♪ >> they are passionate. >> i'm kyle burner, i'm the creator and ceo of feel good flip-flops. >> they are committed. >> the name of my company is liamolly. >> they are visionary. >> nim nick perkins. >> five years after the devastation from hurricane katrina new orleans is experiencing a renaissance and small business owners are leading the way. >> new orleans is becoming this national laboratory of the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders. >> it's created an energying synergy of committed natives as well as the very enterprising newcomers. >> those that stayed in new orleans, like matt from turbo squid and ken from iseatz were pioneers. >> it made it feel like we were rebuilding something from the ground up.

>> when everyone else was fleeing and businesses were closing left and right and the news was piling on about who's leaving town next, i said you know, i'm going to do something right. this is an opportunity for me to take a gamble. but for me to do something i believe in. >> and today, while other cities are struggling to stay afloat in this tough economy, new orleans has been growing, thanks to a low cost of living, generous tax credits and a rich culture. >> you can start a business for 30% to 40% less than new york or san francisco, so why offshore when you can offshore to new orleans. you can come here and do it better, cheaper than almost anywhere in the country. >> there are exciting film-related tax credits available and the credits are second to none. >> plaxt is now number three in the united states in film

production. >> at the epicenter of all of this entrepreneurial activity is the i.p. building. entrepreneur's row and the ice house. inspired by silicon alley in new york, they have innovative companies >> we're in the i.p. building. you have a community of entrepreneurs that have moved into this building in the last year from the fastest growing companies to feel goods. with this board represents is the entrepreneurial community within new orleans and it's one of the few innovative hubs sprouting up. >> there is a natural business network developing. it requires nothing but putting like-minded people together and letting them do what comes naturally. >> kyle and craig met at the i.p. building and found that they could collaborate on space. >> we're shipping out

margaritas. why not add flip-flops. the joint venture was formed and we're shipping out flip-flops. >> the desire to help rebuild new orleans was so strong she left her job in new york as a sweater designer to follow her dream of starting her own clothing company. >> the enthusiasm for a new business here is incredible. they rolled out the red carpet for us, you know. and was like whatever we can do to have you succeed we want you to succeed. >> the momentum the city felt when the new orleans saints won in the 2010 super bowl became a symbol of the city's amazing comeback. >> had incredible meaning that the saints won. we fixed so many problems and changed so many things that had been wrong. it felt like we had a victory i didn't expect to see in lie life. >> new orleans is on the rise, a recession-proof haven eager to support entrepreneurs. >> new orleans is my huge

business partner. it's on the label and it will stay on the label. business partners invest in your business and new orleans invests in my business. both people on the street, in the community, my friends, the businesses here. i mean, they want me to succeed. and you know, and in ways that are beyond just capital investments. >> when you live here you feel as though you're living part of history. you're part of something that history will look back and say this was the moment when new orleans turned around. these inspiring entrepreneurs in new orleans prove once again that resiliency is essential for small business success. let's turn to this week's board of directors. riva is ceo of a company that helps companies. she is also a columnist.

and lonny is the president and ceo of landmark technology. great to see both of you. >> good to see you. >> i love that story. it reminds me in some ways of when i was working for a small company in 1998 and i would take the plane from los angeles to san francisco back and forth and all of us were in small entrepreneurial companies. there was this excitement that was palpable. >> you feel like you're part of something and your activities make a big impact on the outcome of the company so it's special to be part of a small business. >> it's being present at the rebirth. it's like the 90s where all of a sudden the dotcom boom so. you know that new orleans is going to come back. everybody in america is invested in it. even before katrina it has been the legendary city so i think there is going to be a huge boom and they're going to build businesses and people are going to flock to the city. >> how helpful is. truly helpful, beyond just kind of hey, this is fun, to be

