Fast Growing Indianapolis Companies

Interested in a Career in Business? Then Get to Work!

Friday, February 5, 2010 by Natalie Ciambrone

A struggle for many college undergraduates is deciding between going to work and getting more education after graduation. No matter your personal opinions, this article from CareerRealism.com gives some pretty convincing statistics about why you should invest in your career early – and helped me reaffirm my decision to take the leap and accept my entry level marketing job with WebLink International.

And as though that article wasn’t enough, last night at our Business Leader Meeting, Lorraine Ball of RoundPeg reiterated the point of investing in your career before going to graduate school. The main reason: If you go directly into an MBA program, you have little real-world business experiences from which to draw. Lorraine shared how much more value she got out of graduate school because she worked for a few years between her degrees. Especially in times of 10%+ unemployment rates it’s easy to play it safe, go back to school, and hope things are better when you are ready to enter the workforce; but, as J.D. O’Donnell says in his article, “I wish [students] could talk with all the unemployed MBAs out there right now who are knee-deep in loan debt.”

Joining the Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship is a great way to invest in your career early. The jobs with the Fellowship’s host companies provide Fellows valuable career experience in fast paced jobs – experiences that will allow you to bring more to graduate school discussions and classes (if you decide to go back).

Plus, getting experience in fast growing Indianapolis companies can help make the decision about going back to school easier. Some realize they don’t need an MBA to get where they want to go. Others learn that getting more education is the path they need to take. But no matter what, there is no doubt that during your two years in the Fellowship you will benefit from its unrivaled work experiences and networking opportunities in Indianapolis.

Super Bowl Commercials Sacked by Social Media

Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Blaine Cooper-Surma

If you've had a chance to keep up with the news, one of the recent headlines is Pepsi's decision to strategically re-focus its advertising dollars that have typically been budgeted for the NFL Super Bowl. Like Budweiser, Coca Cola, and GoDaddy.com, Pepsi has been known to spend millions of dollars in advertisements during this spectacle that reaches millions of viewers every single year. So where will these dollars be spent this year? As you might have guessed, this year Pepsi is going with Social Media!

According to the Wall Street Journal, Pepsi plans to focus its advertising strategy on a "marketing platform" rather than blitzing viewers with commercials during this single event. So, by using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to reach consumers, Pepsi will be tapping into a virtual world of endless advertising possibilities. On Facebook, for example, Pepsi can issue invitations to its followers to participate in a poll. When someone votes, a message will get posted on their personal Facebook page that says they participated in the poll. This my friends, is what we are referring to when we talk about viral advertising.

According to one report, Facebook is a virtual treasure trove for advertisers wishing to target 18 to 49-year olds. Twitter's numbers are a little lower, but impressive, nonetheless. Social Media Today, however, noted that 19 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 24 have used Twitter or something like it, 20 percent between ages 25 and 34, and 10 percent between ages 35 and 44. These numbers are the reason that Pepsi has reconsidered their advertising strategy.

So how does this relate to the Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship? Well, it just so happens that the majority of our host companies in this entrepreneurial fellowship are start-up technology companies. Thus, Orr Fellows are taking entry level technology jobs in some of the fastest growing Indianapolis companies. So what types of things are some of these host companies doing in the social media world? Well, a 2010 host company, Formspring, has recently reached new heights with their social media application called Formspring.me. This application is a free, simple service that allows you to create anonymous question boxes for all of your social networks.

Pepsi's migration away from televised Super Bowl ads is a trend we can expect other big companies to follow. There is far more bang for the buck in advertising online rather than producing and paying for 30 seconds of airtime during one of the most expensive televised events of the year.

For those that don't know much about the Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship, it is an Indiana-based non-profit organization that provides jobs for recent graduates in fast growing Indianapolis companies. Whether you're looking to start a marketing career, an entrepreneurship career, or maybe just a career in business, this is one unique fellowship program like no other.

