Entrepreneur Rising

Below is a brief history of what Entrepreneur Rising is and how it came to be; it’s relevant and informational but the meaning behind the story is what I think most people will appreciate.  Like most entrepreneurs, the reason I thought I started my business was not the real reason but rarely does one know that at the start.  It wasn’t until I understood what that meant, that all the things that came easy to me and all the things I struggled with made complete sense.  It was like finding a decoder ring buried in a cereal box that helped me see clearly the hidden picture on the back.

You may think that finding your life’s purpose in business is rare and only something you read about in life changing feel-good books but for entrepreneurs, it’s the line that separates and motivates us to attempt to become who we think we can and deserve to be; it’s the line we cross, where we move from net consumers to net creators.  For me, pizza just happened to be the canvas I used when I began my career at 19 and it wasn’t until many years later that I realized what I was truly seeking wasn’t about the pizza, or the dough, pardon the cheesy pun… it was about people and passion, enthusiasm and self-education. Just that one lesson has helped me move closer to fulfilling my life’s mission with my beautiful wife and children, my partners in hospitality and the amazing entrepreneurs I have been fortunate to work with and support.

WHAT MATTERS MOST

My vision, mission and passion… the thing that drives my enthusiasm with entrepreneur rising is to increase the total tonnage of happiness, significance and wealth for those in my community. It’s also what drives my personal life.  It’s not until people come to understand the value and importance of clarity and congruency of purpose in their business and personal life can they enjoy the full flavor of success.  The old business model of “money and success at the expense of happiness and significance” is a dying religion, (I use the word religion loosely) although I suppose just as thought seeds are planted from one generation to the next, this old and out of date model for a “successful life” will linger on a few more generations.

I believe everyone deserves this utopia I am pursuing and it’s entrepreneurs who have the highest chance of creating it for themselves, their families and their communities.  We put ourselves out there to be criticized, we risk money time and effort;  it’s our vision and passion that makes the world richer and more meaningful for others.

Like most things that last, passion is is at the core and my passion to start entrepreneur rising had everything to do with helping people navigate through the life and business questions that keep abnormal sleepers like me up more than usual.  All this became crystal clear as I started coaching and consulting with entrepreneurs and organizations.  What came into focus for me most was that my past struggles were in many cases, the same things they were struggling with; the differing product or the industry had almost no bearing on the similarities I encountered and  “BAM” as Emeril would say, entrepreneur rising was born.

In March of 2010 I shared my vision to conduct workshops for existing and emerging entrepreneurs in the Baton Rouge community with Charlie Dagostino, head of the LBTC (Louisiana Business and Technology Center) and along with their support and local sponsors, the vision became a reality.

The framework for which I built the courses follow these 5 primary business leadership priorities: Conscious Self Leadership, Platinum People Leadership, Sales & Marketing Leadership, Diligent Operational Leadership and Profitable Financial Leadership. Each course consists of relevant topics for the new or experienced entrepreneur, and all participants will receive a customized course binder along with all course content.  Peer to peer learning will color each session and throughout all 5 workshops, special guest speakers ranging from successful sports coaches to entrepreneurs whose vision and brand have circled the globe.

Featured in Baton Rouge Business Report May 2010

By Todd Brown



Business Report published “Start Me Up” and “Practicing What He Preaches” which includes an article on some of my success and its origin. “ [Louis DeAngelo] Opened his first restaurant at 19; now owns seven DeAngelo’s Casual Italian Dining restaurants, along with a produce and specialty foods company that supplies 50 local restaurants; employs nearly 600 people in the Baton Rouge area….. DeAngelo is taking a break from refining his new lunch menu, reminiscing about a Friday less than a year into his career when he broke $1,000 in sales for the first time. Not bad for a 965-square-foot pizzeria that could only seat 30 or so patrons at a time. But what excited DeAngelo wasn’t just the money; it was the party atmosphere in the room that night. “It was the first time I realized I’m not just cooking,” DeAngelo says. “I want to create an experience.” Learn more about the experience I was able to create and how at:

http://www.businessreport.com/news/2010/may/04/start-me-gnit1/ and  http://www.businessreport.com/news/2010/may/04/start-me-gnit1/

ABOUT THE LBTC

Recognition goes out to The Louisiana Business & Technology Center (LBTC), an integral part of the E. J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University.  It endeavors to enhance economic development in Louisiana through the support of existing small businesses and the development of new businesses. The LBTC, acting as a proving ground for technology applications and utilization, will serve to stimulate small business formation, growth, and survival. By fostering growth in the new business segment, diversification occurs, and jobs are created, further expanding Louisiana’s economic development.

