If you’re ever asked to list the best places to start a business, your answers will likely include Silicon Valley and Austin, and they’re perfectly reasonable responses. However, a city that often gets overlooked is New Orleans, which has recently seen its first unicorn business (Lucid). There are many reasons for this business growth in New Orleans, but many experts anchor it to the post-hurricane Katrina drive to rebuild. Below, we’ve outlined five reasons why New Orleans is the prime location for startups.
Strong Entrepreneurial Community
After Katrina devastated the city, many people flocked to New Orleans to lend a helping hand, and they loved what they saw and put down roots. This laid the perfect foundation for innovative thinking, and everyone became entrepreneurs because the entire infrastructure needed to be rebuilt.
Even today, 17 years after the tragedy, there’s still a strong entrepreneurial community. For example, New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, which takes place every March, brings everyone together to celebrate culture, innovation, and technology.
There’s still a significant economic gap that needs to be filled in New Orleans, which makes it the perfect destination for anyone with a background in applied economics, which can be studied here – https://appliedeconomics.bc.edu/.
Doorstep Logistics
Depending on the nature of a startup, there may be a need for logistical solutions, which can be difficult to arrange in some places. However, New Orleans has direct access to logistical solutions including enormous warehouse capacity and immediate access to a port.
Low-Cost Living
Despite the hardships that New Orleans has faced over the last couple of decades, it’s still a much more affordable place to live than the likes of New York and San Francisco. This is the perfect environment for a new startup business, as they’ll have more capital at their disposal, which can be used for expansion.
Business Costs are Low
Pair affordable living costs with low business costs and you’ve got the perfect landscape for success. Startups can access a culture-rich market at a relatively low cost, which helps make way for significant growth.
The most significant difference between New Orleans and the likes of Silicon Valley and New Orleans is the cost of office space, which leaves more revenue to invest in onboarding, hiring, and other processes.
Saving on business space isn’t the only benefit of starting a business in New Orleans, as the Louisiana Digital Media Tax Credit rewards companies with 25% cashback for any software development completed within the state. This is all extra cash that can be put into further developments – or it can simply be banked.
Quality of Life
The low cost of living, logistic access, and affordable business costs are all fantastic benefits of setting up a business in New Orleans, but nothing compares to the incredible quality of life, which you can experience by interacting with the local community.
New Orleans is the perfect environment for a startup to thrive, and most of that is because of the quality of people there; this is before you throw in the affordable business perks.
