1012 Corridor

[Firm] Ninja Snowballs

[Concept] Snowball stand with a twist

Put a snowball stand in a trailer, announce your locations on Twitter, dress the employees up like Ninjas and what do you get? Ninja Snowballs.

The snowball stand on wheels is the creation of three close friends who share a passion for the icy treats—and all things Ninja.

Their idea stems from Kogi barbecue truck in Los Angeles. Using Twitter to announce its location, the truck moves throughout the city. When the lunch hour rolls around, Kogi’s Twitter followers line the block for Korean barbecue.

“I thought it was an interesting concept,” says Ninja Fred, who, like his fellow Ninjas, asked to remain anonymous so as not to spoil the aura of Ninja-like secrecy. “We had also thought about doing a snowball stand in a trailer and not a fixed location, and the idea that we were Ninja-like just kind of all came together. Plus, Ninjas are cool.”

The three twenty-something college graduates are all busy running their own businesses. But they took on the snowball industry believing that they could do it better—by using sound entrepreneurial principles.

“You’re taking something very low-key like snowballs—we’re talking about ice and sugar here—and making that as business-like as possible,” says Ninja Dan. “We have the controls, the processes, the marketing—all the right stuff in place. We want to do it right.”

There was even a bit of R&D. “I think we did more research on snowballs than we really wanted to,” Ninja Dan says. “Just because it was like, ‘How do we get it just right?’ I’ve never been OCD about ice and the texture of it before, but we are now. I can watch somebody make a snowball and tell you whether it’s going to be any good, just based on the sound and the speed at which they make it.”

There are those who think they’re crazy for taking their treats on the road and not having a fixed location where they can build a clientele. But Ninja Dan says it’s all about the branding.

“If you do it right, people know about Ninja Snowballs,” he says. “It’s not about ‘that snowball stand off campus,’ or ‘that snowball stand downtown.’ Nobody leaves there going, ‘Now what was the name of that place again?’”

And Twitter is packed with Ninja followers espousing their favorite flavors, although the Ninjas hope to add some more gourmet ones in the future. For now, coffee and chocolate are their most unique offerings. “You put the coffee and the chocolate together,” Ninja Fred boasts, “and it’s quite possibly the best snowball you’ve ever had.”

Although the snowball business might not seem all that complicated, it has had its challenges. The Ninja team actually didn’t get to launch until June, missing a pretty sizable chunk of the Louisiana snowball season.

But it’s been 100% profitable, and they expect to have all of their initial capital expenses paid off at the end of the first year.

So what next?

“I have a vision,” says Ninja Dan. “I see a huge parking lot with an army of black trucks with Ninja logos. At 10 a.m., the gates open, and they’re going to pour out and travel to many locations across the land, delivering delicious snowballs.”

Ninja Fred, though, likes the idea of a franchise. “It’s scalable; it could be replicated,” he says. “And with the economy the way it is, it’s a fairly low investment as far as businesses go and something you could get in. You could make a good living six or seven months out of the year.”

[Firm] Swerve

[Concept] A nutritional sugar substitute

Catherine Wilbert was badly in need of a sweetener.

The Northshore doctor of naturopathic medicine and nutrition consultant was formulating supplements for her clients, and she knew they had to taste good.

Aspartame was highly controversial, and sugar alcohol caused gastrointestinal chaos.

She first set out to improve Stevia—a low-carbohydrate herb that is 300 times sweeter than sugar, but doesn’t bake or measure like sugar.

Instead, she stumbled upon her own sweetener—Swerve. It’s an all-natural sugar alternative with zero calories, zero glycemic index and no digestive intolerance, made from the fibers of fruits and vegetables. Its claim is that it looks, tastes, measures, cooks and bakes just like sugar.

Swerve is now sold in health food stores across the county, as well as Whole Foods, Sunflower Markets in Texas and various grocery stores in the New Orleans region. LaLouisiane Bakery whips up cheesecake, brownies, cookies and whole-grain croissants with it. Sugar Busters bread is working on relaunching their line made with Swerve. And several soft-drink firms are doing test runs with it.