around an environment where there's a lot of entrepreneurial activity? >> i think that's one of the things that we lost in the last 10 years. in the '90s there were incubators. it was a place the sba was running some. here is this guy packing his flip-flops with the margaritas. i'm thinking wait, you could have a margarita parties complete with the flip-flops. there are so many possibilities you wonder why there aren't more today. i think one idea breeds another. >> new orleans clearly the city's doing a lot, giving tax breaks, doing all kinds of things. you can create this in other cities. >> it's important, small business have been the ones that can make decisions. they flourished in new orleans rather than large companies because they are able to make decisions as long as they have access to capital, they are able to grow and build their companies. >> for somebody who is not going to pick up and move to new

orleans, in new york they have some office spaces where it's just for entrepreneurs and you go in. >> you know what part is, the governments of the cities. entrepreneurs can do it and will do it. it's like loni said. they are the ones who are going to be out there and create that. but they need support from city government, state government, local government if it's not a city or a town, to help them to make it attractive, to not just offer the tax breaks and incentives to the big companies but to the smaller ones or the people who want to serve the smaller ones. >> and access to capital. that's probably the biggest thing for small business owners is have access to capital. >> you work with the sba to try to give them advice. as somebody in a city that's not new orleans what do you do if you are trying to ask for these? >> it's important to establish a good relationship with your local bank. for smaller businesses it's i found it's better to have a relationship with community banks or regional banks, maybe not the big five. you get the personal attention,

they understand the needs of your company more. also i recommend getting to know the small business administration's programs. they have programs where they guarantee and back your loans with partnering banks. >> well, this is a really fun piece to watch and talk about. and certainly a good commercial if you're an entrepreneur to go down to new orleans. >> we all want to go now. >> thanks so much. it generally takes a lot of time and often a lot of money to build a brand. but what if you could start manufacturing and sellinging? that was popular? for a family in boston discovering a trademark led to the birth of a small business and the rebirth of a classic toy. for millions of kids growing up in the 1960s, this was the present they dreamed of opening. >> i was 5, i got my first set. i played with it quite a bit. i was playing with it on the wood floors and up in the second floor of our house. i had a lot of room to build.

i built roads and bridges with that. >> nearly 50 years later when paul and carol were searching for a christmas gift for their son, paul thought about buying him his favorite childhood toy. >> paul senior looked at me. he said you know, i had this toy when i was a kid called girder and panel. i don't think it's manufactured. i vnlts seep it since i was a boy. >> girder and panel was a construction set that had budding engineers assembling miniature buildings and bridges, but when kenner stopped manufacturing it in the 1970s the set disappeared off the toy store shelves. >> i went on ebay and found a vintage set. and ordered it. and thought oh, this will be fun. i'll give it to paul sr. for christmas. it came. i looked at it. it's like this sinlts going to be for christmas. so i got it out, we set it up on the dining room table. i took a look and i was like this is the coolest toy i've

ever seen. >> a successful corporate executive with degrees in chemical engineering and business, carol was so excited by the vintage girder and panel set she had a hunch there might be a market for it. when carol looked into the status of the trademarks in 2003, she was shocked to find they were free and clear. >> the trademarks had been released to the public due main in the summer of 2002, and so i went to my husband again, you know, i said oh, all the trademarks are available. >> they had stumbled upon a potential gold mine in the competitive toy business. >> trademarks, intellectual property is everything in the toy industry. so when toy executives when i meet them at toy fair and industry events and they look at me like, who are you paying a license fee to to use girder and panel i told them the story their jaws drop. they are like oh, my god, how did you do that? >> armed with an intellectual

property lawyer, the couple filed an application for the girder and panel trademark and set up their business, bridgestreet toys, out of their suburban boston home. >> as soon as you apply for the trademark, you're entitled to use the tm. once you go through the entire process and it's done you use the little r with the circle called registered. that means it's now complete. >> with the old kenner designs long gone, paul was in charge of producing the new sets from scratch. >> reverse engineer them and look at the literature and what could be built with it and what parts should we do first. >> bridgestreet toys have carved out a niche in the toy industry based on their brand name. but they are quickly winning over a new generation of architects and engineer who is love the retro product all over again. >> i love the hydrodam. there is so much you can do. and it's water, you know.

