Free Trade - Out to Lunch - It's Baton Rouge

Sometimes what makes a business interesting is not so much what it
does as much as how it does it. Today, the internet and mobile
platforms make it possible to do business in all sorts of new ways.
Then again, the digital era has also made it possible for savvy
entrepreneurs to improve on age old business models. Like the
barter economy. And come up with something better. Stephanie s
guests on Out to Lunch exemplify those trends. Chip Davis is
president and CEO of the Trade Authority. It s a Baton Rouge
organization that is almost its own country with its own currency
The TRade Authority supplies software, technical services and know
how to barter exchanges. Chip knows something about this. He and 12
other partners founded the very successful Partners One Exchange in
Baton Rouge in 2000. In the years since, Trade Authority has grown
to 650 members, who spend trade dollars backed by goods and
services amongst themselves on the exchange. The success of
Partners One is what prompted Chip several years ago to create the
Trade Authority, adn spread it across the country. Warren Sager is
a founding board member of the Trade Exchange and the board
chairman of Partners One. Warren also has a thriving internet
retail business Internet Retail Connection which operates several
different internet retail sites out of Warrne s spare bedroom and
had revenues last year of 3 million dollars. Among the sites under
the Internet Retail Connection umbrella is the company s flagship,
Knife Depot.com, which carries more than 10 thousand knives and is
the largest knife retailer on the internet. Warren also owns Hybrid
Racing.com, the only source in the world for proprietary designed
auto engine parts for Hondas and Acuras that allow you to turn your
HOnfa into a modified race car. Photos at Mansurs on the Boulevard
by Ken Stewart.

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