Batonline Rouge - Out to Lunch - It's Baton Rouge

You may know about Baton Rouge s growing tech industry. What you
may not know is that one of the pioneers of internet retailing is
right here in the Capital Region. Shopperschoice.com was founded in
1998 and has grown from a mom and pop store selling barbeque
equipment to one of the 300 biggest online retailers in the
country, behind Google, Amamzon, Apple, eBay and the other
household names. It s one of the 100 fastest growing companies, onn
and off line, in the US. Annual revenues are heading for 75m.
Shopperschoice.com CEO Corey Tisdale is Stephanie s guest on this
edition of Out to Lunch. Back in the early 2000 s, when
shopperschoice.com was rolling out its first website, Frank Ardoin
was a hard working and successful guy in the mortgage business.
Then he took a fateful vacation. Sitting on the beach staring at
the ocean Frank had an inspiration. When he came home to Baton
Rouge, and spent three years thrashing the kinks out of the idea,
it became Homebuyerdiscounts.com. It s a membership based model
that brings its members exclusive discounts on a variety of home
improvement products and services from local merchants. THe company
is qoickly finding its feet in Baton Rouge and Frank is eyeing
markets further afield. Stephanie s Baton Rouge Entrepreneur du
jour is Clint Conroy, a recent graduate of LSU. Clint s startup,
United Aerials, is in the drone business. UA sends unmanned
vehicles over construction sites and farms with sophisticated
sensing devices to report back and process their found data. Photos
by Ken Stewart, at Mansur s On The Boulevard restaurant.

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