water is fun. memorial day is a few weeks away and that means it's time to start thinking about your summer reading list. here are five books on entrepreneurship to read when you're at the beach courtesy of the small business blog. anatomy of buzz revisited provides case studies how to market business through the power of word of mouth. "career renegade" how people can set out on their own. for the young, "upstarts" is a look at how ceos have achieved success in business. chris anderson's "free" presents a unique perspective on pricing in the online marketplace. and "bam" argues against some of the time honored customer service mantras and new methods

of managing customer relationships. still to come, how to run a small business from your home without feeling isolated and out of touch. it's been a very good year for wine entrepreneur gary. he gives us vintage business advice. i own a small law firm and i'm a much better lawyer than i am an accountant. so, when i wasn't getting paid as quickly as i would like, i did what came naturally. i threatened to sue. turns out, that's not the best way to keep clients. so i went looking for answers online at openforum.com it's a place where i can talk with other small business owners like thomas and connie and learn about tools like acceptpay. it's a new way to bill online that can help me get paid much faster, without the need for any legal intimidation,

which gives me a warm fuzzy feeling... sort of like these super comfortable socks made from the soft, supple wool of alpacas. looking good. thank you. owners are asking questions. owners are getting answers. and american express open is building the tools they need. tools like acceptpay, which lets owners take their accounts receivable online. acceptpay. invoice digitally. get paid faster. only from american express open. branding and a good bottle of wine. those are two things that may come to ninld when you talk about entrepreneur gary baynercheck. the owner of the wine library and the front man on wine library tv has developed the following online and in his

store. now with his speaking engagements and a book he aspires to inspire other entrepreneurs. >> i think passion is everything for one reason. if skill was always the winning formula, the number one pick in every draft, you know, the kids that graduate from harvard and stanford would always win. when you really love something it allows you the opportunity to work the hours i think that are needed to have success. whether it's hiking or yoga, if you're wrapping a business, creating content around the thing you love the most you're going to naturally flow into a better success level. maybe if you didn't watch an hour of lost, an hour of gossip girl and played two hours of nintendo and got a beer with the

guys or went shopping in the mall for an hour, i think there's a lot more time to work than people realize. i think what really excites me is how practical it is to build a business. you can work your 9 to 5, you know, spend a couple hours with family and from 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 in the morning that's time to do damage. i don't think people are willing to put in the commitment. building your personal brand right now is the true goldrush land grab opportunity for most small businesses. whether you're a lawyer or in landscaping or have a flower shop, not creating content around your personal sbrand a huge missed opportunity. look at myself. i grew up in the wine business. i did a wine show. i built a personal brand. now i talk about business and marketing and branding and web 2-0. a lot of my fan base followed because it was my personal brand. i think there's a lot to learn through that for a lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses.

i'm a storyteller. i like to get excited and that. transparency is here. it's here. everything i say, not only interviews like this for television but every video blog, every tweet is looked at. this is being documented forever, easily searchable, and so it is more important than ever to be stand up, to do the right thing because every consumer has a voice now. you come last, that was a pretty big statement. i got lucky being an immigrant, in a small family business. i understood customer service and take care of the customer first. that's been a very big backbone of all of my success from the store to the show to everything else. it's really my most cardinal rule of all time. if you're not taking care of the people around you and so many small businesses don't, so many of them don't, they don't view that top second, third, fourth people valuable enough. that's why they have rotation,

they don't build a family. to me all i want to do when i hire somebody i like is to keep them forever. it's time now to answer some of your business questions. rieva and lani are back with us again. the first is an e-mail from jason and he writes, i want to look for an investor for my business but i don't want to give up vital information. i'm worried that such information could jeopardize the integrity of my company. so what does he do? >> well, i think he has to get in touch with his organ god has given everyone and that's his gut. it's important to do that gut check and know that you're going to enter into a relationship with someone that you trust and then after you do that, you get that good sense that this might be a good person to talk to. i would then carefully screen that person and get an nda in place, a nondisclosure agreement, but have a lawyer look over it.

