Indy startup expands marketplace beyond remote workers on the move
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As remote working trends continue, one Indianapolis-based company is looking to become the connector between geographically unbound workers and their new home.
MakeMyMove is an online marketplace that allows communities across the country to create a profile and offer incentives to attract remote workers to their area. Workers can browse the website for free and compare city demographics like affordability, local attractions and internet speeds to find a place right for them.
Co-founder Evan Hock told Inside INdiana Business it all comes in an effort to connect and engage individuals in growing communities.
“There’s a lot of sites online that offer help with planning a trip or maybe finding information about schools or safety, but it’s all kind of disparate,” Hock said. “We really see our role as aggregating all of the information in one place to make it really easy. If you’re looking for a new place to live and want to know what the vibe is or want to know what the people are like, this is where you can come to find all of that.”
Hock said his team initially set out to create a business that helped recruit talent to Indiana companies, but the pandemic changed their mission.
“During the pandemic, we realized that the shackles of location had been lifted,” Hock said. “People were suddenly free to live and work wherever they wanted independent of their employers, and so we saw the real opportunity was helping communities recruit these individuals directly.”
Evan Hock speaks about the beginning of MakeMyMove and how the pandemic shaped remote work.
MakeMyMove launched in late 2021 with about two dozen participating programs. Communities — which can include cities, towns, counties or broader regions — can post about their attributes like access to public parks, proximity to local event venues and quality of area schools. Working alongside local nonprofits, companies and more, the areas can also offer incentives, like moving stipends, free events packages and memberships to local professional organizations.
One South Bend offer, worth $5,900 in total, throws in $5,000 cash along with the movers’ choice of baseball tickets, chocolate factory tours, zoo passes, trips to Chicago and more. An Evansville offer similarly provides a $5,000 cash stipend as well as day passes to the local Children’s Museum, tickets for two to the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and a free, one-year membership to area coworking space.
Participation fees vary based on the size of the community, Hock said, but generally costs about $2,000 a month to those seeking to recruit talent. The site is free for those looking to move.
The marketplace has grown now to include as many as 200 communities across the country — including Indiana communities like Culver, Logansport, Jay County, French Lick and Delphi — and has helped more than 1,000 remote workers make their move.
Workers can search the website, with the tagline “Move to the place that moves you,” by region name, region type, community attributes and more.
Hock said he’s seen interest from all types of communities, but especially smaller cities and towns in the Midwest or Northeast who see the marketplace as an economic development tool.
Though the website is geared toward industries like tech or sales and marketing that naturally lend themselves to remote work, others like teachers and health care workers have made use of MakeMyMove, too.
“Those are skills you learn in one place and they’re very portable to other places,” Hock said.
Hock speaks about the variety of workers MakeMyMove assists.
Some cities are making use of the marketplace to help place workers in hard-to-fill positions like police officers. For example, Jackson, Michigan, a city about 40 miles from Ann Arbor, is offering $20,000 signing bonuses and $25,000 in down-payment assistance for a new home.
“Like the rest of the country, The City of Jackson is facing real challenges in recruiting law enforcement officers,” Aaron Dimick, Jackson’s city public information officer, said in a news release provided by the company. “We’re pulling out all the stops to make sure we’re attracting the quality and experienced candidates that will ensure safety and build positive relationships with the community.”
As the company expands, Hock said MakeMyMove is eying the global marketplace next.
“We see this as a global business,” Hock said. “The same problems that affect Indiana’s population affect Italy’s population.”