Northern Indiana companies with dazzling promise.
by Steve Kaelble
These companies innovate, they simplify, they find new ways to serve customers and make life easier. Among other things, the seven Northern Indiana organizations on this year's Indiana's Companies to Watch roster have made it easier to pay bills, improved the educational process, refined the business of making trailers, designed an easier way to control security, and helped those with less-than-perfect vision stay ahead of the fashion trends.
Indiana's Companies to Watch were chosen by experts convened by the Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship and its Indiana Small Business Development Center, along with the Indiana Economic Development Corp. The 2014 list includes 27 privately owned companies that are beyond startup and are demonstrating strong, sustainable growth. As a group, they increased revenue by an average of 120 percent between 2010 and 2013, and grew their total employee count by 96 percent. They expect to add another 50 percent in sales this year, and boost employment by 26 percent.
Read on to learn more about the Companies to Watch from the northern tier of the state.
Allied Payment Network
You may have some experience using your mobile device to deposit checks–a fair number of financial institutions now allow customers to login to a smartphone app and snap a photo of a check. It's a great convenience that saves a trip to the bank or an ATM. Allied Payment Network takes that concept to the next level by allowing you to pay bills in a similar way. With Allied's technology, you can take a picture of a bill and then pay the bill electronically.
Allied, based in Fort Wayne and founded in 2010, pioneered the technology that it calls PicturePay. According to Ralph Marcuccilli, president and CEO, the business model is to market the product through resellers that already have relationships with financial institutions. The company signed its first reseller in 2012, has added half a dozen more, and hopes to recruit another 15 in the next year or so.
About 40 financial institutions are signed up to use the service, and the goal is to push that roster past 200 within the next 12 to 18 months. The company's revenues are driven by the number of transactions that are made using PicturePay, so the more the merrier. Indiana's a great place to build a cutting-edge business like Allied, says Marcuccilli. “Allied is proving that we can develop industry-leading technologies using people right here in Indiana.”
API Alliance Inc.
Launched in 1994 and based in Fort Wayne, API Alliance makes electronic controls and electromechanical assemblies, providing customers with design, quick prototyping and assembly. Services include engineering, circuit board design/development, software development, mechanical layout, hardware design and project management.
Growth has been impressive, marked by a 30 percent expansion in production capacity last year, 31 percent revenue growth each year since 2011, plus anticipated growth this year of 37 percent. The success has a lot to do with the company's strong focus on employees, according to owner Joe DePrisco. “This focus creates a workforce that is committed to our company and, in turn, produces quality product in a cost-effective and timely manner.”
As anyone in a tech-related field will tell you, keeping up with advancing technology is a constant challenge. “API Alliance makes a point to offer continuing education for our employees, so that we may help educate our customers.” The company's engineering services, multiple component procurement options and flexible scheduling allow it to meet the peaks and valleys that customers may require.
Haiku Learning
Lots of technology-related names have permeated classrooms these days, from “Google” to “iPad.” One that's becoming more common all the time is “Haiku”–not the ancient Japanese form of poetry, but the services of Goshen's Haiku Learning. Founded in 2006, Haiku provides a cloud-based digital learning platform allowing K-12 teachers and their students to extend their classrooms onto the web. Haiku can host online content, post assignments and grades, and provide a platform for feedback and interaction.
of 80 percent of potential customers, because the other
20 percent’s needs would complicate the product too much.
“At the heart of Haiku Learning is a dedication to simplicity and streamlined interfaces,” explains Bryan Falcon, founder and CEO. While competitors may try to be everything to everyone, “we design solutions that serve a central 80 percent of the market, and we do not concern ourselves with the needs of the remaining 20 percent of the market. This focus keeps our tools streamlined, free of feature-bloat, and focused on the essentials of teachers and students.”
The concept is catching on quite well. More than 500 schools and districts now use Haiku Learning, and there are nearly 2 million active users. Revenues have grown by more than 100 percent annually each of the past five years, and employment has increased from a dozen to more than 40 in the past three years. Watch for plenty more growth. “Because we are cloud-based, we recognize many opportunities for tight integration with third parties,” Falcon says. “Our strong partnerships with Google and Microsoft are examples of partnership that are good for us, and even more important, good for our schools.”
inTech Trailers
One size definitely does not fit all in the trailer business. Though some 70 percent of the trailers produced by inTech Trailers of Nappanee are sold in the fairly narrow sectors of recreational vehicles and motorsports, there's plenty of need for customization. That's especially true with its industrial/commercial trailers, such as fiber optic splicing trailers, oil rig trailers, geology trailers, marketing trailers and the like.
So in a business with lots of players, why is inTech enjoying consistent sales growth in the double-digits? “It's not actually our product that is our niche market,” says Rich Schnippel, director of sales and marketing. “It's our level of quality, fit, finish and attention to detail. There really aren't many companies that are committed to building the best possible product.”
Oddly enough, it also helped that the business started in 2010, during a downturn. The company focused on the business-to-business specialization of industrial trailers, which meant no reliance on dealers at that challenging point in time. Word of the company's quality trailers spread to dealers, though, and before long it was involved in the manufacture of RV and motorsports trailers. “Controlled growth is another secret to our success,” he says. “We're definitely not trying to be the biggest.”
Peepers
Peepers is far from a new business, but its recent growth is eye-catching–more than 150 percent revenue growth in two years, according to CEO Alec Sammann. Based in Michigan City and incorporated in 1972, the designer of reading glasses and sunglasses is actually a fourth-generation family business that dates back much further, according to Sammann. “We've been in the business of readers for quite some time, but the main reason for our growth is our design,” he says.
In particular, Peepers ensures that its products are up-to-the-minute when it comes to colors and styles. Fashion trends are changing constantly, which provides a great opportunity to keep selling newly minted products, to both existing and new customers. “The customers who buy from us are more fashion-oriented,” Sammann says. “Each season we launch roughly 100 new styles,” or about 200 a year.
Some 3,500 retailers carry Peepers products, and some prominent people wear them–prominently. Oprah Winfrey, for example. Her O magazine earlier this year showed her on the cover, holding a pair of Peepers, which she has named among her favorite things. Other celebrities spotted with Peepers products include Sheryl Crow and Howie Mandel, and Good Housekeeping has sung the company's praises, too.
RS2 Technologies
Security and access control are more complicated and more important than ever, and technology is getting more powerful. That's a good thing–if the technology is user-friendly. The thing is, it's often a security guard operating an access control system, not an IT person. Keeping things powerful but simple is a driving force behind Munster-based RS2 Technologies.
Founders Doug Robinson, Bob Sulek and Gary Staley worked for a Chicago electronics company and came up with a concept for a computer-based card access control system that could be marketed alongside the hardware that it controls. Their employer didn't nibble on the idea, so they decided to build the concept on their own. Their company launched in the late 1990s, and has grown to more than 25 employees.
The company's Access It! Universal is designed to be scalable, good for a business with a few employees and one location, all the way to a big enterprise with thousands of workers all over the place. Either way, simplicity is the key. Users in many industries have bought into the concept, including education, health care, financial services, government, energy and commercial.
South Bend Modern Molding
What can be made out of rubber? Just about anything, and whatever it is, there's a good chance South Bend Modern Molding knows how to make it. The company has a full range of products and services, including engineering support from prototype through production.
South Bend Modern Molding was founded in the 1940s and has been involved in industrial rubber products for years. More recently, it expanded into consumer products and ventured into recycled rubber products. Its growth focus has paid off. In the past two years, sales are up about 50 percent, and the employee roster has grown significantly. This year about 160 people work at South Bend Modern Molding (which is actually located in Mishawaka).