Perhaps most telling of all, though, is that Aunt Sally’s Pralines is offering its first sugar-free confections made with Swerve.

“I can teach people all day long how to eat nutritionally and how to walk down the road to vitality, but the one thing people do not want to give up are indulgences,” Wilbert says. “They do not want to feel deprived. What we’ve done is make those indulgences good for you.”

Wilbert founded PhytoCeutical Formulations with just two employees— herself and Andrus Blackwell. In those early days, the two of them would offload boxes from the delivery trucks into their mini-storage locker. Now she has a forklift.

Her biggest challenge these days is not just manufacturing enough product to meet demand, but also hiring the support staff in various regions across the country to support it. Eventually, though, she wants to see Swerve on the shelves of every grocery.

“One of the things that’s so exciting to me is the fact that we’re doing this in Louisiana,” she says. “Louisiana is a mecca for food and taste and culinary lifestyle, but it’s also the worst state for obesity and diabetes. Imaging having a product formulating in Louisiana that not only tastes great, but makes food good for you. That’s what keeps me motivated.”

[Firm] The Receivables Exchange

[Concept] Online trading of receivables

Why, Justin Brownhill and Nicolas Perkin wondered, had the $250 billion receivables market never gone the way of stocks and bonds and everything else traded electronically?

They decided to make it happen.

The pair spent two years and raised just under $20 million in financing to assemble a team and put together the software. They went live in January with The Receivables Exchange, or TRE.

As it turns out, TRE couldn’t have come along at a better time. With the economy such that it is, small- and mid-sized businesses are now hurting for short-term financing in the tight credit market.

The company’s model isn’t much different from eBay. Businesses sell their short-term debt at a real-time online auction, generating immediate cash. Buyers earn a profit when retailers or customers repay the debt. Sellers include textiles, media, manufacturing and technology companies. Sixty different buyers have signed on, more than half of them hedge funds, along with factoring companies and commercial banks. TRE makes as much as 2% off each sale.

Dow Jones reported that during the first half of the year, TRE experienced a tenfold rise in sales and had completed nearly 1,000 auctions worth $65 million. Transactions are up 300% this quarter over last.

Says Perkin, who expects to end the year with triple-digit millions in transactions: “That tells us we are effectively positioned and have built the market in the way we should have.”

Just how hot is the market? Invoices are sometimes sold within 10 to 15 seconds from the time they are posted on TRE. That’s a far cry from the 30 to 90 days it can often take to get financing through other means.

“This is an evolution in the way people conduct business and access working capital,” Perkin says. “People transact business these days at light speed, and it’s very, very global. If you look around you, everything from stocks to insurance is traded online. People are even dating online and you can get college degrees online. With the idea of the speed at which business occurs in today’s world, for a business person to have to spend 30 to 90 days meeting with the funding source and determining how to work it out … well, nobody has that kind of time.”

Perkin predicts The Receivables Exchange could eventually overshadow the New York Stock Exchange in sheer volume—right here in New Orleans. The New York native left the beaches of Santa Monica, Calif., because Louisiana’s commercial code and taxing benefits were ideal for the company. Plus, his wife is a Baton Rouge native.

“Ten years from now, my hope is that people around the world will say New Orleans, Louisiana is the place where commercial receivables trading happens,” Perkin says. “It will be the same way we think New York when we think stocks.”

[Firm] thrivNP

[Concept] Eco-friendly workout clothing

Look out, Nike and Under Armour. Al Andrews thinks he just may have created the next major brand in American athletic apparel.

Enter thrivNP, a more hygienic and eco-friendly kind of workout clothing.

Consider thrivNP [the acronym stands for “natural performance”] the anti-polyester—it apparently does everything polyester does, except stink. The fabric is bamco—a combination of bamboo and organic cotton that is moisture wicking, anti-microbial, hypoallergenic and offers UV protection.

The line hit 52 Sports Authority stores nationwide as well as Perlis and Priorities stores in New Orleans in October. Items include workout short, pants, shirts leggings and jackets.

