to consider the financing of movies and fine art as having anything to do with each other. And that’s why we have lunch! So folks from what might seem to…

Time was, every town had cobblers and tailors. Fairy tales and history books alike are replete with references to these noble tradesmen, who kept people “shodded” and clothed. Today,  commerce has evolved from local service providers to department stores, big box retailers and online sites, but, here in Baton Rouge, although old fashioned businesses have…

“Retail apocalypse” is a term we’re starting to hear frequently. It suggests a coming meltdown of retail reality due to the impact of Amazon and other online retailers on brick and mortar stores. Stephanie Riegel’s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge are, in two very different ways, fighting it out on…

A lot of people who start tech businesses describe them as “The Uber of…” something or other. Most of them don’t lose as much money Uber, but typically they don’t get very far off the ground either. Another popular tech startup that often stalls are businesses based on Virtual Reality.  On this edition of Out…

As the tech industry evolves and matures, all sorts of new opportunities are created for entrepreneurs who see where existing technologies don’t meet a need or don’t go far enough to deliver what customers demand. If you listen to national shows like How I Built This or Freakonomics, you’re familiar with the type of wildly…