In January 2025, Indiana’s first first pro volleyball team played its inaugural game in franchise history to a sold-out crowd. Indy Ignite won its first match, and the 15-woman team has led an exciting first season.
“It’s going very well,” said co-founder Jim Schumacher. “Our team is currently 6 and 5, we’re getting good crowds at the Fishers Events Center. It’s going as well as I could’ve hoped!”
Indy Ignite’s logo, which features a blazing torch and volleyball, is a tribute to the state flag and the city’s iconic statue of Victory atop the Soldiers and Sailors Monument downtown. Many of these themes were developed by the student teams from the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis, who collaborated with Schumacher and co-founder Don Hutchinson as part of the Evening MBA Orientation Case Competition.
Jim was connected to the school through mutual friends and agreed to be the focus of the program’s Orientation Case Competition. The program hosts case competitions and immersive consulting projects in which students learn about a local company—how it functions, what challenges its facing—and then, they work in teams to produce and present novel solutions.
A long-time entrepreneur, Jim says he wanted to get fresh perspectives from students in the Evening MBA Program, most of whom are experienced, working professionals attending evening courses to earn the degree.
“I’ve spent a lot of my career with startups, and anytime you have a startup, you don’t know what you don’t know. You keep your eyes and ears open because you might get good ideas in ways you might not expect. Incoming Kelley MBA students are about as strong a talent pool you could get,” Jim said. “Put a bunch of smart people in a room, and there’s good chance they’ll come up with good ideas. Simple as that.”
In the competition, one team recommended the Ignite name and the idea to connect it to the Indiana flag. Another group recommended the team name “Indy Blaze” with a logo similar to the team’s ultimate choice. The project gave all students real and practical experience in the startup world and provided Jim with fresh insights for launching the team.
“Each Evening MBA team was very focused on fan experience and fan engagement. That’s something we really continue to drive today,” Jim said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Yeah, we need to refocus ourselves more on the broad fan experience as opposed to just volleyball fans. And in that way, we can hopefully expand our market and our fan base.’ That was a consistent and clear message from all the Kelley students, and one we took to heart.”
The Evening MBA teams also suggested Indy Ignite partner with other professional teams in Indianapolis. For instance, Indy Ignite plays at the new Fishers Event Center, which also hosts the professional hockey team Indy Fuel.
Jim says the students provided him with excellent suggestions, and because none of the Evening MBA students came from the startup world, it provided new perspectives.
“The students were all smart, talented, and driven. Everyone seemed to come from more structured, process-oriented professional settings, which is different from startups,” he said. “Seeing a startup close up is good exposure to the wider business ecosystem. In startups, you may use only one of 30 good ideas pitched, but we can take some of the other themes and apply them elsewhere. Exposure to all types of business is valuable because it helps you learn what you don’t know.”
The orientation case competition lasted only a couple weeks, so Jim says he’d be happy to work with Kelley Evening MBA students again in the future. As he says, in the startup world, there’s no end to the potential for the next good idea.
“Professor Kyle Anderson and his team made it super easy to work with the Evening MBAs. Kelley has a strong reputation, and it’s kind of a badge of honor to work with them,” Jim said. “This is our community, and we want to work together. We would look forward to working with the school again, and we’d recommend other businesses do the same.”
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