and once you do that, just check the references of that person to make sure they are what they say they are. >> it is interesting, though. you have to give a little before you can even get somebody to sign an nda. i'm wary of signing anything like that. how do you know? >> i think lani is right. you have to check your gut. i would check references first. ask them for who have you dealt with and check those people and, you know, google the person. search. everybody's information is online today and the thing is you're not going -- at some point you're going to have to spill. you want this person to invest money, you don't get to keep all your information to yourself. reality says you need to make sure that person is the one that feels good to you. >> this comes from the owner of a company that offers cooking classes. >> i use facebook, twitter and flickr. we also have a blog. what is the best way to measure

my return on investment using those sites? >> so, rieva, you're about to host a panel on social networking. you're the person to answer this. >> it's really difficult to do an exact roi on this particularly some people say look at your analytics. if you're trying to drive them to your blog, are they coming from facebook or twitter. most people use a third-party app so it comes to your blog and you don't know twitter september them there. so you can't be so reliant on those tools. a lot of that is gut feel. you know when you've gone out there and spread the word on twitter or said something on facebook and you can see within the next couple of days, was there a big surge of traffic to your blog and then are you convert iing that? she is not a writer. her goal is not to get people to read her blog, it's to get people to spend money on her cooking school. so you have to see how much money you're making from that. >> it's important to also think about what it is you want from those sites. those sites can serve very different purposes. are you using those sites to

generate revenue? is it an awareness campaign? are you trying to communicate with your audience. it's important to think about what it is you want to use those sites for. >> that's so true. anytime you do any kind of analysis, first figure out what is your end goal and then move backwards to see if it's working or not. good idea. now to the next question from esther. my payroll service made a mistake and forgot to charge one of my employees her share of her health care costs for two months. should i just eat that cost or make her pay my company back? this is from a friend of mine so i'd love to hear. >> i have a general rule of really trying to treat every employee equally and if we're talking two months i think it's a good idea to make them pay it back but set up an installment payment that goes out over a couple of months so they're not zapped with the next paycheck. but -- and if it's a higher level, maybe just deduct it from their bonus.

especially if it's just two months to have them pay it back. >> i agree. it sounds very nice and she sounds like there's somebody that i would be in with, need to help my employee. you can't do that. i like what lani said, make it easy for them in case they have spent the money. >> my first feeling was, well, if this person doesn't make that much money -- in this case i know they don't -- they're living hand to mouth, they're not going of the money stored up. i like your idea of installments. this is a question from a woman who makes pottery. >> how to keep your employees on track with like staying busy and setting time limits for projects that need to be done. >> being a good manager. >> it is being a good manager. if her employees aren't on track and she's worried about them getting their stuff done, one, does she need full-time employees? maybe she has more people than she needs, maybe as part time, maybe as contract work.

and, two, part of being a entrepreneur, your tendency is to micro-manage. i think it's better -- give somebody their task, their job, their deadline and then let them do it. >> one of my favorite sayings is never mistake emotion for progress. i'm about the productivity not about keeping someone busy. it's important to make sure you map out tasks for your employees. talk about how much time it's going to take. set the milestone. set the deadline and work towards that deadline. >> i think that's the point. give them a deadline and check in with them after it's done. did it take a lot of time? did it not? so you get a sense of how to set the dead lines going forward. >> right. but it's really a lot of surveys have said from employees is trust me. especially if you've been there a while. trust me that i'm going to get my job done and stop pestering me like, are you doing it? are you doing it? then you feel like, you don't trust me, i'm going to look for a new job.

