Some of the world’s biggest brands use inSourceCode behind the scenes

Digital agencies like Indianapolis-based inSourceCode rarely get the spotlight. Most digital agencies place the emphasis on their clients and accept behind-the-scenes accolades for their extraordinary behind-the-scenes work.

Even if you’ve never heard of inSourceCode, you’re probably familiar with enterprise-level WordPress development and digital marketing they’ve done on the national stage for major media platforms including TechCrunch, Breitbart and Vogue, and for no less than three 2016 presidential candidates.

While the world surfs the Net satisfying its insatiable appetite for news and information, the small group of tech-focused builders and designers at inSourceCode do whatever it takes to ensure that the smorgasbord of bits and bytes propping up some of world’s biggest brands are served fresh and fast.

“Most agencies are creative focused, but they fall down when things get technical. Technical is our specialty,” said, Jayson Manship, co-founder of inSourceCode. “We usually get hired for one of two reasons: an organization gets too much traffic and their entire system keeps falling over, or their needs have grown beyond the capacity of their current agency. They need a team like ours that can handle complex issues like page speed, third party integrations or personalizing the user experience.

For example, Judicial Watch — an educational foundation that promotes accountability and integrity in government — was spending a lot of money on hosting fees but their website was still crashing whenever The New York Times mentioned them (which happens a lot).

It was a major headache for an organization whose entire go-to-market strategy is built around disseminating information quickly and broadly. inSourceCode was able to fix the problem at a significant monthly cost savings and Judicial Watch has been a client ever since, even expanding to use inSourceCode for its entire enterprise platform.

The inbound cold calls inSourceCode receives includes an impressive list of global brands seeking a partner to fix unsolvable problems. An early VIP partnership with WordPress’ parent company Automattic and close ties to Washington D.C. powerbrokers and have kept the phone ringing with new business leads for years.

Manship and co-founder Matt Turow worked with Seamus Kraft, Congressman Darrell Issa’s director of digital media, on what became the largest coordinated online protest ever over SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). The trio created keepthewebopen.com and on January 18, 2012, sites including Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, Facebook, Craigslist and thousands of others went dark and directed their traffic to the Internet freedom, activism site.

At one point last year, inSourceCode powered seven of the largest 50 WordPress sites in the world. However, it’s not all media giants and presidential campaigns all the time at inSourceCode.

In 2014, the tech-focused digital agency rolled out “Fight for Small,” an agency within the agency that helps small businesses get online with straightforward, monthly pricing for websites and marketing services.

After 18 months, Fight for Small had grown successful enough that it was spun out on its own in January with partners Matt Turow and Creative Director Brooke McKinney at the helm in new Noblesville, Ind., offices.

“As we grow, we expect to launch more spin-offs like we just did with Fight for Small,” Manship said. “Our growth strategy is intentionally metered. inSourceCode is about doing great work and building a strong core team and core business.”

Manship said the near term plan is to hire a new creative director and at least eight new software developers to keep up with new business and (perhaps more importantly) to continue to support the sites they’ve created for existing customers.

Throughout 2015, the company decided to help organizations in their backyard make an impact and partnered with Verge, Launch Fishers, the Indiana Small Business Development Center (ISBDC), the Orr Fellowship and TechPoint.

“We learned how to balance ‘doing good’ with making money as a top development agency with high-paying, demanding customers,” Manship said. “At the end of the day, we left over half a million dollars on the table in 2015 to help organizations that are doing great work to advance our local community. But it’s a cause that we continue to believe in as we do our small part to help Indiana join the national tech conversation.”

In an effort to raise the visibility and accelerate the growth of Indiana tech companies, each week we will spotlight a growing company with a compelling story. In particular, we will spotlight scale-up companies that are rapidly emerging and could become our community’s future success stories. Visit this page to learn more the Tailwind program and see if your company qualifies.

The Tailwind program is supported by grants from the Indiana Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (OSBE) and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation.