'He cared about people:' Angie's List cofounder Bill Oesterle dies at 57

Bill Oesterle, the co-founder and former CEO of business directory service Angie's List, died Wednesday after complications with ALS. He was 57.

Oesterle was known for his wide spheres of influence in Indianapolis business and politics. In addition to his involvement at Angie's List, now Angi, Oesterle co-founded the Orr Fellowship and post-Angie's List venture TMap, which does business as MakeMyMove.

More: Briggs: Bill Oesterle is dying. His last act is a sales pitch for Indiana.

A Republican, he was an influential political leader who helped convince Mitch Daniels to run for governor and managed Daniels’ first gubernatorial campaign. In 2015, Oesterle spoke out forcefully against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which many feared would have allowed discrimination against the LGBTQ community.

He’s survived by his wife, Kristi, as well as six children in their blended family.

Those who knew Oesterle say he was passionate about investing in people and talent, particularly in Indiana. He wanted to make his home state a better place to live and work.

“I love where I live, and I love the people I live with,” Oesterle told IndyStar last year. “The people in this building are precious to me. This state is precious to me."

A political and entrepreneurial legacy

Oesterle was born and raised in West Lafayette, attended Purdue University and later Harvard Business School. He started his career working for former Gov. Robert Orr and then with Daniels at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.

Oesterle helped persuade Daniels to run for governor and managed his first gubernatorial campaign in 2004.

In a statement to IndyStar, Daniels said that trying to imagine a world without Oesterle left him “at a loss for words.”

“He was a job creator, a community builder, a lifelong advocate for Indiana and a person with an enormous heart for others,” Daniels said. “He always said I was the person who persuaded him to return to Indiana: If that is so, it’s the single service I’m most proud of.”

In a statement on social media, Gov. Eric Holcomb called Oesterle “a rare individual who could focus beyond the horizon.”

“Bill’s passion for improvement and inclusion helped spark transformational growth and development over decades and that will in turn inspire others to do so in decades to come,” Holcomb said.

Growing Angie's List

In 1995, Oesterle co-founded Angie’s List with business partner Angie Hicks. The business director service connecting customers grew from three people to thousands at its peak.

But despite these resume accomplishments, those who knew Oesterle and worked with him said what made him special was his commitment to other people.

Kelsey Taylor, who met Oesterle in 2007 when she came on board as the wellness director for Angie’s List, said Oesterle defied the intimidating stereotypes that surround the CEO role.

“You were not his employee,” she said. “You were more of a coworker.”

Many of Oesterle’s coworkers at Angie’s List became friends, even after they moved on to different professional ventures.

“If you met Bill, you never left Bill,” Cheryl Reed, who used to serve as communications director at Angie’s List, said. “He had that effect on people. He was just a person who was genuine and really truly wanted the best for all of the people that he met.”

An advocate for Indiana

John Thompson, who met Oesterle in 2007 when Oesterle joined the National Bank of Indianapolis’ board, said he and Oesterle both shared a passion for Indiana and making sure that all Hoosiers enjoy a safe and welcoming place to live and work.

“Bill loved Indiana. So we lost one of Indiana’s greatest sons, losing Bill,” Thompson said. “He’s done so much for the state.”

In 2015, Oesterle was among the most vocal opposition of business leaders to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, legislation backed by then-Gov. Mike Pence. Oesterle put the $40 million expansion of the east side Angie’s List campus on hold, and eventually canceled the project. That development of the former Angie's List campus is now the Elevator Hill mixed-use development, which Oesterle and investors purchased in 2018 for future entrepreneurial development.

Shortly after his strong and public stance against RFRA, Oesterle quit his $624,000-per-year job as CEO, saying he wanted to return to state politics and focus on rehabilitating the state’s attitude towards gay rights.

“He was chairman, president, CEO, and he gave all that up to fight RFRA,” Thompson said. “Because he believed that everyone deserves an equal chance at the American dream and a free chance to live their life as they see fit.”

Oesterle told IndyStar last year that he regrets his choice to leave Angie’s List when he did, and that he did so because he was tired and the path to the top at the company seemed exhausting.

“I believe in my heart of hearts, if we had stayed on the strategy we were working on, we’d be the dominant player in home services,” he said.

Oesterle left Angie's List in 2015 and began having ALS symptoms in 2017, the same year he founded his new startup TMap. He was diagnosed two years later with ALS.

“Two years of that wore me out,” Oesterle told IndyStar . “I was like, ‘Holy (expletive),’ I’m in a startup. This is not a good time to be in a startup. Everything was that way. Everything. Where I am now, I have the gift of knowing about when I’m going to die. So, my plan is incredibly precise. My life got better when I got diagnosed with a terminal disease.”

One of Oesterle’s passions was investing in talent and people. He founded the Orr Fellowship, a two-year program that connects graduates of Indiana colleges and universities with jobs, because he was frustrated at the so-called “brain drain,” where students moved out of state immediately.

Oesterle made it his life’s work to attract people to Indiana by making the state a better place to live and work and he took that mission very seriously — so seriously that he worked through his ALS diagnosis on TMap, and launched a segment of the company, MakeMyMove, a site attracting remote workers to Indiana, as a pilot in December 2020.

And though COVID-19 launched remote work into immediate relevance, Oesterle and his company were eyeing the trend even before the pandemic, according to IndyStar archives. Thompson said that’s a pattern for Oesterle — he always seemed to be one step ahead as far as innovation and creativity went, and was always willing to course-correct when things weren't growing as they should.

“Bill enters a space and becomes the dominant company in that space,” Thompson said.

'All about inclusiveness'

Despite Oesterle’s name recognition as a businessman and political leader, he measured his success through his friends, of which he had many, and his family. When he married his wife, Kristi, he invited the entire company to his wedding — and over 1,000 people came.

“Bill is all about inclusiveness,” Ed Sherman, former Angie’s List employee and longtime friend, said. “One of the things that Bill really, really made sure of was to make sure everybody felt welcome.”

Oesterle was gregarious. He told IndyStar last year that he loved “just meeting people and talking to them.”

But his sociable nature was not limited to his professional ventures. Sherman recalled a time he was having a bad day and the two went to a pub in the middle of the afternoon. Oesterle spent their afternoon buying drinks for everyone in the bar and talking to them about life. By the time they left, Sherman said, Oesterle “could have become the mayor.”

“He never pretended that he knew all the answers for things,” he said. “He knew that he cared about people, and he knew that he could shed some light and really show people that he cared about them."

A few years ago, shortly after Oesterle's diagnosis, more than 1,000 people came to an Angie's List reunion at the old east side campus. They came, Reed said, because they wanted to say goodbye and thank you to Oesterle.

But Oesterle had other plans in mind. He wanted to share this message for his friends, family and former coworkers: “Now, go out and do bold things for the community,” Sherman said.

That’s the legacy that Sherman — and others — will take away from Oesterle’s life, along with his faith in people and passion for Indiana.

“Bill had this idea … that he installed in everyone,” Sherman said. “It was, find good people who may not have the best opportunities. Treat them well. Nurture them. And you'll see just how well they can succeed."

Former IndyStar columnist James Briggs contributed to this report.

Claire Rafford can be reached at 317-617-3402 or crafford@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bill Oesterle, Angie's List cofounder, dies of ALS at 57