Molly Hanlon
Executive Director
info@zworks.org
317-506-2032
75 East Pine Street
Zionsville, IN 46077
Congratulations to all the award winners from this year’s MemberFest awards!
zWORKS member finds niche as “PowerPoint guy”
It’s all about finding your niche. And being the best at it.
That was one zWORKS member’s goal after realizing the huge demand for presentation design.
Michael “Mikey” Mioduski started his company GhostRanch Communications in 2015 which specializes in just that. They design custom sales presentations whether that be customizing specific slides or creating brand new templates.
“We see it as an underdog medium,” Mioduski said. “And we’ve been on a mission to make business-to-business slide decks bigger and better.”
Pilot by night, web designer by day
He wakes up for work at 1 in the morning. Flies to another part of the country. Sleeps for a few hours. Then works on websites the rest of the day before he flies back home.
David McArdle is a pilot for FedEx Express and flies the night sort shift. Packages are loaded between 2 to 3 a.m., then he flies out by 4 a.m.
His company, Indy Web Designers, is something he started after receiving compliments on the website he created for another of his startup companies. When he saw the positive response, he decided to make it his day job.
“I like learning new things,” McArdle said. “I learn something new with every project.”
zWORKS startup offers high-tech answer to event emergencies
It might be a marathon, it might be a concert or it might even be election day. One zWORKS founder wants to make sure events like these are as safe as possible.
Whether it’s as dramatic as a shooting or hurricane, or as simple as a power outage or verbal altercation, President and Founder of Venue Intelligence, Jim Martin, wants people to feel safe, and know the answer to “what to do if…”
Emergency planning is a top-of-mind issue for event managers and venue owners worldwide, and increasingly, that awareness isn’t limited to just the paid professionals.
Check out some pictures from our most recent events including our Happy Hour Media Panel, MemberFest luncheon and Workshop for Podcasting Beginners!
Thanks to Rae Hostetler with Hostetler Public Relations for hosting the Media Panel which included Inside INdiana Business, Indianapolis Business Journal North of 96th, Current of Zionsville and Zionsville Times Sentinel. Thanks to Nameless Catering Co., Luke Kite Musician, The Scoop, Celebration Central, Cartoon Ups, Ryan Woodall Photography, Save the Date Event Planning, and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. for sponsoring the MemberFest luncheon. And thanks for Sean Sullivan, our Resident Podcaster, with Converge Coffee to hosting the Podcasting Workshop.
Burgeoning startup combines textiles and technology
Their mission is in their name. Predictive Wear focuses on making connected clothing that monitors your health.
Dane Albaugh, the CEO, and Pablo Argote, the CTO, are Purdue graduates and are working together with six other graduates to make their mission a reality.
The team of eight met while studying biomedical engineering at Purdue. They melded their various expertise after cofounding a student organization and eventually started the company, Predictive Wear.
“We created a solution both as a service and product that can center around the patient and have an ecosystem focused on predictive analytics, health informatics and wearable technology,” Argote said. “We believe the future is going this direction, especially in medicine.”
zWORKS entrepreneur turns hobby into business
What do you want to do when you retire?
The answer to this question has many guises but rarely is the answer to start a business. Despite its rarity, this is the route one zWORKS member went.
“The reality is that when I decided to retire, I quickly learned I wasn’t ready to sit around,” Tom Greer said.
Thomas R. Greer started TRG Web Designs after he had retired from his career in business leadership. He was looking to do something entrepreneurial when he decided to turn his hobby into a business.
Greer started programming before there was a world wide web. For programmers out there, think COBOL in the 1970s. He had been creating websites for friends and family over the years and even maintained his own blog.
Thanks to everyone involved with Polo in Zionsville for making it such a success! A big shoutout to our sponsors as well as our volunteers for making this sold-out event happen.
We enjoyed partnering with the Boys and Girls Club of Boone County and together we raised over $12,000 for our organizations! And lastly we wanted to thank Ryan Woodall for taking the pictures.
zWORKS partner offers HR consulting to startups
An HR position turned into a startup company for one Indianapolis entrepreneur.
Dawn Lively worked at DeveloperTown as the Director of Culture and Talent. So many companies she worked with while at DeveloperTown – a software solution company in Indy – continued asking her for HR help that she decided to make a full-time business out of it.
Lively is now the COO and Co-founder of FullStack, which provides HR support to companies, specifically early-stage companies. Services include payroll & compliance, health, dental, vision and supplemental benefits, 401(k), administrative & operational HR support, strategic HR consulting & ancillary HR support and health and wellness.
At zWORKS, we’ve seen how beneficial collaboration can be. One zWORKS startup is looking to bring collaboration to the engineering world in Indy.
Brian Hull is one of the founders of Maker Factory and his goal is to start a maker space in Indianapolis.
A maker space is coworking for engineers and builders. It provides the tools and supplies needed like lasers, welders, 3D printers, design software, tools, etc.
“I’m a part of zWORKS because I think it’s similar,” Hull said. “It’s a coworking space and I think the next generation of workers are experimenting with coworking.”
