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

Bill Oesterle, a founder and the longtime chief government of the service assessment web site Angie’s List, 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 residence in Indianapolis. He was 57.

His assistant, Jackie Annan, mentioned the trigger was issues of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also referred to as Lou Gehrig’s illness.

The concept 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 price to reliable contractors and different residence enchancment professionals, eradicating a few of the anxiousness from hiring a stranger for costly residence repairs.

The enterprise, initially known as Columbus Neighbors, was a hyperlocal affair: Ms. Hicks signed up new subscribers by going door to door and supplied referrals over the telephone, consulting an precise record that needed to be up to date every time an organization’s ranking modified. The service unfold the phrase even additional by promoting in newspapers, and the title turned Angie’s List in 1996.

In 1999, with the dot-com growth close to its apogee, Angie’s List moved on-line. The web site, which nonetheless charged a subscription price and likewise made cash by promoting, rated totally different companies from A to F in classes like punctuality and professionalism. It additionally allowed customers to jot down signed evaluations about totally different companies of their space, which Angie’s List hoped would make evaluations fairer and extra correct. (Users’ complete names didn’t seem, however they did have to supply them to the corporate.)

Businesses that obtained dangerous evaluations may attempt to settle the difficulty with prospects who complained by Angie’s List; if the enterprise ignored the criticism decision course of or didn’t resolve a criticism, it could possibly be positioned within the Penalty Box, a form of on-line pillory, and quickly lose its itemizing on the location. Widely praised companies earned a Super Service Award, in addition to higher consideration on the location.

Mr. Oesterle turned chief government in 1999, when Ms. Hicks left to attend Harvard Business School. (She later returned in a distinct capability.) In time the corporate employed greater than 2,000 staff, primarily primarily based in Indianapolis throughout Mr. Oesterle’s tenure, and developed a person base of tens of millions in dozens of cities throughout the United States.

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 Office of Management and Budget, for years. Mr. Oesterle raised tens of millions of {dollars} for Mr. Daniels’s marketing campaign whereas having him tour the state in an R.V., journey a bike and keep in a single day with constituents to show that he was a person of the folks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Angie’s List went public in 2011 however struggled financially after a promising preliminary public providing. Mr. Oesterle stepped down as chief government 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 List 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 University, and Germaine (Seelye) Oesterle, who studied horticulture at Cornell University 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 suppose tank that on the time was led by Mr. Daniels and headquartered in Indianapolis. He was later accepted to Harvard Business School. But earlier than he left, Mr. Daniels had a dialog with him.

“He pointed a finger at my chest and said, ‘You’d better come back 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 personal fairness agency in Columbus, Ohio, the place he met Ms. Hicks, a current graduate of DePauw University.

Inspired by a publication service in Indianapolis that helped folks discover plumbers and different residence staff, Mr. Oesterle and Ms. Hicks began understanding of his storage. Once the corporate started to take off, they named it after Ms. Hicks, purchased the service that had initially impressed them and finally 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 firms 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 proficient, 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.