From March 9-14, New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (NOEW) — the Gulf South’s premier celebration of entrepreneurship, innovation and business growth — will once again take over the city. Each year, this weeklong experience brings together founders, creatives, investors, students and community builders to celebrate the strength and success of our entrepreneurs.
For this, our annual entrepreneurship issue, Biz New Orleans spoke with five entrepreneurs who will be featured during the Summit at Loyola University on March 12 and 13. Each represents a different sector of the New Orleans economy: hospitality consulting, food/consumer products, health tech, entertainment tech and culture/music, but they all share characteristics that NOEW celebrates: innovation, community focus, growth mindset, and deep roots in New Orleans.
They each demonstrate how entrepreneurs can build successful ventures while maintaining strong connections to the local community and contributing to the city’s diverse economic ecosystem.
Kwame Terra
Founder & CEO, Behr Health Systems
What He’s Doing
Terra has created the only whole-health platform using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to designing precision health solutions for the Black community. To complement his system, in November he opened a coworking wellness health studio on Bayou Road called bEHR Connect.
How It Started
Terra was in the pre-med program at Xavier University on his way to becoming a physician when he began, instead, to become interested in the root causes of the biggest health issues in the Black community — conditions like hypertension, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.”
He knew he wanted to take action.
“My first thought was that we don’t know how bad we’re doing as it relates to our health in the Black community,” he said, “and someone needs to communicate that clearly to us. Sixty percent of health disparities are driven by social determinants of health — education and income levels, access to healthy food, things like that. I didn’t want to just do another workshop or webinar series where you get people excited for a moment and then they fall off once they get back into their normal environments. I wanted to build a system so that when they do fall off, we can re-engage them.”
When Xavier reached out and invited him to become its track and cross-country coach in exchange for covering his costs for its master’s in public health program with a concentration in health equity, Terra happily accepted.
In the program he learned about community-based participatory research.
“In startup language, that’s customer discovery, where you invite the community in as equal partners in the design and development of solutions designed for them instead of just coming up with your own ideas and trying to deploy it on the community,” he explained.
The idea for bEHR (Black Electronic Health Records) was born, and its first users were 50 Xavier students.
The main feature of the app is a health score, like a credit score for your health, which goes up and down depending on your health choices.
“If you go on a run or a walk one day, your score goes up a few points,” explained Terra. “If you get three hours of sleep one night, your score goes down.” The idea is to both educate and encourage healthy choices.
After he received his MPH, Terra started applying to accelerator and incubator programs.
“We participated in probably in 12 or so… probably brought in $250,000 in grants and investments, which allowed us to stay afloat while we were a pre-revenue company.”
Not a tech person himself, Terra attracted the attention of a Swiss technology company called Dacadoo, which invested $50,000 in technology assistance to get the beta app up in 2024.
“We did this major challenge at the beginning of the year in 2024 where we gave away $5,000 to whoever took the most steps on our app during Mardi Gras season,” he said. “It was very successful, and based on the traction, Dacadoo made a $200,000 donation of technology and in-kind contributions to migrate us over to our official app, which happened at the end of the year in 2025.”
How It’s Going
The app is free for the first 30 days, and then it’s $40 for 90 days, or $100 for the year.
“It gets you access to our experience, which is this space, the challenges on the app, the comprehensive health-tracking discounts at different restaurants and juice shops that we partner with throughout the city, and whatever else we add to it over time.”
Terra has been encouraged by its effectiveness thus far.
“There are several people who have walked down or off their medications in a matter of months, just being inspired by other people on our platform,” he said. “In 2024, six people completed 1 million steps in 30 days, all of them losing 20-plus pounds, all of them improving on all their markers.”
Where It’s Going
Right now the focus is on collecting as much data as possible, with the goal of eventually leveraging that data.
“We’re creating the kind of data that you need in order to go and get grants and financial support to change the things that need to change in communities to make them healthier, to improve these neighborhoods…Get sidewalks there if necessary, get a hospital there if necessary — work with the community to solve the problems that are important to them.”
His ultimate vision is to have an integrated health system for the Black community.
“We’ll have a mini clinic in the back of bEHR Connect where people can do maybe rapid screenings, blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, things like that,” he said. “And we’ll connect them with advanced care if needed from there.”
Next up, however, is a month-long movement challenge that starts in April.
“This year, since this is the official launch of bEHR Health; we’re going trying to go to the moon. We’re going to try to cover 239,000 miles as a community in a month, and we need about 2,000 people to join, at least, to make it to work.”
Elizabeth Tilton
Founder & CEO, Oyster Sunday and OS Benefits
What She’s Doing
A veteran of the hospitality industry, Tilton created her own consultant company, Oyster Sunday, in 2019 to help businesses be more successful. It has since served more than 300 businesses across the country. Recognizing that one of the industry’s biggest challenges has been access to affordable healthcare, she launched OS Benefits in 2023, which uses a membership model to allow businesses to join a collective to access ACA-compliant health insurance.