LBTC provides the following services:

·        Small business incubation services

·        Management assistance and small business counseling services

·        Technology Transfer and Commercialization Assistance and SBIR/STTR assistance

·        Financial analysis in preparation for access to capital

·        Entrepreneurial educational training

·        Referral to fee-based professional and advisor resources

BACKGROUND

The LBTC began its operations on the LSU Campus in 1988 under a joint venture agreement between LSU, the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce and the Louisiana Public Facilities Authority. The LBTC is in its 19th year of operations and is located on the new LSU South Campus Research Park. The LBTC was chartered to provide assistance to small businesses and entrepreneurs, to be LSU’s contact in the business community and on economic development activities within the Capital City Region and the State of Louisiana. The LBTC utilizes:

·   Its 25,000 square foot high-tech small business incubator, 2005 Randall Whaley Award for the NO. 1 Technology Incubator and the NBIA Business Incubator of the Year in North America,

·   The  LSBDC Technology Center at LSU, a designated “Best Practices” center by a national accreditation committee and works statewide with Louisiana’s technology based companies,

·   Its NASA Stennis Space Center Office which assists with technology transfer assistance requests, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, SBIR/STTR Phase Zero Program in Louisiana.

MISSION

The LBTC strives to assist entrepreneurs and small business with access to the resources they need to grow and attain long-term success. The LBTC plays a crucial role in the economic development future of Louisiana by supporting Vision 2020, a program designed to enhance the economic potential of Louisiana, and by promoting the formation and growth of business, cultivating jobs, and commercializing technology.  The LBTC is the catalyst in making LSU an economic development engine for Louisiana.

For more on the LBTC visit www.lbtc.lsu.edu

Baton Rouge Business Report Award: Company of the Year (1997)

By: Mukul Verma

It isn’t easy to get a word in edgewise when Louis DeAngelo is on a roll. His mother know that, so with her son poised to chatter, she only answers with a roll of her eyes when asked about his boundless energy. DeAngelo acknowledges that he talks near shout level. There’s more, for his volume is rivaled by the speed of his words. In the end, talking to Louis DeAngelo is like facing the staccato bursts of a machine gun. “Whenever you want me to shut up, I will” he said. Apparently conceding to exhaustion after a lengthy monologue about his work. But it turns out to be a plot, a mere chance for DeAngelo to refuel before launching into more words about his passion for food and restaurants. “I’m going to know…the whole state of Louisiana on their butts with real Italian bread. REAL. ITALIAN. BREAD,” declared the New Jersey native, carrying on a separate conversation with his hands. “Down here there is no such thing. Italian bread is very crusty on the outside. It’s got texture. It’s a very simple bread, but it’s packed with flavor.” He is talking about the bread he will serve at his newest restaurant, the one he plans to open at the foot of the Pontchartrain Causeway in Mandeville by year end. The Mandeville restaurant will be DeAngelo’s third. At 24, while most people are still working their first jobs, he already has a 5-year old company that runs two wildly successful restaurants, in Baton rouge. None of the success he said was planned, “I just came down here with the attitude that I could make the best pizza in town, and that was it. The explosive growth has happened because we believed in it.”

Growing up, DeAngelo learned about good food from his mother, who would wake early to prepare fancy meals for the family. “She educated me on what good is because it was on the table every night”, DeAngelo said. He got business smarts from toiling at restaurants. His first job at the age of 10 was cleaning up after diners at a family friend’s pizzeria. Because nervous energy was colliding with impatience, DeAngelo dropped out of college after two months and informed his parents that he wanted to open a restaurant. Banks wouldn’t lend him the money so DeAngelo borrowed $20,000 from his family, where he settled in with an aunt and uncle. In 1991 he opened a small restaurant in Hammond Aire Shopping Center at Old Hammond and Airline highways. At first, business was slow, but the young entrepreneur was encouraged by a visit from a duo that included Phillip Plaisance. As DeAngelo tells it, Plaisance, who owns the Oxbow restaurant in Oscar, walked into the pizzeria in a chef’s coat. The sight of Plaisance unnerved DeAngelo, who fretted about serving a professional chef. With his courage hiked up, DeAngelo served up a basic pizza that had cheese, garlic and basil, a combination that showcased the restaurant’s fine ingredients. “Phillip said, ‘Kid, you have the best pizza in Baton Rouge,’” recalled DeAngelo. ‘That was the first time I really made some friends outside my family down here.” Said Plaisance, “I think he serves excellent food, and he has outstanding service. Everything is prepared fresh. He doesn’t skimp on the quality of the cheeses; he buys No. 1 tomato products…I’m in the business. I can tell when a product is real or fake.”