Tree Luggers: Giving Back to Our Community

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 by Blaine Cooper-Surma

It's that time of year again; the Holiday Season has passed and in a short amount of time you'll find yourself taking down those holiday decorations that probably cover your entire house. After you've mustered up enough motivation to finally begin this lengthy process, the last struggle is always the disposal of the family Christmas tree. However, that's not going to be the case for you this year - the Orr Fellows are here to help!

As a non-profit organization, the Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship places a strong emphasis on community outreach, civic responsibility, and self-sustainability. As such, one of our annual fundraisers is called "Tree Luggers" in which we travel around the Indianapolis community collecting and disposing of Christmas trees while collecting donations. But how does this fundraiser actually benefit the community? Well, first, we are providing a service that for many people is extremely helpful. More importantly, though, we offer an incentive to local churches and other non-profit entities that promote our fundraiser to their members. For all money that is donated to the Governor Bob Orr Fellowship during Tree Luggers, half of the proceeds are given to the specific non-profit that created the referral. In this way, we are able to assist Indianapolis-based non-profits in funding their efforts.

One of the most important values that the Indiana-based Orr Fellowship promotes is entrepreneurship. Tree Luggers is a great example of entrepreneurship in action as the Orr Fellows carefully organize, plan, and execute the fundraiser from start to finish. So what goes into Tree Luggers to ensure its success year in and year out? Many of the Orr Fellows are "luggers," or those that travel to homes, collect the trees, and then later dispose of the holiday conifers. Several others use their marketing expertise to help spread the word through social media like Twitter and Facebook, strategically placed fliers in the Indianapolis community, and specified email lists owned by several Orr Fellowship host companies. We also have fellows that help create partnerships with churches and other non-profit organizations. Lastly, a couple of fellows take on a financial role so that all donations and referrals are carefully recorded. To participate in this fundraiser, and save yourself a great deal of time and effort, please sign-up here. Remaining pick-up dates are:

Saturday, January 9th
Saturday, January 16th
Saturday, January 23rd

For those that don't know much about the Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship, it is an Indiana-based non-profit organization that provides jobs for recent graduates in fast growing Indianapolis companies. Whether you're looking to start a marketing career, an entrepreneurship career, or maybe just a career in business, this is one unique fellowship program like no other.

Cyber Monday Pandemonium

Thursday, December 3, 2009 by Bryan Povlinski

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.

The In's and Out's of an Orr Fellowship Host Company

Tuesday, December 1, 2009 by Blaine Cooper-Surma

We've all talked about our host companies and what makes ours better than the rest, but how are these companies chosen, and why would someone want to work for an entrepreneurial company in Indianapolis? In order to shed some light on the Orr Fellowship host companies, I have given the information in a question/answer format.

Q: What is a host company's role in the Orr Fellowship?
A: Orr Fellowship host companies have the responsibility of providing their Fellow(s) with a unique experience that cannot be found anywhere else. We want these companies to give their Fellows important projects that help them learn and grow as a working professional. In addition, we require these companies to provide their Fellows with ample exposure to executive-level management so that they can become more comfortable in that type of an environment (this is exactly what we're talking about when we say that the Orr Fellowship is one of the best networking opportunities in Indianapolis).

Q: How are host companies selected to be involved in the Orr Fellowship?
A: Although this process may seem unscientific at times, that's probably because it is. However, host companies are invited to join the Orr Fellowship if they've successfully demonstrated their ability to move at a fast rate of growth, created an environment that is conducive for great learning experiences, and have emerged with a product/service that has the ability to thrive in a changing society for years to come. Overall, we seek out companies that we're confident will provide our Fellows with a wonderful two years of experiences coupled with strong promise of job security with that particular company.