How It Started
From back of house, to the corporate offices of Momofuku, to a culinary design company, Tilton amassed a wealth of experience in different roles in the hospitality industry before striking out on her own with Oyster Sunday in 2019. The company focuses on fractionalizing key leadership roles in hospitality businesses, assisting with finance, operations, HR, marketing and branding.
“I made my first hire in January of 2020 — Jessica Abell, who came from Union Square Hospitality Group out of New York — and we hit the pandemic running,” said Tilton. “We quickly became a pressure cooker for what hospitality businesses really needed. At the beginning, it was finance and HR, then it was digital marketing to get loyalty and CRM development, and then it became creating alternative revenue streams for long term sustainability.”
Oyster Sunday has found quick success and grown via word of mouth.
“We’ve had the pleasure of working with many local businesses — like opening The Chloe New Orleans and The Will & the Way and working with Commander’s Palace — as well as other projects across the country and abroad, including Noma in Copenhagen, which is arguably the No. 1 restaurant in the world.”
Amid growing Oyster Sunday, Tilton realized she was spending ample time trying to support owners and operators with finding medical plans and health insurance to support their teams.
Thus OS Benefits was born, but it has since gone beyond just offering access to insurance; it built technology to administer the plans — normally a PDF-exchanged application process — thus simplifying the process for users.
“We also become the payment processor,” explained Tilton. “We centralized what tends to be three different companies into one.”
How It’s Going
Unsurprisingly, OS Benefits is thriving.
“Currently our insurance is bound in 20 states, and we have thousands of employees in the association and we’re growing quickly,” said Tilton.
The company is now going out for its seed round and Tilton said she’s been amazed by the traction it had in just its first week.
“We’ve decided to go out now, as everything around the health insurance is chaotic and we are well positioned to be prepared for it,” she said.
Where It’s Going
Tilton said OS Benefits is a great example of where she wants to go as an entrepreneur.
“OS Benefits is solving problems,” she said. “It is a solution to a big, big problem that’s causing friction in our industry, and we will continue to [find solutions].”
Both companies have embraced remote working, with the three full-time employees at OS Benefits and five at Oyster Sunday spread across the country. Tilton also frequently uses independent contractors.
Tilton plans to use OS Benefits’ seed round to “invest in people and invest in the company to meet the demand that’s coming at us. The demand right now is far bigger than what we can handle.”
For Oyster Sunday, the focus for the immediate future will be on technology.
“We’ve always been very tech enabled,” she said, “and it’s something that we’re doubling down on in 2026 — thinking through automation and finding efficiency where labor may be lacking in hospitality businesses.”
While she has plans to grow her businesses, she doesn’t see moving either of them.
“My pre seed I raised mostly here, and I did that on purpose to invest in New Orleans,” she said. “I moved down from New York to New Orleans to build my business here because I think that the ecosystem can thrive; going to NOEW and participating is crucial for us to become a true player when a lot of investment is hopefully moving away from the two coasts. I think people are looking for alternative markets, and I think New Orleans can be primed to be one.”
Ryan Chavez
Founder, Imprinted
What He’s Doing
A veteran entertainment entrepreneur, Chavez launched Imprinted in 2022. A venture studio, the company is designed to systematically start other companies within the music and entertainment space. In the past year, Imprinted has launched three startups in the areas of healthcare, workflow improvement and business management.
How It Started
Long Beach, California native Ryan Chavez always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur. According to him, he “just kind of fell into the music industry.”
Throughout college, Chavez managed music venues and promoted events. After graduated, he launched a music venue in Mobile called the Alabama Music Box around 2010, which is still in operation. When some friends who were concert promoters had ambitions to start a music festival, he was asked to join. The result was The Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
After its success, he moved to New Orleans to help the company — HUKA Entertainment — launch other festivals.
In 2015, realizing he wanted work more closely with talent, Chavez launched a talent management firm, The MGMT Partners, and a creative agency, Wrangler Creative.
When the pandemic hit, he pivoted and co-founded a company that repurposed furloughed music industry professionals into frontline workers to help with mass testing sites.
“We were doing the entire state of Alabama, the state of Nevada’s public school system, Maricopa County in Phoenix,” he said. “It enabled our community to be able to make a living during this really scary time.”
When things started opening back up, Chavez was ready for a new challenge. It was then he founded Imprinted, a venture studio to launch startups in the entertainment space.
So far, Imprinted has created three startups. The first, Stagecare, aims to close the health insurance gap in the music industry.
