Billhighway:  What’s the most interesting or compelling project you have worked on so far at Billhighway?

IG:  One major project I have worked on is mobile card reader competitive analysis. I was tasked with the project only a month into my fellowship to help support the go-to-market plan for Give, Billhighway’s mobile fundraising application.  Give helps nonprofits raise more money faster by accepting credit or debit cards using a smartphone.  The product looks and feels similar to Square, PayAnywhere or Intuit’s Go Payment, but it is much more unique. Give is not a point of sale application, rather it is a fundraising tool that can be used to collect donations, sell event or raffle tickets, or collect silent auction payments.  For my project I conducted online research, requested card readers and collected pricing information to see how our application stacked up against the competition.  A critical analysis component was that of product packaging.  My research proved invaluable in final decision making on how to package and ship the mobile card readers that accompany the Give application.  I presented my findings, insights and opportunities to management prior to submission of Give to the App Store for distribution.  Overall, it was a fantastic experience, especially at such an early stage in my fellowship.

Billhighway:  What skills have you learned on the job at Billhighway? 

IG:  I am learning so much about marketing strategies, sales cycles, and simply how to run a business.  I’ve found corporate marketing is almost no different than city marketing.  Coming from urban planning, I was not exactly sure how applicable my skills would be for a role in Billhighway’s marketing department, but I soon found it was a natural fit.  When tackling an urban problem you must do extensive research to learn what makes the city tick.  After that you want to try and brainstorm solutions leveraging intelligence and case studies.  Finally you recommend your findings to your client and hope they follow your advice.

In marketing it starts with research; for Billhighway, this is the nonprofit world.  Discovering who the key players are in the market and developing relationships is essential.  We spend a significant amount of time educating ourselves on people’s individual pain points within the nonprofit organization, from leadership to finance to fund development; everyone has different issues that keep them up at night.  We then learn more about the different verticals within the nonprofit market like faith-based, community service or food bank organizations and how our solutions fit into each sector.  All of these factors combined help drive marketing decisions.

I continue to learn more about marketing every day, but I’ve also been exposed to sales, or growth, as we call it at Billhighway.  I work closely with our sales team, we all sit in the same room, where I can be part of conversations about sales cycles and get debriefed on client meetings.  I am learning that an enterprise sale is a slow process that needs to be strategic and thoughtful.  Creating and mastering relationships is key to keeping clients satisfied and helping to create a sustainable business.

Because I work at a small business, the CEO and other executives are approachable and transparent.  I’ve learned to own my own work; and not to worry about what others do, just take responsibility for what I do.  In order to succeed, decisions need to be made quickly, and actions need to swiftly follow.  You don’t have to make perfect decisions, but you do need to make decisions.

Billhighway:  What do you like most about working at Billhighway?  Where do you see yourself in 12 months?

IG:  What’s not to like about Billhighway…I think that may be the best way to put it.  Billhighway provides so many great opportunities it can be overwhelming at times.  The office environment is amazing.  I recently completed grad school where work was typically done within a team; spending hours together in one room to accomplish a task.  Billhighway’s culture is no different.  We each have our own spaces, but I almost always work with my marketing team or the growth team.  When we put our heads together we collectively strengthen our individual work, ideas flow and opportunities turn into real progress.

Everyone at Billhighway believes in the core values of the company and tries to accomplish all tasks above and beyond the desired outcome.  This just re-enforces the great working environment.  If someone is having a bad day or week, a team member is there to pick you up.

Because Billhighway is a small company we can move quickly in many directions.  If one technique is not generating enough leads, we can pivot and try something else.  Likewise Billhighway is employee friendly. If I need to work from home for an afternoon, I have that option; if I want to volunteer for a morning and then come to work in the afternoon, I have that option; and if I feel my time isn’t being used properly I can freely seek ways to improve my productivity.

I am not completely sure where I see myself in 12 months, but I do have a few requirements. First and foremost I want to stay in Detroit; it’s a great place and I love being here.  With that said, I want my next endeavor to continue to focus on the city and its well-being to feed my Detroit addiction.  I don’t need to be a traditional urban planner, and to some extent I don’t want to be.  My degree allows me to look at the city as an organism for regional prosperity and I want to bolster this prosperity by any means possible.  I would love to stay at Billhighway because I love everything about it.  Regardless of what happens after my fellowship, I will cherish my experience here and am grateful to be a part of Billhighway and Challenge Detroit.