It didn’t take long for others to notice what DeAngelo was cooking up in the small restaurant. After just two months, there were lines forming for his pizzas and calzones. “Word got out that there was this hyper-spastic kid from New Jersey that made really good pizza,” DeAngelo said. The early success helped DeAngelo strike up a friendship with his banker, Tim Howell of City National Bank. The bank helped DeAngelo expand and open a second location on Bluebonnet Boulevard. “I think Louis is very young, has a lot of enery and a lot of talent,” said Howell, as assistant Vice President at CNB. “I think that starting from scratch, he knew what it takes and was willing to give that opportunity to the people who worked with him, and you know that when you walk into the restaurants. “ There was a line at Bluebonnet restaurant when it opened last year in the former Capital City Newsstand building. There still are lines at both restaurants on most evening. To meet demand, DeAngelo is expanding both restaurants, taking in the patio of the Bluebonnet store to add 35 seats and moving to a bigger location at the Hammond Aire sight to more than double to 135 seats. “The key to our success is a belief that we can do it, and we can be the best,” DeAngelo said. “And equal to that is the people we have. Since day one, I have put the people in this organization first. No one likes to go to work, but they want to come here because this is not work to them. I credit them with a tremendous growth. “ His immediate family- father, mother, 2 siblings, and wife- are among the 100 employees who work for the restaurant company. His father, Louis Sr., moved to Baton Rouge recently to run the business, which will give DeAngelo a chance to start the restaurant and market in Mandeville. The Mandeville restaurant, across from the Trey Yuen Chinese restaurant, will have an expanded menu. It also will have a market that stocks select wine and foods. DeAngelo said he’s starting a new restaurant because he’s running too fast to relish the early days of the first two locations. “My real passion is the food and people. I am going to have the opportunity to pull back from the business and flourish where my heart is. I can learn about food. That is really where I want to be.” DeAngelo also wants to produce and sell his own line of salad dressing and other foods, as well as franchise the pizzerias. He gets regular inquiries, but only one person, who he won’t disclose, has met his high standards.

“My ultimate goal is to be the best restaurateur that I be,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I have to have 20 restaurants. “

Baton Rouge Business Awards: 40 Under 40 (1997)

By: Mukul Verman

Louis DeAngelo Jr. opened the doors to DeAngelo’s Pizzeria Co. at age 19, and liked his young talented employees so much that he’s creating operating partnerships so they can enjoy the same rapid success he’s experienced by age 24.
“He’s probably one of the best business people I’ve ever met,” said Paul Damiano, an industrial and organizational psychologist with SSA Consultants. “He’s got so much concern for his business and his employees that he’s an asset to the community.”
Damiano has worked with DeAngelo on projects ranging from a performance appraisal system to a “late lunch” club. But DeAngelo, a native of New Jersey, is clearly as creative in business as with a menu.
At age 10, he was working in an Italian restaurant owned by a family friend and, by age 16, knew what he wanted to do with his life. “When you cook good food, people like that,” he said. DeAngelo saved up a few thousand dollars, got a $20,000 loan from his grandfather and moved South to fill a pizza niche in Baton Rouge, where he was family. He did $57 in business the first day, but added to his menu and made friends with customers. Five years later, he owns one of the most popular eateries in the city. “I wasn’t a rocket scientist, and when you’re 19, you don’t know too much,” DeAngelo said. “But a lot of people supported me. Slow growth and evolution was what we needed at first. Now business is exploding.” People have begged DeAngelo for franchises, but he is carefully controlling growth in order to main quality. He opened a second restaurant on Bluebonnett Boulevard last March (his first one is in the Hammond Aire Shopping Center off Old Hammond Highway) and recently purchased a 5,000-square-foot building to serve as his commissary and corporate headquarters.
“It’s not just about making dough,” quipped the fast-taking young entrepreneur, who wakes up at night with new recipes. “This is my life, what I do, what I love to do.” Today, DeAngelo, is planning to open a restaurant for himself; his managers are so good that he’s worked himself out of a job, he said. “Talking to people, buying people a dessert because they have a smile on their faces–that’s what feeds me. That’s the taste of success.”