“Our goal is to create the next big national brand of athletic wear in the United States,” Andrews says. “We think thrivNP is it.”

The 64-year-old is no newcomer to the business. After getting a law degree from Tulane Law School in 1971, he started his own sportswear business and has been in it ever since. In 1991, he started Bayou Sport and sold it to Nautica four years later.

He’s spent the last two-plus years working with his factory in India to invent a new and better performance fabric to replace polyester—mostly because he just doesn’t like polyester. Bamco is 50% bamboo, 45% organic cotton and the rest elastane. Bamboo is considered an eco-friendly textile because it requires less water than cotton, takes in five times more greenhouse gases and releases 35% more oxygen than comparable timber trees. It is also is disease and pest resistant, so there is less pollution from pesticides.

When Andrews looks at sportswear, he sees two things. First, he sees a market that has been dominated by Nike [$19.2 billion in revenues this year] for more than a decade. Then he sees the huge success of Under Armor—the 13-year-old firm founded by former University of Maryland football player Kevin Plank, who just wanted a t-shirt that didn’t weight him down with his own sweat. That company is projecting $810 million in net revenues this year.

He also sees a nation growing enamored with all things natural. “I think the timing is perfect,” Andrews says. “During my career, I’ve seen cycles, and I’ve just been waiting and looking to find a movement that could define a whole new category of athletic wear. Polyester is the past; thriv is the future.”

[Firm] KODA

[Concept] A job-recruiting site with a social networking bent

Jeff Berger had a feeling about online job boards: They’re just too much.

He and Tony York brewed the idea of a more socially oriented approach while classmates at Tulane University. But it wasn’t until Berger moved to San Francisco after graduating that he decided to seriously pursue their dream of changing job recruiting.

It isn’t the first big idea the duo has hatched. The first company they tried to start together was College Mall. The concept was to eliminate the hassle of the back-to-school move by allowing students to order online from a collection of their favorite retailers. The trick was that it would all arrive in one box and be waiting for you in your dorm room when you got to campus.

The business flopped. “In the end, big-box retailers wouldn’t trust two college students to handle their products,” Berger says. “It was a great learning experience, but losing never feels good.”

After that, Berger proved himself a success in real estate, becoming the top-leasing agent at First Choice Realty after leasing nearly $100,000 worth of apartments in only three months.

KODA is something of a conglomeration of Facebook, LinkedIn and Monster. Job seekers complete a resume with a more conversational tone that begins with “Me in Three”—a list of three characteristics that make them unique. They can post multiple photographs of themselves, videos and other collateral materials. In a twist on Facebook, each profile pops up with a list of “Others of Interest,” a selection of job-seekers with similar characteristics. Firms have options, too, that let them offer a clearer picture of corporate culture and work environment than traditional job boards allow.

“KODA is more professional than Facebook but more personal than LinkedIn, letting both sides of the hiring equation get to know each other,” Berger says. “Using a job board is like searching for a needle in a haystack. KODA gives you more needs, less haystack, and we’ve developed proprietary technology that facilitates a smoother recruitment process for both candidates and employers.”

The site launched in May, and to date, there are more than 500 employers on the site and more than 5,000 unique visitors monthly. Katie Del Guercio, director of business development and marketing for KODA, says they’ve sealed deals with Starbucks, Hard Rock Café, Deloitte and Touche, Bechtel and others.

“KODA is much more match.com than e-harmony.com,” Del Guercio says. “We don’t try to make a soul-mate match between the seeker and the employer. That’s not possible, or really very practical. We simply try to match seekers with employers or opportunities that are relevant.”

[Firm] Dukky

[Concept] Unjunk junk mail

What if we could all get only the junk mail we really, really wanted? And what if businesses could reach only those customers who were really, really interested in their product, rather than wasting millions on blind mass mailings?

That’s the concept behind Dukky, which bills itself as the next generation of direct marketing. The firm is creating a buzz in the advertising world by guaranteeing an 8% return in an industry where the standard is 2%. Its ultimate goal is a perfect 100%.

New Orleanian Shawn Burst, who is something of a direct marketing inventor, came up with the idea to marry technology and direct marketing—then named it after his son’s yellow rubber toy.

