MOBI acquisition: One year later
INDIANAPOLIS (Inside INdiana Business) — It’s been a little more than a year since Indianapolis-based tech company MOBI was acquired by Tangoe, a technology expense management company in New Jersey. During that time, MOBI co-founder Joshua Garrett says the transition from a domestic-focused startup to a global tech firm has been relatively seamless. Garrett now serves as chief strategy officer for Tangoe, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Garrett said the shift in the company’s size has been a big change for him.
“I think the biggest difference is just not knowing everyone. You know, I could walk around MOBI in our heyday and knew everyone that worked there, knew their name, knew lots of times things about their family and their background,” said Garrett. “And going from 315 people to 2,000 people, you just don’t have the sense of familiarity but you’re able to build that with the people you work with and create new relationships. Everyone’s able to adapt and one of the mottos we had at MOBI was to embrace change and certainly that was a big change but I think for me and speaking for most of the MOBI folks, they’ve been able to embrace that change pretty well.”
Garrett says one of the aspects of MOBI that was particularly attractive to Tangoe was the culture the company had developed over time.
“One of the things I’ve had people who’ve worked at Tangoe for a while tell me is how helpful everyone was. And that’s not to say that Tangoe folks aren’t helpful, but the people really willing to go above and beyond and solve problems and I think that was kind of the camaraderie that comes with working next to each other every day and for so long. So that ‘can-do’ attitude, whether it was helping coworkers, whether it was helping customers, working with vendors, that was something that (Tangoe) really embraced.”
The acquisition process, according to Garrett, speaks a lot to the tech ecosystem in Indiana. He says it has come to a point where central Indiana is no longer considered a “flyover” region.
“There’s a lot of talent here. There’s a lot of entrepreneurial spirit here. There’s a lot of support that comes from entities, whether it’s state and local government, whether it’s things like TechPoint that are able to really bring an ecosystem into place. If you think about talent being probably the most important part of any business, especially a business that’s based on technology and information technology, having access to some of the local schools that we have…and the willingness of those students to stick around, too…I think we’ve seen that not only in the acquisition, but also continuing to grow the local office here as well.”
Looking forward, Garrett says Tangoe aims to continue the growth of its platform into additional verticals, which could lead to an increase in employees.