Q: How long are host companies allowed to be involved in the Orr Fellowship?
A: There really isn't a straight-forward answer to this question. There have been companies like ExactTarget and Angie's List that have been a part of the Fellowship essentially since the beginning. However, some companies participate for a year or two while others take Orr Fellows for four, five, and even six years. We typically allow host companies to be in the Orr Fellowship until they've grown out of the stage of being a small, entrepreneurial start-up or until they've shown that they no longer are a suitable company for an Orr Fellow to work in.

This year the Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship has agreed to allow twenty host companies to participate in our program. Over the years we've made a conscious effort to grow the organization - and this year we've finally made the decision to double the size of next year's class. So why have we decided to take so many more Fellows? With an increase in name recognition in Indiana, and the development of a strong reputation among business leaders, we've experienced a tremendous growth in the amount of applications that we've received. It's because of this recognition that the Orr Fellowship has proven itself to be one of the best places to work in Indiana. With that, I want to go ahead and congratulate those candidates that have moved on to the final round of recruitment. You've managed to set yourselves apart from the rest of the competition and have proven yourselves over and over again. Good luck to you all on Friday and I look forward to meeting the Orr Fellowship Class of 2010!

To the Fellowship and Beyond...

Monday, November 23, 2009 by Blaine Cooper-Surma

With Turkey-day quickly approaching and the holiday season nearly upon us, I thought a good focus for this blog would be to discuss what a Fellows' options look like when they've completed their two-year committment of being in the Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship. Ok wait, you're right, holidays and post-Fellowship opportunities have literally nothing to do with one another. Oh well, it's a Monday - give me a break, already!

As I'm sure you can imagine, being in the Orr Fellowship isn't always easy; nor is it glamorous at times. To do well and set yourself up for success you have to spend a lot of time with your nose to the grindstone and your pride in your back pocket. But what happens when you've completed your two years with the Fellowship?

At this point in your career you have an important decision to make. Your first option is to stay on with your current host company. This is probably the most common route that graduating Orr Fellows take, but it is by no means what is expected. Many Fellows decide to go this direction because they've spent the past two years developing a foundation for themselves in their organization. Building relationships and making a name for yourself takes time and a great deal of effort. Also, most of these host companies are fast growing Indianapolis companies. Just by being in the organization for a couple of years, these Fellows have been able to experience accelerated career growth that would most likely not have taken place had they begun their career in a large corporation.

Another option that exists for graduating Orr Fellows is to change companies. Some Fellows decide to move on to completely separate companies, while others stay within the Fellowship family and join a different host company. The Orr Fellowship has a reputation of providing some of the best networking opportunities in Indianapolis, so it's not surprising that connections are made between Fellows and host company executives that result in a career opportunity.

A third option that many Orr Fellows over the years have pursued is graduate school. Typically, Orr Fellows go to either law school or business school, but there have been many others that have gone on to receive a range of different graduate degrees. This path has become more and more common among Fellows as they're often considered to be life-long learners. They appreciate learning new things and are curious about what they lack knowledge in.

The last option for graduating Orr Fellows is to pursue personal business ventures. There have been several Fellows that have built entrepreneurial companies in Indianapolis on their own, while several others have teamed-up with their fellow Orr Fellows to create high growth start-ups together.

Although these several options are available for Orr Fellows after they complete their two-year stint with the Governor Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship, one thing that all Fellows involuntarily do is join the list of successful Orr Fellow alumni that came before them. Many stay active in Fellowship events/activities, but this is something that we're working to improve upon. It is important to keep the Orr Fellowship as tight as possible and the alumni network as strong as ever. It certainly is a blessing to have so many young, successful business leaders in our network that are more than happy to help out if you just reach out to them.

This is just another reason why the Orr Fellowship is one of the best places to work in Indiana!

Creating a Shared Experience

Monday, November 23, 2009 by Nate Bullock

This American Life is a radio program out of WBEZ in Chicago that attempts to display what it is like to live an ‘American life’, complete with its dullness as well as its luster. Reporting is not done in the way we see on television or hear on more traditional radio. Rather, the producers attempt to place us into the culture of the topic area; the sounds bites are not ‘bites’ at all. They are actual, full, complete stories that connect the listener to a new set of experiences. This American Life attempts to make the events that mold our being (whatever that means), which makes understanding the experience more transparent. The radio program, at it's core, is about manufacturing an experience.

