Successful launching

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Fishers tech company sees surge in growth and interest

By Holly Demaree

BlueBridge Digital is a company on the move. The Fishers tech startup has quickly gone from humble beginnings at Launch Fishers to a company with its own offices and a successful million dollar fundraising effort. In fact, it was just announced that several local tech investors, including the founder of Aprimo and the former chief marketing offer of ExacTarget were involved in the venture capital fundraising, which marked the first time BlueBridge has raised money by offering securities.

Santiago Jaramillo, CEO of Bluebridge Digital, and Adam Weber, partner and head of sales at Bluebridge Digital, met through Twitter and began working towards a common goal: to help organizations, brands and companies reach their consumers through mobile apps. Mobile apps are the programs that can be downloaded onto a smartphone and are used for a specific purpose like directions or music.

“I was selling websites at the time and in the middle of selling websites, saw this trend how mobile app usage surpassed web usage at the same time that we met,”  Weber said. “It was just one of those things that was a good fit. I think from a friendship perspective first and then a shared business perspective. It allowed us to start and just hit the ground running and make a lot of progress quickly.”

Both Jaramillo and Weber do not come from a technology background so Mitch Shields, partner and developer at Bluebridge Digital, was brought in to help with the technology side of things. In November 2012, the three began working at Launch Fishers.

A year later the team had grown to 13 people and they realized they needed more space.

“What’s great about Launch is it’s a great place for ideas, incubation and growth,” Weber said. “But we got to a stage where we needed our own culture to build the BlueBridge side of things.”

After being at Launch for a year, Bluebridge Digital’s team had expanded but the quick growth wasn’t always easy on the company.

“That, for sure, was a challenge early on making a lot of decisions with scarce resources,” Jaramillo said. “But in the early days to grow that fast and doing it all self-funded was absolutely a challenge but we worked through it and it made us stronger entrepreneurs and leaders because of it.”

Launch Fishers was officially opened in fall of 2012 and it was looking to help local entrepreneurs get started by providing a space to start.

“BlueBridge Digital is a shining example of the power of organic economic development in a community. This is what we hope to see when we invest in the business environment to make it favorable for entrepreneurship and innovation,” said John Wechlser, an entrepreneur who helped create Launch.

Bluebridge Digital has continued to grow and, over the past year, has created more than one full-time position per month.

“We are really excited that it’s just the beginning of mobile growth,” Jaramillo said. “The past 15 years have been about the explosion of web and I think for the next 15 years will be a challenge or opportunity for businesses and organizations to figure out how to use mobile presence to engage with their customers and communities. We think it’s just the beginning and we are remarkably excited about growth. We’ve gone from 13 employees to 27 today.”

Bluebridge digital plans to keep expanding and hopes to reach 30 employees by the end of 2014 and 50 by 2015.

Currently the three main organizations that BlueBridge Digital works with are colleges, cities and churches. Locally, apps that have been created include for the Nickel Plate District and Hamilton County Tourism. These apps help residents and visitors explore Fishers and see what it has to offer ranging from restaurants to events.

“You can go to the Nickel Plate District app and you know that the town itself is updating the events and have the most accurate listing,” Jaramillo said. ”With one touch you pull up the events, filter it by category that you like and add it to your calendar and directions. I think it causes people to go to them (the Nickel Plate District app) more often and to trust the town with helping them have a better quality of life while they are residents or better experience for those who are visiting and coming through the town.”

BlueBridge Digital works on apps for hundreds of clients all across the country and does not really get to see how it impacts each intended audience except here in Fishers.

“The town has been great in making this kind of growth possible and helping us in that way,” Jaramillo said. “It’s been fun to be trusted by our neighbors, Fishers and Hamilton County. We are super strong in tourism nationwide. But it’s fun to be in our community with our own product and (have them) support us. And for us to help citizens and visitors have a better experience.”

Bluebridge Digital

Founded:  2011

Product:   creator of mobile apps

Niche:  Convention and visitor bureaus, colleges and universities, churches

Number of employees:  26

Predicted employees by 2015:  50

Website:  Bluebridgeapps.com

Clients:  90% national; 10% local


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