The Greater Baton Rouge Reports: Flipping Restaurants (2000)

Louis DeAngelo Jr.’s wine glass is half-empty, half-full.

The toast of local restaurant businesses, DeAngelo is switching directions, exchanging what he loves for a chance to expand what he started.He is giving up Mia Tavola-a restaurant he devoted more than a year to plan, build and open-and returning to DeAngelo’s Pizzeria Co., which is ready to invade the franchise market.”It was not an easy decision,” said DeAngelo, who is still anxious about the painful choice. “My heart is here,” he said, sitting in Mia Tavola, a $1 million venture with all the top trimmings, including hand-painted murals. “This is what I want to do with the rest of my life.”But he won’t-for now. DeAngelo’s family business is just one month away from starting to sign up franchisees. He says that expanding the pizzeria chain now is his responsibility, not only to himself but also to his family and the workers who have helped to build the chain.
“It’s like you have two great job offers,” he said. He picked the job of building DeAngelo,’s because the business needs his experience and expertise. DeAngelo will head operations, which is the key to delivering the quality goods, the pizzas, calzones, Italian sandwiches and other fare that has turned the wildly popular restaurants into a business with $5 million in annual revenues.

Touch of Now York
DeAngelo’s career makes for a good story. The New Jersey native moved to Baton Rouge after his first semester in college to start a pizzeria, which he thought would fill a gap for good New York-style pies in Baton Rouge.Banks wouldn’t lend him money, so DeAngelo borrowed from his family to open the restaurant in Hammond Aire Shopping Center. It was 1991 and he was 18 years old.Brisk business at the first location prompted DeAngelo to open a second one on Bluebonnet Boulevard, He opened a third location on West Lee Drive. The company also has a restaurant in Mandeville and a license agreement for one that operates in Colorado.What’s more, a commissary in the Industriplex produces the doughs, sauces and other ingredients or the pizzerias. About 18 months ago, DeAngelo, who wanted to return to cooking, decided to open Mia Tavola. He considered the new restaurant his greatest venture, one in which he handled almost all of the details, from developing original recipes and finding a pecky cypress bar to choosing European bread ovens and picking wines. “This place will be total quality-everything about it,” he said before the restaurant opened in January. Located at Coursey Boulevard and Hickory Ridge, a part of Baton Rouge dotted mostly by fast-food restaurants and lunch spots, Mia Tavola was welcomed by diners looking for Italian cuisine in an upscale setting. Getting a table at the restaurant required arriving early or waiting around for some time. DeAngelo worked in the kitchen. His family greeted people at the door with fresh bread. The restaurant, DeAngelo said in the past two weeks, has been wildly successful, even though it was not designed with profits in mind.

Back to the beginning
Even so, he said that he must now return to building the pizza franchise business. What that means is a change for Mia Tavola, which featured Northern Italian cuisine and mid-scale prices. During the first week of March, the restaurant is set to be converted into a DeAngelo’s Pizzeria, making it arguably one of the finest pizza joints anywhere. That’s because roughly $1 million was spent to build and outfit the eatery. Why didn’t he just let someone else operate Mia Tavola while he went to work for the pizza chain? It would be too distracting, he said, especially when considering that he built the restaurant for himself. “If I’m not here, I’m going to worry about it.” Instead of picking fresh ingredients, baking breads and watching over simmering sauces, DeAngelo is going to be training franchisees on the operation of the pizzerias, making sure that quality is retained so that the chain’s name keeps its luster. Soon after the final papers are completed to commence franchising, DeAngelo expects the first two deals to be signed, though he won’t reveal the names of those franchisees. Most likely, the first DeAngelo branches will be in cities near Baton Rouge and will be served with prepared sauces and other foods from the company’s commissary in Baton Rouge.

Now, the future
In the future, the firm plans to have its own commissaries in other cities, a means to ensure top food quality, said DeAngelo. He doesn’t know how big the chain can become, but a recent article featuring the company in Pizza Today magazine prompted calls from prospective franchisees around the country. The company gets about three calls a week from people who want to franchise the operation and a handful of people are ready to write the $500,000 checks needed to secure the franchise rights to cities, said DeAngelo. Still, he can’t seem to shake the idea of shutting down Mia Tavola. Like a kid at confession, he squirms at the idea of giving up the fancy restaurant for a chance to build a restaurant empire.”It’s not where I want to be, but it still feels damn good.”And with hope, he makes a vow to build DeAngelo Pizzeria Co. and then return to cooking and running a single Italian restaurant, much like the one he’s closing. “I will definitely be back.” He plans to return in five years. Then, he will be 32.