>> let's move into the last one. this is an e-mail from barbara about having a home office. the question is, how does one beat the isolation blues of working alone at home on a startup company? sharing space with another company would mean rent, insurance, liability, et cetera, and so i must find a way to work at home. it's hard. i worked from home for a little while and i swear it would be 5:00 and i'd realize i was still in my pajamas. >> i guess the question is more about saving money rather than being lonely. i'll approach it from the monetary savings standpoint. you can join several organizations, get involved with the local chamber of commerce, any trade organizations, that will keep you current. also just interact with your peers or mentors that are in your industry and that should help keep you from being so isolated. >> two things, though. she could see if she can barter some space. that's what we do. we have a nice space in a nice building and we don't pay any rent. we just do some pr work and some

writing for this company and -- >> great. >> yeah, so that's really -- or look into one of these office suites or these office buildings where you're not really on tap for the insurance because the building is insured. you may have to pay rent but rieva has some deals as little as $200 a month. >> at the very least make a lunch plan. four times a week get out of the house and have interaction with somebo somebody. >> you have to go out. >> thanks so much for office advice. it was helpful. any of you out there, if you have a question for our experts, all you have to do is go to our website. the address is openforum.com/yourbusiness. there just hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. again, the website is openforum.com/yourbusiness or if you'd like e-mail us your question or comment. that address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. are you tired of creating that same old power point presentation? if so, you might want to check

out our website of the week. prezi.com provides a new spin on the time honored tradition of next slide, please, presentations. users can create a story on a blank canvas and then add eye catching zooms and pans to move between talking points. presentations can can be worked on collaboratively or offline. the site offers a free account to test out the service. to learn more about today's show, just click on our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segments plus web exclusive content with more information to help you grow your business. next week meet one of the new entrepreneurs who found his secret to success on line. >> there are lots of ways to make money from a blog and often they're not tied directly to the blog itself. >> from making tiny houses to making a big profit from blogging, we'll find out how to make it work. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg and, remember, we make your business our business.

i own a small law firm and i'm a much better lawyer than i am an accountant. so, when i wasn't getting paid as quickly as i would like, i did what came naturally. i threatened to sue. turns out, that's not the best way to keep clients. so i went looking for answers online at openforum.com it's a place where i can talk with other small business owners like thomas and connie and learn about tools like acceptpay. it's a new way to bill online that can help me get paid much faster, without the need for any legal intimidation, which gives me a warm fuzzy feeling... sort of like these super comfortable socks made from the soft, supple wool of alpacas. looking good. thank you. owners are asking questions. owners are getting answers. and american express open

is building the tools they need. tools like acceptpay, which lets owners take their accounts receivable online. acceptpay. invoice digitally. get paid faster. only from american express open. new this morning, a new setback in the struggle to contain the oil leak in the gulf of mexico. who will he choose in the next 24 hours we could find out who president obama wants as his next supreme court nominee. the volcano in iceland rears its ugly head again. the plume of ash closes down more airports. plus -- >> the campaign to get me to host "saturday night live." i didn't know what facebook was. and now that i do know what it is, i have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time. >> "golden girl" betty white

shining brightly on "saturday night live." hello, everyone. i'm alex witt and welcome to "msnbc sunday" and a happy mother's day to all of you moms out there. developing right now a setback as crews scramble to stop the massive oil leak in the gulf of mexico. the effort to siphon oil from the gushing well by using a 100-ton steel and concrete containment box has hit a roadblock. a coast guard official says clumps of tar believed to be from the oil spill are now washing up on the shores of dauphin island in alabama. more on this from kristen dahlgren. with a good morning, what is this new problem now hindering all the containment efforts? >> reporter: hey there, alex. they dropped that containment box down on top of the leak and what happened was what they were afraid of, that at that level in those chilly waters ice began to form, a slushy mix, and that floated to the top of the box.