June 6, 2025 – When Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO, Inc.) launched the Startup NOLA Now series of monthly meetups in Dec. 2023, it was a strategic move designed to fill a gap. It took the common practice of small, face-to-face meetings between individual entrepreneurs, investors, and businesses and elevated it into something far more impactful by bringing the entire startup ecosystem together each month. This consistent, large-scale forum has created a level of cross-sector collaboration that would not have emerged from isolated conversations alone.
“We didn’t want it to be about GNO, Inc. We knew the startup ecosystem leaders all had to have skin in the game for it to be sustainable in the long term,” said Evie Poitevent Sanders, director of innovation & entrepreneurship at GNO, Inc. “We designed the structure so that each month a different accelerator, higher ed, entrepreneur support org, or investor takes ownership of the event, planning everything including the speakers, the theme and topics. One decided to make it an ecosystem trivia night.”