The Greater Baton Rouge Report: His Pizza, the Action (1995)

By: Wendy McMahon

Young Entrepreneur Does Business the Old Fashioned Way

Louis DeAngelo is not a typical 22-year-old. While most guys his age are sweating it out in their second senior year of college or just entering a cluttered job market, DeAngelo is running his own 24-employee company.For four years, DeAngelo’s Pizzeria Co. in the Hammon-Aire Shopping Center had brought New Jersey-style pizza to Baton Rouge with a flair worthy of a much more…mature management team. DeAngelo first brought his New Jersey product to Baton Rouge when he was 19. He actually talked to his parents about opening the business when he was 18, but they had reservations about his age. “My parents weren’t crazy about me leaving (New Jersey), going on my own at such a young age,” DeAngelo said. “So, I figured since we have a close-knit family that I’d better do it in a place where we have some family so it would put my parents a little more at ease.”

Baton Rouge was a likely spot because an uncle and aunt lived there. When he was in high school, he visited them and made a “hobby” out of checking out area pizza places. He didn’t find anything like the pizza restaurants in New Jersey or West Virginia, where he had worked as a kid, so he set out to import his naïve cuisine to the Deep South. Naturally, the idea didn’t go over without a hitch. “At first, it was a little difficult…I think because of my age,” he said. “People thought ‘He’s some rich kid whose parents put him in business. I have trouble with the bank and the leasing company because I was so young,” DeAngelo said. “But when I look back on it now, I understand, because they didn’t know me from John Doe, and I was from out of town and only 19, so I can appreciate their position now.” When the pizzeria opened, it had three workers- himself and two others in something reminiscent of “a long cubicle.” Barely four years later, DeAngelo has vacated the cubicle and expanded into a space only two doors down from the original location. A half-hour wait for a table on a Friday night visit to the pizzeria was proof that this young New Jersey native is doing something right. “We focus on the basics and we try to do them better than anyone else,” he said. He starts his days at 6:30 a.m., and makes everything fresh- beginning with the dough and sauce. Customers say the attention to details speaks for itself in the pizzas and spinach-stuffed calzones. Most customers discover the restaurant by accident, either while shopping in the Hammond-Aire center or riding along Airline Highway. “We were just riding in the car looking for a place to eat when we saw DeAngelo’s,” said Heidi Con Bodungen, who has become a regular. “Now, we come here usually once or twice a week.” “We love the restaurant- the food, the atmosphere, the employees- it’s great.” Word-of-mouth advertising is DeAngelo’s primary marketing strategy. “The emphasis is on food rather than sales. We don’t do anything special-we just care about when we do and the caring makes the difference,” said Bill Sanders, one of the restaurant’s chefs. In both the menu and company mission, DeAngelo emphasizes that everything is developed with loving care. He describes it as a “passion, a passion to be the best.” And employee Sonya Cardia agrees. “There is so much positive energy here; Louis has a passion for what he does and it’s definitely contagious. “Even if his passion for the business is “contagious,” DeAngelo insists that he still doesn’t know everything there is to know about pizza. Although he is past the point where he talks to “dad three times a day” for business advice, DeAngelo relies heavily on the advice of his employees. He often depends on employees to give suggestions on new products. That’s how dishes get on the DeAngelo’s “Most Requested List.” A new dish is created, DeAngelo gives it to the employees for a “taste test”, they evaluate it and the dish evolves to what customers eventually see on the menu. “It’s teamwork from step one to step 100, and it’s really wheat got is from the original restaurant to here,” he said. Each week, DeAngelo and his team set specific performance goals. Their latest goal is to acquire a franchise license. He’s “lightly canvassing” the Baton Rouge area for possible sites, but he insists, “It will be a franchise that eliminates the error,” meaning everything will be cooked at the original restaurant so that he can maintain quality control. With only the basics, DeAngelo says customers cam better appreciate the flavor of each ingredient. “People want stuff with ham or oysters…it’s not what we do,” he explained. “We capitalize on having the best-quality products and we try to make out food better than anybody else.”

Business has been good in Baton Rouge, but there are some things the transplanted northerner will never get used to. “I can sum it up (business in the South) in one sentence,” DeAngelo said. “I love the people, but I hate the weather.”