For example, attempting to paint the picture of Rome to my friends and family when I returned from a tour of Europe was excruciating. My pictures of Trevi’s Fountain did not nearly do it justice. My explanations of the white cliffs of Dover were juvenile. The only way in which my friends could understand the awesomeness of my trip would have been for them to experience it for themselves. In the absence of a shared “experience,” the narrative loses a little bit of sincerity.

The Orr Fellowship strives to create entrepreneurship careers that do more than simply provide post-graduate networking, entre-level jobs in startups, and an Indianapolis job opportunity; The Orr Fellowship strives to create a shared experience among Orr Fellows. Distinguished post-grad jobs are often about putting in time quietly on the sidelines while you wait your turn to play in the game.

This business fellowship is different. Jumping into fast growing Indianapolis companies is not something that most entry-level jobs in Indiana afford a fresh graduate. But entreprenurial companies need driven graduates to help contribute immediately. These companies look to Orr Fellows to help fulfill that need, providing a shared entreprenurial experience in the process.

Click here to find out how you can be included in this experience!

Who is the Orr Fellowship For?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Bryan Povlinski

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.

Remember, the Cream Always Rises to the Top

Monday, November 16, 2009 by Blaine Cooper-Surma

While many of you out there are suffering from a case of the Mondays, I, on the other hand, am coming off a weekend buzz that will surely last me for the rest of the year. What happened that was so great, you ask? Well, on Saturday the Little Giants of Wabash College defeated, smashed, and slaughtered (I think you get the idea) the little Tigers of DePauw University in the annual Monon Bell football game. The prize - the infamous Monon Bell that has been passed from victor to victor for the past 116 years.

As Natalie Ciambrone, a fellow Fellow of mine, so eloquently noted in her post regarding the Monon Bell game last week, this unique tradition does bring people together from both sides of the rivalry. In fact, many of the Orr Fellows were able to meet up this year for some friendly trash-talking before the game. You can see what went down from the picture below (that's Katie Veatch and myself, in case you were wondering). With both schools well-represented in the Orr Fellowship, this little rivalry will certainly remain a topic of conversation for many years to come.

Ok, ok, so it's about that time in the post that I have to say something enlightening and at least half-related to the Orr Fellowship. Well, here's my valiant attempt at doing so. Historically, many Wabash College and DePauw University students have been successful in securing their place in the Orr Fellowship. But how are these liberal arts students even remotely prepared to take jobs in these fast growing Indianapolis companies that inherently require experienced employees with a great deal of business-related knowledge? The answer is simple, really. These two universities do a tremendous job at teaching their students how to think and learn effectively. In a sense, working in a start-up company is extremely similar to getting a liberal arts education. While at Wabash, I remember taking classes in Theater, Art, Music, Economics, Math, English, and Religion (just to name a few). In a way, it was extremely difficult to develop a way of thinking that was sharpened to be single-discipline minded. It is this flexibilty and broad way of thinking that permeates within a entrepreneurial business which often requires its employees to wear many different hats while performing day-to-day operations.

So why do I think that liberal arts students make great Orr Fellows? They make great fellows because of their ability to think critically while still keeping all interests of the business in mind. This, I propose, is an invaluable skill that every business, whether small or large, needs to look for when it comes to hiring. So, no matter what your background is in school, or what discipline you ended up studying, just remember - the Orr Fellowship is looking for students that can fill a variety of roles within a company, while working hard and learning to thrive, no matter what they end up doing.

On a lighter note - ding, dong, ding, dong, ding, dong...

Sorry Dannies, that's the Monon Bell that will be ringing in Crawfordsville for at least the next 363 days... Better luck next year!