Ecommerce and Online Marketing

In our recent business leader meeting with Thomas Mason, and Economics and Engineering Management professor at Rose Hulman, he made the point that any employee should always be trying to "Think like an Entrepreneur."  Now that doesn't mean that every employee should aspire to be an entrepreneur, or that employees should be thinking about starting new businesses while they're working for their current company.  What it means is that, as an employee, you should constantly be thinking of better ways to do things in your current company, and thinking of new business opportunities for your employer.  These new ideas don't have to be world-changing, million dollar ideas, but rather small innovations that get things moving the right way. 

I'd venture to guess that most employees at entry-level jobs in Indiana do not have this mindset.  But when you're working with high growth start-ups "thinking like an entrepreneur" is practically required.  A lot of the companies that are part of the Orr Fellowship are small, entrepreneurial companies in Indianapolis.  They don't all have a full marketing or finance department.  These companies need Orr Fellows to come up with unique ideas to help build their business.

How can you be "thinking like an entrepreneur?" 

Are there certain things that are done at your company every week just because "that's the way they're always been done?" If they no longer make sense maybe it's time to make a change.

Do you have a perspective from a previous internship or organization that no one in your current company has?

Maybe there peripheral activities that are outside the responsibility of your everyday job that you can address.  Starting a recycling program or fitness routine could make a bigger impact than you think.

There are countless ideas just waiting to be taken.  Are you thinking like an entrepreneur?

I'm currently an Orr Fellow at Sigma Micro which is an ecommerce software company.  Our core busines is to sell software to small to medium sized businesses (usually they already have a physical store or catalog) so that they can start selling their products online.  We also operate a few of our own websites with our system, and one of those is a clearance website called Last and Final.  One of my responsibilities here, along with two former Orr Fellows who have stayed with the company, is to handle all the online marketing for our website.

You may have noticed that the Monday after Thanksgiving, which is now known as Cyber Monday, is a pretty big day for retailers alll around the country. Personally, I think it's much better than Black Friday because you don't have to deal with stuff like this.



I know I had a slew of emails from companies like Apple, Best Buy, etc. about their big deals.  We didn't want to be left in the dust so we planned a big promotion of our own.  I'll be short on the details, but the basic premise was that we were selling a very limited supply of Nintendo Wii's for a ridiculously good price...much lower than you could find anywhere else.

We promoted our plan quite a bit in our email newsletter and even got picked up by a few of the major "deals" sites.  We made sure our website hosting was ramped up so that we could handle a big traffic spike...and then got ready for the big moment when we released the Wii's to our website at 12pm on Monday.

It wasn't a pretty sight (or site) when we realized that our server was down, and we couldn't access the website at all.  Our customers of course were experiencing the same problems, and the site kept going up and down as they were hitting refresh and trying to put the Wii in their shopping cart to check out.  Eventually people were able to get through the checkout process...the only problem was that the server issues completely threw our backend system out of whack and it took orders for a lot more Wii's than we actually had.  We were pretty happy about the buzz we generated about our site, but now we had quite a few angry customers that weren't going to receive what they thought they ordered.



Anyways, the reason I'm telling this story is that it got me thinking that this episode is a lot like the Orr Fellowship.  Now, before you start thinking "Oh my gosh, the Orr Fellowship sounds terrible" let me explain what came of the Cyber Monday experience.

First, we gathered a lot of valuable data about our ecommerce system.  We figured out a better way to do the inventory check process.  We also realized that our server was able to handle that many people on the site, but not that many people on the same page trying to check out the same item.  We also got confirmation that our marketing tactics were pretty effective...enough to nearly crash the website.  Sure we had some angry customers, but this gave us a chance to reach out to them personally and extend gift cards for their troubles.

As an Orr Fellow you're constantly going to get the kind of invaluable learning experience that we got from our promotion.  When you work for entrepreneurial companies in Indianapolis, or any high growth start-ups for that matter you're going to go through a lot of trial and error.  None of us here at Sigma had ever run a Cyber Monday promotion before so it's not like there was a 100 page manual on how to do it right.  When you're part of an entrepreneurial fellowship, you're going to be put on projects that might feel uncomfortable because you don't know what you're doing.  You might even be put on projects that you're not interested in or that you don't think you'll be good at.  In these kinds of situations, everyone is going to make mistakes (just like we did by making some of our customers angry).  But mistakes are often going to teach you a lot more than success.  The fast growing companies that host Orr Fellows know that we're going to make mistakes. 

What you learn in this trial and error atmosphere is going to make you that much better off for the rest of your career.  We will definitely be prepared for Cyber Monday next year, and I know I'll be more prepared to take on even bigger projects through more lessons like this.

As we near Finalist Day when the class of 2010 Orr Fellows will make their decisions on whether to accept an offer to join the Fellowship, I think it's worth looking at who the Orr Fellowship is for.  Working with high growth start-ups takes a certain kind of person, and it's certainly not for everyone.  Here are a few characteristics that you might want to keep in mind.

The Orr Fellowship might be a good fit if you…

- Are graduating from an Indiana college or you’re originally from Indiana, and you have a strong GPA (preferably 3.5 and above)

- Enjoy working with smaller companies where everything is usually fast paced and everyone has to be willing to help out on various projects and different functional areas like marketing, finance, etc.

- Are someone that is eager to take initiative and make things happen rather than waiting to be told what job you need to do everyday

- Are interested in working in a variety of different roles.  Many Orr Fellows rotate through different departments or work for a company that’s small enough to require every employee to be multi-dimensional.

- Would like to have a network of like-minded peers that you can work on potential business ideas with and get together socially

- Want to work for a fast growing Indianapolis company, and have the ability to get to know executives from other high growth start-ups

- Want to define your own career path by taking on big responsibilities in a small company rather than being a number in an entry level program at a large corporation

The Orr Fellowship might NOT be the right program if you…

- Are hoping to travel and have opportunities to work abroad right away.  Although many Orr Fellows will have the opportunity to take smaller trips through the course of their job, the program is not designed to be travel intensive

- Need a boss to tell you exactly what to do every day.  The most successful Orr Fellows are the ones who take initiative and execute beyond what they’re expected to do

- Expect to be in charge of the most important projects from Day 1.  As an Orr Fellow you will likely have some less than glamorous projects at some point.  However, they’re only opportunities to over deliver and build your reputation so that you can lead major projects in the future

- Base your job search on finding the highest possible starting salary.  If you make it through the Orr Fellowship recruiting process you can find a better paying entry level job in Indiana or elsewhere.  The Orr Fellowship is not for people who are looking for the money now, but for students that are more interested in learning, establishing a network, and getting a great experience so they can advance their careers more quickly in the long term.

This is not a comprehensive list of characteristics that define the Orr Fellowship.  Hopefully it does give you at least a slightly better idea about whether or not the program is right for you.   Among business jobs in Indianapolis, the Orr Fellowship may be one of the best opportunities for college graduates.