The reasons people give for starting a business aren’t all that surprising. Financial independence, pursuing personal passions, requiring a flexible schedule, or making a positive impact on the community often top the list. What’s surprising is how many businesses start in garages.

Many of America’s most successful companies, including tech giants Amazon, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft, started in humble garages.  Perhaps the most famous of which is Apple, founded by college dropout Steve Jobs in 1976. Today, Apple is a multinational corporation with annual revenue in 2024 of $391 billion. And the infamous garage on Crist Drive? It’s now listed on the city’s historic properties.  

Blood

Closer to home, David Slaughter stepped away from commercial real estate in 2017 to open Orion Laboratories with his wife Rachel in a 800-square-foot garage office at the back of their home. Today, Orion Laboratories is the largest independent laboratory in Louisiana, processing labs seven days a week for area health systems, independent clinics, urgent care clinics, nursing homes, physician groups and surgery centers, stretching all the way from Baton Rouge to Monroe, and in 2023, David was named Business Report’s Young Businessperson of the Year. 

Oil

Some businesses never get out of the garage. Like Vinnie Carollo’s for example. In Vinnie’s case, though, it’s not because the business failed. In fact, it’s a big success. And it’s still in a garage.

Vinnie Carollo’s fascination with obscure, odd cars began with a Porsche 944 in need of a repair. As he tried to fix the vehicle, his dad joked that he should go to Porsche school to become a technician. Six months later, Vinnie left home to attend 23 weeks of instructor-led, hands-on training. Then, in 2015, after nine years of working at dealerships and servicing Porsches over the weekends in a friend’s car detailing and cleaning shop, Vinnie Carollo started Vex European and Exotic Auto Repair in a 900 square foot garage with one car lift. 

Vinnie quickly outgrew that space and, over the next two years, moved three times, ultimately to his current location on Benefit Drive. This garage is around 20,000 square feet, has 13 car lifts and employs up to 25 people.

The good news about most modern European cars is, when something's wrong you can hook them up to a diagnostic computer and find out pretty quickly what's probably going on. It's not that simple diagnosing human problems. Yet. There's all kinds of talk about futuristic body scanners, but as far as we know that's way off in the future, and till that day arrives diagnostic medical testing as we know it will probably continue.

Vinnie and David are both following a well-worn path taken by generations of entrepreneurs who show ingenuity and perseverance building successful businesses in specialized and essential markets.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by  Ian Ledo and Miranda Albarez at itsbatonrouge.la.

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