A Life of Service and Startups Across Louisiana Cities

A O F A N D S TA R L | Rob Gaudet, Startups

Louisiana has never just been where I’m from — it’s the foundation of everything I’ve built, learned, and given back. From the moss-draped oaks of Lake Charles to the startup community in New Orleans, each city I’ve called home has shaped not just my entrepreneurial journey, but my lifelong mission to serve the people around me. Lake Charles: Humble Beginnings

I was born in Lake Charles and spent my early years there until 1983. Even as a young boy, I found purpose in work. Delivering newspapers and cutting lawns across Oak Park taught me that service often starts small — with consistency, care, and community. These early experiences laid the groundwork for a life centered around building things that help others. Lafayette: Building with Code and Community In high school in Lafayette, I wrote my first lines of code in 1987 — launching what would become a lifelong passion. I started LouisianaCajun.com and later Valuebin.com, early online ventures rooted in local culture and commerce. For the past few years, Lafayette has also served as home base for my nonprofit operations, including our warehouse and dedicated team. The city remains a cornerstone of my efforts to connect tech with tangible, on-the-ground impact. Shreveport-Bossier: Capital, Coworking, and Civic Platforms From 2001 to 2013, I lived in the Shreveport-Bossier area, where I raised my first capital for a startup — Flyplyst, a social restaurant app focused on “places you love with people

you like.” I also launched HashParade, an innovative platform that aggregated hashtag- driven content and displayed it on business TVs. In 2012, I became an original member of Cohab, one of Louisiana’s early coworking spaces, and found a vibrant community of builders and thinkers. That period also marked my involvement in civic technology and national movements. As a co-founder of the national movement Tea Party Patriots, I helped design and scale the platform and social media systems that catalyzed one of the largest grassroots political movements in modern American history. Though my focus today is squarely nonpartisan and civic-minded, the experience deepened my understanding of how platforms can mobilize people for collective action.

In 2006, I was honored to contribute to the creation of Microsoft’s .NET Architecture Certification Exams — tools still used by developers worldwide to prove their expertise in C#. And in 2011 and 2012, I won startup pitch competitions at Louisiana Tech and a Startup Weekend in Alexandria, milestones that helped secure Flyplyst’s first outside investment. Baton Rouge: Restaurants, Resilience, and Real Work I arrived in Baton Rouge in 1988, working in the restaurant industry — from a young manager at 21 to becoming General Manager at Ryan’s Steakhouse on Perkins Road by age 24. That experience was foundational in building team leadership and customer service instincts that would follow me everywhere. Later, I launched Boatworkers.com, a jobs platform that connected maritime employers with skilled workers — a reflection of my desire to build tools that serve overlooked communities. In the aftermath of the destructive 2016 floods, I was honored to be asked to be a host of Mutant Weather, a TV show that explored climate disruption and community preparedness. That same year, I was deeply humbled to be recognized as 2016 Louisianian of the Year for my work founding the Cajun Navy and helping coordinate civilian disaster response. New Orleans: Web3, Mentorship, and Momentum New Orleans has become a recent chapter in my ongoing journey. I created the Bayou Peeps NFT collection as a tribute to Louisiana culture through digital art. I'm also a lifetime member of The Nieux Society, a local Web3 collective, and now proudly serve as co-director of Startup Grind New Orleans, where I mentor early-stage founders and help foster a stronger, more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem. All Along the Way: Family, Service, and Stewardship

Throughout all these ventures, I’ve kept a full-time job, continuously self-teaching code and systems design. But the roles I’m most proud of remain rooted in family and service. I coached my son's soccer team for over a decade and walked alongside him in his scouting journey from Tiger Cub to Eagle Scout. In 2001, I built a web platform for Bossier Parish schools, giving every teacher and school a digital space to share grades, uniforms, and resources — a small but meaningful effort in the age before EdTech was mainstream. I've spoken at places I never dreamed of — including a keynote at the National Association of Attorneys General in DC 2019 (at the request of now-Governor Jeff Landry), and a lecture at Wharton in Philadelphia — but each opportunity is less about prestige and more about sharing what I’ve learned from failure, humility, and persistence. In 2019, I won a national pitch competition at Walmart headquarters for Stability.org, my current bootstrapped civic tech venture focused on transforming disaster response, verification, and trust into a daily-use public safety layer. It’s a culmination of everything I’ve done — merging community-powered platforms, verified assistance, and resilience into something that I hope will continue to serve people when they need it most. Final Thoughts: A Life of Service Is the Ultimate Startup

Entrepreneurship, for me, has never been about the spotlight. It’s about building what doesn’t yet exist, because people need it. Whether it's connecting job seekers to maritime work, aggregating hashtags for small businesses, or scaling disaster response through technology — each project is grounded in a sense of responsibility to the people of Louisiana and beyond. I’ve been lucky to live, work, and serve across nearly every region of this state. Each city has taught me something new — about humility, hustle, hospitality, and hope. And I’m not done yet. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: when you commit to building for others first, opportunity will always find its way back to you.