Friendship and mutual motivation lead Jasper natives to build successful business

Two Jasper best friends credit their friendship and can-do attitude for the success they have had with their complete-package website and marketing company, Viv, based in Newburgh.

Austin Hoffman and Logan Schroering started Viv in 2015 after Austin ran into a roadblock while he was attempting to launch a business. He had received some funding as part of a business-idea competition and was taking the summer to flesh out the project.

“A website design company quoted me $135,000 for my website,” Austin said. “I thought ‘there’s gotta be an easier way to do this.'”

He decided to teach himself how to design a website and that led the business major to pursue website design as a business. Logan, who had been considering joining his family’s company, Schroering Plumbing in Jasper, saw what his friend was doing and decided to join him.

The fledgling company formed by the two friends specialized in creating custom websites with more competitive pricing than what Austin had experienced.

“We perfected a pricing model and made sure our sites weren’t cookie-cutter like a lot of our competition,” Austin explained.

Adding that to their enthusiasm at learning the skills necessary to tackle any need for their clients, their reputation for getting a job done helped them to grow.

It wasn’t easy at first; their youth (about 20 at the time) was detrimental in finding clients. “Once we got that first one and he saw how good our work was the word started spreading,” Austin explained.

That client started referring them to other businesses that he knew needed help. As the pair successfully completed project after project, the clients started rolling in one after another.

In addition to overcoming their relative youth, they also had to continue building the company while going to school. Weekly class time was on top of the 50 hours spent building the business.

“It was difficult to balance classes and be entrepreneurial at the same time,” Austin said. “At times we had to make a choice between school work or building the business.”

They persevered and rather than entering the job market after finishing college, they continued working at their business.

[quote]”If you had told me that one day, we would go from being best friends in first grade to being the owners of a company that has 11 employees, I wouldn’t have believed it,” [/quote]

Besides a better price point, they specialized in responding to their clients’ individual needs. They would incorporate the skills necessary to accomplish their clients’ goals and then add those new services into their business model.

Finding solutions for those needs led them to a great partnership that they view as a step in solidifying their business services. Early on they had projects that required the ability to process payments for storefront websites so they began working with Approval Payment Solution, a Newburgh-based credit card processing company.

Approval Payment Solution (APS) handles more than $4.2 billion in transactions annually and has about 16,000 clients. As they built the working relationship with APS, the company saw a niche Viv could fill for its own clients.

With a recent agreement, Austin and Logan’s company is now part of a comprehensive online solution for any of APS’s clients. For Austin and Logan, the move gives them access to thousands of potential clients through a network of salespeople working for APS. On the flipside, APS relies on Viv to ensure their clients have successful online stores.

“We now have about 200 salespeople repping our services with APS,” Austin said.

APS purchased the former ITT Tech building in Newburgh for its offices and Viv has recently moved in with them as part of a contractual agreement between the two companies.

In addition to the work with APS, Viv has also recently landed a deal with 70 different banks to include the company’s online services in similar value-based comprehensive business service plans the banks can offer their clients.

About a year and a half into building their company they felt like they had a viable business idea. With the partnerships that have recently formed, they know Viv is a growing business venture that’s here for the long term.

The pair have harnessed their individual talents to bring it together. While both can dabble in any of the company’s functions, Austin concentrates on marketing the company and meeting with potential clients while Logan leads the development side of the business working with existing clients in-house.

In addition to some great partnerships and their combined motivation, their friendship is a huge part of their success. The two have known each other since first grade and that has built a solid foundation for the trust necessary to be successful business partners.

“I grew up driving my four-wheeler over to his house to go fishing,” Logan said. “Now we drive to work together every day.”

The two said that it has been incredible to build the business together; there isn’t a week that goes by that they don’t look at each other and marvel at the accomplishments that have occurred due to their hard work.

“If you had told me that one day, we would go from being best friends in first grade to being the owners of a company that has 11 employees, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Austin laughed. “It’s been fun to watch it grow.”

The company can be reached online, on Facebook and by phone at 812-618-9498.

Austin’s parents are Marty and Jill Hoffman of Jasper. Logan’s are Phil and Kathy Schroering also of Jasper. Both graduated from Jasper High School in 2013 and attended the University of Southern Indiana.

Locally, Viv works with Los Bravos, Libby’s Ice Cream and Jasper Pet Clinic.