“There’s 2 1/2 million music industry professionals in the U.S., and 1 million of them, 40%, do not have any insurance,” he explained. “Stagecare is a subscription-based supplemental benefit program.
Members who enroll for $75 a month receive $0 co-pays for primary care, mental health therapy and prescriptions with “no eligibility hurdles, no hidden fees and nationwide access.” The company’s website also advertises a 6-minute average wait for telehealth urgent care. Coverage also includes “family, whatever ‘family’ means to you — meaning the creative plus “up to four family members living in the state, defined on your terms.”
Imprinted has also launched a workflow automation platform called Trainable and a company called FASE, which stands for financial administration for sports and entertainment.
“Traditionally artists, music industry professionals, have two options,” explained Chavez. “Option A is they find a business manager if they’re making enough income to warrant one, and that manager is going to essentially offer full-service business management, financial administration for 5% of their gross income. And the other option is they work with a neighborhood CPA or someone who doesn’t necessarily have the nuanced understanding of royalty deals or things of that nature. It’s our argument that there’s a large segment of the industry that needs something in-between.”
FASE is a flat-fee-based system that leverages technology to allow the user to self-serve as much as possible, but get a very real world snapshot of where their businesses are at any given time.
How It’s Going
Chavez said that one of his biggest challenges has been finding people that buy in to Imprinted’s vision and are able to kind of work in a startup environment, but he feels like he’s finally found those people. The company has a core team of seven — two people in New Orleans, where Imprinted is based, with the rest of the team distributed across Mississippi, Mexico, New Jersey, and Brazil. In addition to the core team, they work closely with a broader network of part-time and offshore talent.
“Finding our head of engineering and bringing him on was an absolute game changer for us,” he said. “Until then, it was really difficult to take something from concept to something that’s material. Once we found the right person, we just been flying…”
He said it helps that the people on his team have industry experience and insight.
“We are the target market,” he said. “My partners and I have been in this space for so long and have been so hands-on that we’re keenly aware of all the pain points. Everything starts with, ‘Would I use this? Would we use this? Ultimately, we look for something that is not only applicable but as frictionless as possible, in terms of adoption and truly useful to the end user.
Where It’s Going
Imprinted started with a holding company structure but is currently raising money at the portfolio level to help take their companies to market.
“We’ve been operating in stealth for the past few years, just trying to get things to a place where we could kind of have a coming out party and announce ourselves, announce these companies,” said Chavez. “Now it’s about integrating within the community, networking, letting people know we exist and what we’re working on.”
Robin Barnes
Singer/Songwriter & Founder, Move Ya Brass
What She’s Doing
Branded “the songbird of New Orleans” Robin Barnes is an internationally recognized, Billboard Top 10 charting artist, award-winning contemporary crossover singer and one of New Orleans’ biggest cultural ambassadors. For 12 years she’s also run an organization that provides free community workout classes.
How It Started
Born and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward, Barnes grew up the oldest daughter of seven kids in a family of musicians. Her first solo was at age 6 in church, and she performed in her family’s jazz band. While her siblings all went to school for music, her parents made her study business. After double majoring in marketing and management at UNO, she was pushed again into getting her MBA.
When she finally felt free to get back into performing she wasn’t greeted in the way she had hoped
“I was out on my own now and I quickly realized I wasn’t the band, I wasn’t the brand,” she said. “Everyone was saying, ‘Who are you? Do you have a fan base? What do you have?’”
After going six months without a gig, Barnes got a corporate job but immediately knew it wasn’t a fit. At that point she decided to use her background and education and manage herself.
“One of the first things I did was create a manager. I made an email address and chose the name Mark — a man’s name, a strong name,” she said. “If I reached out to people, I never got a response, but Mark always got a response.”
When she finally got a gig in 2010, she called in all of her family and used Facebook to reach everyone she knew and tell them to come see her perform.
“When I tell you those places were packed for the like, the first three weeks,” she said, “instantly, the venue was like, ‘Let’s renegotiate. Let’s pay you more.’”
Drawn by the crowds, people she didn’t know eventually started attending her shows. Soon she became a headliner at the Hotel Monteleone, and then the Windsor Court.
When the mayor at the time started calling her “the songbird of New Orleans,” she grabbed the opportunity.
“I went, ‘Amazing!’ ‘Trademark!’ and I was able to leverage that title into marketing deals and brand deals.”
During her first international tour, however, Barnes got hit with bad news. She was diagnosed with a rare strain of a kidney infection that left her right kidney permanently damaged.
“So suddenly, at the age of 23, I can’t drink alcohol, I can’t drink caffeine, I was on eight medications, four painkillers and I was walking with a cane.”
Barnes was encouraged to start working out but had no money for a gym. Instead, she reached out again through Facebook, shared her situation, and asked if anyone wanted to come exercise with her.
