Special to
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — Local business men and women are investing one of their most valuable resources in the students of the Yong Entrepreneur Academy: time.

Once the students get the ball rolling on their ideas, students are paired with an appropriate business mentor. Through personal mentorship, the students further shape their concept, write a business plan, identify their target audience and provide all around support.

Some of the mentors have been with River Region Chamber of Commerce YEA! program since its inception in 2012.

This year’s mentors range from the Sr. Account Executive of Cox Business to the owner of Spuddy’s Cajun Foods. YEA! mentors for the 2014-2015 class are Wayne Aucoin, Kendall Bailey, Donna Colwart, Lauri Daunoy, Maitland “Spuddy” Faucheux, Rhonda Louque and Troy Roussel.

Mentors work with the student’s business while building relationships with the students.

“These young adults are focused and have such tenacity and excitement for their businesses,” Daunoy said. “Mentoring allows me to help them better understand the general dynamics of business, generate ideas for marketing, governing their budgets and realizing a complete business model. I feel like a proud mother seeing her children succeed.”

Working with business mentors allows the students to gain practical advice through experienced professionals.

“Mentoring my business student is helping him to narrow his business to doing one or two things and define his target market,” Faucheux said. “It’s easy to take the shotgun approach when planning a business, to target everyone and do a little of everything. This is a formula for burnout, over commitment and being good at a lot of things, and great at nothing. Become great at one or two things, generate revenue and in the future hire people to help grow your company to do other things.”

During the course of the nine-month program, more than 15 local businesses become involved with YEA! at various levels. From helping teach the basics of business to inviting students to tour their companies, volunteers participate in a variety of capacities.

Students work in close cooperation with local business leaders, community leaders and educators who use their personal experiences to demonstrate how to develop ideas and objectives, pitch potential investors, obtain funding, register with governmental agencies, establish e-commerce and a web presence, and much more.

By the end of the class, students own and operate fully-formed and functioning businesses, which they can carry out after their graduation from the program.