BizVoice May / June 2017

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May/June 2017 – BizVoice/Indiana Chamber 21
RESOURCES: The Union at | John Hurley, SmartFile, at | John Wechsler, Launch Fishers, at |
Jeff Ready, Scale Computing, at
research park facility allowing his company to
move to different parts of the building as it
grew. But the far westside location was not
always a plus, especially for those that might
live on the northeast side of the city or in
Hamilton County.
“People sort of assume that if you live in
the metro Indy area, at some point in your
career you might work downtown,” he speculates.
“All the soft amenities of downtown – bars
and restaurants, places to eat lunch, places to
meet. We have a lot of young employees and
a lot of them live downtown. I’ve been told
by other tech companies that have moved
from a suburban/metro area to a downtown
that it made their recruiting much easier, and
I expect it will be much the same for us.”
And there’s the fun part of the equation.
“It’s really just the tech culture. We’re a
bunch of geeks, right,” he adds, “so yesterday
(shortly after moving into the space in March)
spontaneously my entire office grabbed their
Nerf guns and attached SmartFile in the
middle of the day.”
Rod Reasen, co-founder and CEO of
Springbuk (see story on Page 32), is also
pleased to be co-located with others in similar
circumstances. His company had moved
numerous times within the same north side
building. He wanted a central location and
the opportunity to “be an influencer in the
tech community.”
“As scale-ups, there is the likelihood that
everybody in this building will be doing a
capital raise in the next 12 months if they’re
not doing it right now. This is a central
location where venture capitalists can come
in and spend a day and make it worthwhile,”
he offers. “If Indiana cannot draw that outside
investment capital, you might as well throw
out the tech community and abandon it.
“If we can’t draw capital here, it’s going
to do one of two things: Companies like ours will
move to where the capital is or they’ll die.”
Teaming together
While Hurley was receiving the “it’s
about time” congratulatory messages, the
impression of the “time period” from starting
to show the potential of the building to being
fully leased varies depending on the person.
Ready figures that one of several failed
attempts to move Scale to a new location took
about nine months. “From the time this space
was made available until we signed the lease
was about a month. It moved very quickly.”
Conversations began near the end of the
summer. The final lease was signed just
before Christmas.
“It was a lot longer process than I thought
it would be,” says Hurley, admitting his
passion isn’t immediately shared by all. “Real
estate people are going, ‘Are you crazy?’ But
I’m thinking you need space. We have the
best space on the planet. We’re doing it at
30% below market value. You need this space.”
No matter the time frame, Hurley
believes The Union, in addition to preserving
the heritage of an historic building, can send a
message to others.
“I believe strongly that other industries
can come together. What people are starting
to realize is that these tech guys might be on
to something,” he contends. “It’s OK to share
ideas; it’s OK to have challenges and be open
about those challenges. It’s OK to say, ‘All
right, I screwed that one up; now let’s figure
out what our next steps are.’ ”
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