“And 10 people I never met in my life showed up at City Park at 6 p.m.,” she said.
Realizing the demand for a free, community-centered exercise option, Barnes created Move Ya Brass in 2013. After self-funding the program became too challenging, she decided to start creating custom fitness events.
“Coca-Cola hired us for Essence Fest, companies hire us for corporate wellness, bachelorette parties hire us,” said Barnes, “and the funding from that helps support free community classes.”
How It’s Going
With all her success over the past 15 years one thing Barnes has yet to do is release a debut album.
“Everything has been EPs and singles,” she said. “I have never had a label because I didn’t want to give up my brand, my worth.”
She recorded the album but is still working on the funding to release it, which is set for early May. The album is a love son to her home and family.
“We’re nine generations of Louisianians, and this album goes through the entire lineage, from the all the music of Louisiana, the sounds of Louisiana, not just New Orleans,” she explained. “I’m trying to amplify that through the marketing, but I am up against major labels who have all the money in the world. I have got to be scrappy. I’ve got to figure out pivots. I’ve got to figure out angles.”
She’s also creating a docuseries with the album that she plans to start shopping to investors.
Where It’s Going
“I feel like I’m ready to finally do this album because I have the city behind me,” she said. “I have the people who want to see me win. But I’ve got to show them what this music means. I’ve got to show them what our culture means and how standing behind me is really amplifying the beauty and the love of what we are and why we live where we live, in this amazing city, in this amazing state.”
Briggs Barrios
Owner, Super Witch Ice Cream
What He’s Doing
This small batch, custom ice cream maker has achieved cult status in the past few years. The product is not sold in stores; customers compete to purchase limited stock of craft ice cream for $14 a pint. every Wednesday night at exactly 7 p.m. through the Hot Plate website. Flavors sell out within moments. Lucky winners then must pick up their orders within three days at the company’s kitchen on Jefferson Highway. Super Witch sells more than 1,000 pints a week using this model. In December, the company opened a storefront inside Il Supremo Pizza in Old Metairie that sells soft serve and cookies.
How It Started
A New Orleans native, Briggs Barrios always loved ice cream. So much so that it was more than a treat to him, it was a hobby.
“I had an Instagram account when I lived in Tampa where I would review ice creams,” he said. “I would post pictures of ice cream — anything you can get from the store and even have some shipped from small batch makers from across the country. Those small makers really opened my eyes to what ice cream could be. It could be a lot more than what we get in the grocery store.”
Working as a stock and then commodities trader, Barrios said he never had an interest in making ice cream himself until he joined his family on a trip to Fort Walton Beach and visited Pink Coyote Dessert Co.
“I had a blueberry Biscoff flavor and a cookie monster flavor and that was it,” he said. “I ordered eight books on how to make ice cream from Amazon on our way back to the condo. I made my first ice cream that week and immediately I thought, ‘I love this. I need to do this.’”
Drawing on his longtime four-to-five-pints a week habit, Barrios soon began creating his own recipes, as well as his own inclusions (ingredients mixed in to increase flavor and texture).
“For a year it was a seven-days-a-week passion project,” he said. “I would work all day at my job and then come home and make ice cream from like 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., and then on weekends from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.”
Finally, Barrios made the leap — he quit his job and signed a five-year lease on a 1,200-square-foot space in a strip mall on Jefferson Highway that serves as his commissary kitchen and pickup space.
“We opened in June 2023, and it was just me for the first nine months, seven days a week, working like 80-to-90-hour weeks, hand-packing every single pint, making all the inclusions.”
All of Super Witch’s marketing has been through social media and word of mouth.
“Everyone I’d see I’d say, ‘Hey, have y’all tried the ice cream?’” said Barrios. “In fact, one of my best friends in the world now is from one of those early relationships — Jason Gonzalez with Gonzo’s SmokeHouse. I loved his craft barbecue and so I made him some ice cream. We ended up doing some collaborations.”
How It’s Going
Super Witch hired its first employee in October 2024 and now, combined with its new soft-serve location in Old Metairie, has 10 employees and is looking to hire more.
“We’ve been busting at the seams for about a year now,” said Barrios. “We’re really at an inflection point right now where we’re trying to look for a bigger space that is a little bit more accessible for people.”
Never content with his product, Barrios said he regularly makes incremental improvements.
“We changed the ice cream base recipe last week,” he said. “We probably did that 20 times last year.”
Where It’s Going
“Success for me I don’t think it’s going to be counted in opening a new location or growing the business to a certain revenue number,” he said. “I think success is based on how positively we can impact and give back to the community. It’s making sure that my employees are always treated well, number one, and number two, that our customers feel like they’re seen and they’re connected with us, and, of course, to make the best ice cream in the country.”
