The outsourcing possibilities inherent in multiple ownership have served Becker well. Each time the CEO starts a new company, he farms out nearly everything to his established companies. For example, until receiving its charter, in 1997, First IB was run out of a single office at VIFI headquarters and used the human-resources, payroll, and accounting resources at re:Member Data, paying that company what it would have paid nonrelated providers. Likewise, Inception, a four-man operation that Becker founded this year to provide mentoring and up to $1 million in financing to new Indiana-based businesses, inhabits a single room at VIFI and draws on re:Member Data for human-resources, payroll, and accounting services. "Re:Member Data has been the backbone that provides the infrastructure to start up the new companies," says Becker. "It allows us to get services without having to hire and train new people. And then, as we start adding people to the new companies, we separate the re:Member Data people back out."
"My management style is to swing a lot of rope. People will either hang or swing on the other side."
--David Becker
Economies of scale extend to the inanimate realm. Now that re:Member, VIFI, and Inception all live in the same building, Becker can purchase a single enterprise license for his Microsoft operating system, which not only saves money but also provides more-robust versions of tools like word-processing and E-mail. The telephones run on one huge switching system. The three companies also share dental- and health-insurance plans, 401(k) products, and long- and short-term disability and life-insurance programs, which means more-comprehensive benefits at a lower cost to employees. And then there are the entertainment perks that Becker raffles off: box tickets to concerts and a $150,000 suite at Conseco Fieldhouse for events such as the Pacers games. "When you can spread benefits over three or four entities," he says, "you can do better and larger things for your employees."
The Employees
Becker is just as smart about arranging his people as he is about arranging his companies. In fact, success with the former makes success possible with the latter. Top employees follow Becker from one venture to the next. For example, Greg Feigh, a telecommunications specialist once at re:Member Data, now fills that role at VIFI. And Becker plucked marketing director Nicole Sunkel from VIFI to get First IB off the ground, charging her with developing an institution with $100 million in assets within two years (a goal she met in nine months). "I take a couple of core people with me to seed the new employee base and to carry my philosophies forward," says Becker. "My philosophy, which I've drilled into everybody's head, is, Always hire the person who can replace you."
Although Becker's top employees are transferable among companies, the CEO recognizes that his own management style is not. The businesses differ not only in maturity but also in culture. "At VIFI the focus is very visual," says Becker. "It's the MTV world put to business application. There are new browsers, new tools, new services every day, whereas we'll do releases in the re:Member world maybe twice a year. The companies require two very different thought processes."
The bank, too, has a distinct personality. People, not technology, are its primary focus, and it markets directly to consumers, not businesses. "First IB is very one-dimensional," says Becker. "We focus purely on the delivery of the product and the service side." Inception has the mien of a tiny VC firm: it analyzes products and services rather than creates them.
Consequently, Becker the boss at one company behaves differently from Becker the boss at another. At re:Member Data, for example, the CEO is relatively hands-off. Programmers are given ideas and allowed to run with them, with Becker checking in on projects only occasionally. At VIFI, on the other hand, Becker functions almost as a project leader, meeting with developers every couple of weeks. "For most of the people at VIFI, this is their first job," says Becker. "They have the technical ability, but they don't have the experience and the direction yet." His behavior at the bank, with its multitude of regulations, is even more hands-off. "I'm the outside person for the bank, the persona," says Becker. "I raise the funds, do the public relations."
But it's not just Becker's ability to adapt to his companies' distinct managerial requirements that keeps his four businesses growing at such a rapid clip. (VIFI alone expanded by 2,353% over the past five years.) He also gives his staff, particularly the four handpicked point people who are his direct lines of contact, tremendous autonomy. "I instigate the issues, and then my management style is to swing a lot of rope," says Becker. "People will either hang or swing on the other side."
Two of Becker's anointed four are Jim Hutchins and Dan Sanders, the IT wizards at re:Member Data and VIFI, respectively. The CEO talks with them at least three times a week, either inquiring about the projects each is overseeing at his company or seeking the opinion of one about a project of the other. The remaining two are Sunkel, whom he consults about the marketing plans for all four companies, and Phillip V. Kryder, the longtime chief financial officer at re:Member Data, who scrutinizes the businesses' financial data. Becker talks to Sunkel and Kryder several times a day, usually by cell phone.
