New headquarters helps Innovatemap be Innovatemap, which benefits clients and the community too
In March of this year, Innovatemap moved into its new headquarters. The Indianapolis-based product agency now occupies the second and third floors of a very modern glass and steel building that is also home to Chipotle restaurant in the heart of Broad Ripple.
Cool and interesting spaces have become all the rage among tech companies in Indy, but there’s a lot more to the story with Innovatemap’s purposeful move. It’s a story that illustrates the company’s priorities for itself, its clients and its dedication to the community.
“I led product teams at Aprimo for 15 years and left to create the agency that I wish had existed for me,” said Founder and CEO Mike Reynolds.
“We’ve grown to be a team of 19, made up of the very best product professionals and the most wonderful people I’ve ever worked with, which adds tremendous value to our clients and their great ideas.”
Innovatemap recently celebrated its fourth anniversary and the company has quickly earned a stellar reputation for helping companies of all sizes dream, design, and scale digital products and services. While many of its clients are headline-making startups and scale-ups of the tech community, they have also had great successes working with those Mike calls “intrapreneurs” — tech-focused innovators within large corporations who want to improve their customer experiences or digital offerings.
Innovatemap’s client list reads like a repertoire of award-winning central-Indiana success stories — the majority of which happen to also be Mira Award nominees and winners. They have helped bring new ideas to life with DemandJump, Canvas, Costello, and Torchlite. They’ve worked with Springbuk, PactSafe, 120WaterAudit, Greenlight Guru and MOBI to take existing products to the next level. And they’ve worked with tech-enabled companies, ideating and designing winning digital product ideas to complement their core businesses, including Stanley Security, Herff Jones, Delta Faucet, Community Health Network, and JLL.
Mike pointed out that Innovatemap is unique in the Indianapolis market (perhaps in the Midwestern market) because it’s not a consultancy, marketing agency, or buzz-worthy innovation-as-a-service shop — though the company does offer services and resources that sometimes overlap with these offerings.
The company’s unique sweet spot is starting in the “dream state,” helping clients ask the tough questions about what could or should be built before moving on to the user experience, product definition, and successfully launching it to stakeholders.
“We get hired to bring great ideas to life, think innovatively, and develop next-level products and services. We do this exclusively in the digital space,” Mike said. “There’s a lot of categorization of innovation right now — Innovatemap is well suited for digital innovation … anything that has a digital product component to it.”
The digital products and services Mike speaks of could be a B2C mobile app, B2B enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) application, ecommerce solutions, engaging customer portals, or content-related offerings like the new TechPoint.org and TechPoint Index. As Mike explained it, digital products and services that work flawlessly with a great user experience are entry-level “table stakes.” It’s the companies that go beyond and focus on delighting customers and solving problems they didn’t know they had who will differentiate themselves and win the future.
One of the things that becomes clear when working on a project like the TechPoint rebrand and product design is that work space is important to the process. Innovatemap’s new headquarters has been designed for this purpose.
After 15 months working out of The Speak Easy, Innovatemap had two interim offices in the Broad Ripple area before finding its new long-term home at 1002 Broad Ripple Ave. It’s an inspiring space with a lot of natural light and furnishings that are both homey and professional, giving visitors the feeling they just stepped into the pages of a top style magazine.
“Space is very important to us and to our processes,” Mike said. “The right physical environment is a key ingredient for innovation and collaboration within our own team and with our clients. It’s also a big part of how we give back to the community as a host to smaller events and meetups where we contribute thought leadership.”
On any given day, multiple clients come and go from the new Innovatemap headquarters for working sessions, and the open spaces and collaboration areas have been designed so that clients and guests could stay and be productive if they choose to. It’s not a coworking space exactly, but it’s a unique way for people to extend the creativity and discovery of their time with Innovatemap pros instead of returning directly to their familiar surroundings.
The Broad Ripple location does buck the trend of tech companies building out new homes in Fishers and downtown Indianapolis. It’s something different that offers clients and the community an alternative to the norm, and for the Innovatemap team it’s a joy to be able to share its excitement and dedication to the Broad Ripple area and its neighboring businesses.
“We’re very proud of our commitment to Marion County and to the Broad Ripple area,” Mike said. “We could have gone anywhere, really, but this is where we began our story and it’s part of who we are as a team. We’re thrilled to be able to grow roots in the place it all started with such a wonderful new headquarters that allows us to be ourselves and share it with our clients and the community.”