Bill Oesterle, Co-Founder of Angie’s List, Dies at 57

Invoice Oesterle, a founder and the longtime chief government of the service assessment web site Angie’s Checklist, who additionally ran Mitch Daniels’s first marketing campaign for governor of Indiana however later clashed with the state’s Republican institution, died on Wednesday at his dwelling in Indianapolis. He was 57.

His assistant, Jackie Annan, mentioned the trigger was problems of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often known as Lou Gehrig’s illness.

The thought behind Angie’s List, which Mr. Oesterle (pronounced OST-er-lee) based in Columbus, Ohio, in 1995 with Angie Hicks, was to attach individuals who paid a subscription charge to reliable contractors and different dwelling enchancment professionals, eradicating among the anxiousness from hiring a stranger for costly dwelling repairs.

The enterprise, initially referred to as Columbus Neighbors, was a hyperlocal affair: Ms. Hicks signed up new subscribers by going door to door and supplied referrals over the cellphone, consulting an precise listing that needed to be up to date each time an organization’s score modified. The service unfold the phrase even additional by promoting in newspapers, and the identify turned Angie’s Checklist in 1996.

In 1999, with the dot-com increase close to its apogee, Angie’s Checklist moved on-line. The positioning, which nonetheless charged a subscription charge and in addition made cash via promoting, rated totally different companies from A to F in classes like punctuality and professionalism. It additionally allowed users to write signed reviews about different businesses of their space, which Angie’s Checklist hoped would make opinions fairer and extra correct. (Customers’ whole names didn’t seem, however they did have to offer them to the corporate.)

Companies that acquired unhealthy opinions might attempt to settle the difficulty with prospects who complained via Angie’s Checklist; if the enterprise ignored the grievance decision course of or didn’t resolve a grievance, it could possibly be positioned within the Penalty Field, a sort of on-line pillory, and quickly lose its itemizing on the location. Extensively praised companies earned a Tremendous Service Award, in addition to higher consideration on the location.

Mr. Oesterle turned chief government in 1999, when Ms. Hicks left to attend Harvard Enterprise College. (She later returned in a distinct capability.) In time the corporate employed greater than 2,000 staff, primarily based mostly in Indianapolis throughout Mr. Oesterle’s tenure, and developed a consumer base of thousands and thousands in dozens of cities throughout the US.

In 2004 Mr. Oesterle stepped away to run Mr. Daniels’s marketing campaign for governor. He had recognized Mr. Daniels, who was then director of the Workplace of Administration and Funds, for years. Mr. Oesterle raised thousands and thousands of {dollars} for Mr. Daniels’s marketing campaign whereas having him tour the state in an R.V., experience a bike and keep in a single day with constituents to exhibit that he was a person of the individuals.

Mr. Daniels received handily, beating the Democratic incumbent, Joseph Kernan, with greater than 53 % of the vote.

Mr. Oesterle turned in opposition to the Indiana Republican institution in 2015, when Mr. Daniels’s successor as governor, Mike Pence, signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law that critics contended would enable companies to discriminate in opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. individuals.

The regulation drew an outcry from politicians in different states in addition to enterprise leaders like Tim Cook dinner of Apple and plenty of Hoosiers — 1000’s protested on the statehouse.

Mr. Oesterle threatened to cancel a $40 million deal to develop Angie’s Checklist’s Indianapolis headquarters, depart his job as chief government to concentrate on homosexual rights in Indiana and assist a challenger to Mr. Pence, to whom he had donated $150,000.

He informed The Indianapolis Star in 2015 that he thought the invoice would harm the state’s economic system and the Republican Get together.

After the uproar, Indiana lawmakers rapidly handed an modification supposed to guard L.G.B.T.Q. individuals from discrimination. However Angie’s Checklist by no means constructed its Indianapolis growth.

Angie’s Checklist went public in 2011 however struggled financially after a promising preliminary public providing. Mr. Oesterle stepped down as chief executive in 2015, and in 2017 Angie’s List was acquired for about $500 million by IAC, a digital media group managed by the entrepreneur Barry Diller, which merged the corporate with its HomeAdvisor service. Angie’s Checklist is now referred to as Angi.

William Seelye Oesterle was born on Sept. 26, 1965, in Lafayette, Ind., northwest of Indianapolis. He was the youngest of 5 youngsters of Eric Oesterle, an agricultural economics professor at Purdue College, and Germaine (Seelye) Oesterle, who studied horticulture at Cornell College earlier than they married.

Mr. Oesterle grew up in West Lafayette, the place he graduated from highschool in 1983. He earned a bachelor’s diploma in economics from Purdue in 1987 and took a fellowship with Gov. Robert Orr.

After a few 12 months, Mr. Oesterle was employed by the Hudson Institute, a assume tank that on the time was led by Mr. Daniels and headquartered in Indianapolis. He was later accepted to Harvard Enterprise College. However earlier than he left, Mr. Daniels had a dialog with him.

“He pointed a finger at my chest and mentioned, ‘You’d higher come again right here. You owe it to us,’” Mr. Oesterle mentioned in 2021.

He accomplished his grasp’s diploma at Harvard within the early Nineties, and in 1991 he married Melissa McCain. Their marriage resulted in divorce.

Mr. Oesterle went to work for a non-public fairness agency in Columbus, Ohio, the place he met Ms. Hicks, a latest graduate of DePauw College.

Impressed by a e-newsletter service in Indianapolis that helped individuals discover plumbers and different dwelling staff, Mr. Oesterle and Ms. Hicks began figuring out of his storage. As soon as the corporate started to take off, they named it after Ms. Hicks, purchased the service that had initially impressed them and ultimately moved their headquarters to Indianapolis.

In 2002 Mr. Oesterle helped create the Orr Fellowship, named after Governor Orr, which brings as much as 90 new school graduates to Indianapolis to work for main corporations for 2 years.

In 2007, Mr. Oesterle married Kristi English. She survives him, as do 4 youngsters from his first marriage, Maggie Shipman, Katie Smith, Fischer Oesterle and Emma Oesterle; a stepdaughter, Kayla English; a daughter from his second marriage, Luella Oesterle; two brothers, Eric and Dale; two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary Ellen Oesterle; and three grandchildren.

The Orr Fellowship was the primary of many efforts Mr. Oesterle undertook to maintain gifted, educated staff from leaving Indiana.

Mr. Oesterle began a enterprise to deal with the issue: MakeMyMove, which works with communities in Indiana and different states to current incentives for distant staff to maneuver to these communities.