BMW has already signed on. Dukky sent promotions to 25,000 premium vehicle owners in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area. Those who register online for a test drive get a $25 American Express gas card.

So how is Dukky different from, say, a Valpak?

Here’s how it works: Dukky sends mailers with personalized offer cards. The offer cards carry a unique bar code tied to the retailer’s point-of-sale system, similar to coupons—except these look, feel and work just like gift cards.

Each offer card has a personal URL that takes the recipient online to activate all cards in one simple step. During activation, the recipient indicates which cards they intend to use, which lets the system measure purchase intent.

The user can also share offers via email or post offers on social networks with one click, allowing the offer and message to reach potentially thousands of additional customers. Once logged into Dukky, customers can indicate which retailers they might be interested in. That means future mailings can be targeted only to those who want those particular products.

Retailers track activity in real time on the dashboard, getting feedback on the effectiveness of their campaigns.

“Dukky unites online with the benefits of offline direct mail,” says Scott Couvillon, the firm’s president of marketing and product development. “It’s the best of both worlds.”

[Firm] NAKEDpizza

[Concept] Revolutionize the fast-food industry with a profitable healthy pizza

Robbie Vitrano remembers the first time he saw a NAKEDpizza box. The top of the container in which the pie arrived contained a rather explicit explanation of how food is processed in the lower intestine.

“I couldn’t believe anyone would actually put a diagram about how food makes it to the colon on a pizza box,” recalls Vitrano of Trumpet Group, who has since given the firm some marketing guidance. “I thought, ‘Either they’re geniuses or absolutely insane.”

Maybe a little of both, but it seems to be working for them.

The NAKEDpizza revolution is now set to go national, thanks to an infusion of cash from two high-profile investors: The Kraft Group and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. The goal is to sell 200 NAKEDpizza franchises across the country by the end of the year.

Founder Jeff Leach is what you might call obsessed—really obsessed—with restaurants realizing the error of their ways in serving up toxic food. NAKEDpizza is as much message as it is meal. Franchisees can’t just put up cash. They’ll have to prove their devotion to the cause.

He and his partner, Randy Crochet, set out on a mission to make a healthy pizza in 2006, hoping to prove that America’s favorite fast food can be both nutritional and profitable. Their quest cost them $750,000 in research and failed experiments.

They are perhaps the unlikeliest of crusaders. Leach is an archaeologist; Crochet, a mortgage broker and real estate developer. Neither had any experience as restaurateurs or as marketers.

What first emerged from their collaboration was World’s Healthiest Pizza, which didn’t exactly catch on. Nor did the digestion dissertation on the box. “We didn’t know what we were doing, so we called it just what it was,” Leach says. “People figured it would taste like a twig.”

With some help from Vitrano, the pizzeria became the catchier NAKEDpizza, and immediately became a tech sensation when it erected a billboard outside the shop, advertising its presence [and pizza deals] on Twitter. It was the first brick-and-mortar business to do so. NAKEDpizza now has more than 6,000 Twitter devotees.

So just what makes NAKEDpizza naked? It starts with a 12-grain prebiotic/probiotic crust made without sugar, trans-fats or high-fructose corn syrup.

It’s topped with sugar-free and all-natural red sauce and skim-milk mozzarella or casein-free soy cheese. From there, you can pick your choice of toppings from fauna [pepperoni to alligator], flora [all the usual vegetables] and/or sea creatures [shrimp].

NAKEDpizza’s answer to Cinna Stix is berryNAKED, the prebiotic multi-grain crust covered in cinnamon, yogurt, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and agave nectar.

Kyle Johnston, a Catholic High School and Tulane Law School graduate who is now a corporate attorney for Fenwick & West in California, and his father have secured the rights to NAKEDpizza along the corridor and in Silicon Valley.

He passed by World’s Healthiest Pizza every day as a student at Tulane, and took notice when the pizzeria’s Twitter campaign was featured in TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. Johnston’s firm represents both Facebook and Twitter. Says Johnson: “I think these guys are really on to something.”