Angies list biography

American businessperson

Angie Hicks is the chief customer officer of ANGI Homeservices Inc. and the co-founder of Angie's List (now known as Angi).

Early life and education

Hicks grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from DePauw University, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Career

Hicks interned during college at CID Equity Partners, a venture capital firm where she met venture capitalist Bill Oesterle. In 1995, Oesterle hired Hicks to start Columbus Neighbors, a call-in service and publication with reviews of local home and lawn services in Columbus, Ohio. After Hicks recruited over 1,000 members in one year, the company was renamed Angie's List. In 1996, it acquired Unified Neighbors, a similar company in Indianapolis, then moved Angie's List's headquarters to that city in 1999.

In 2017, IAC announced its plans to acquire Angie's List and combine it with IAC's HomeAdvisor to form a new publicly traded company called ANGI Homeservices Inc. Hicks became the Chief Customer Officer of ANGI Homeservices Inc., a digital marketplace service that connects consumers with service professionals for home repair, maintenance and improvement projects. Hicks is a member of the Techpoint board of directors and a co-founder and past member of the board of directors of The Governor Bob Orr Indiana Entrepreneurial Fellowship Program. She was a member of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce board of directors until 2016.

References

From America’s Heartland in Indianapolis, Indiana. This is Get IN. The podcast, focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary innovations happening right now in software, hard tech, ag tech, sports tech, med tech, all the techs. And today’s guest is Angie Hicks. 

Like, no one answers their doors today. They still, they didn’t answer their doors in 1995, either. I, let’s be honest. You know, so for me it was, it was a numbers game. I had to commit myself that I was going to knock on so many doors. I was like, I was a believer in process. So I was like, I think if I knock on 20 doors, I might sell one. So if I just keep my script, knock on the door I might sell one.

You know, and so that’s how I would get through it, you know, and it was but it was, it was much more character building than sales generating. 

Angie Hicks is the co-founder of Angie’s List, which is a company that helps you connect with vetted pros read verified reviews, and get fair pricing for all home projects and services.

She was raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana and attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana for under. Then went on to get her MBA from Harvard Business School, and Angie has been with Angie’s List now called Angie for almost 28 years. She’s been a catalyst for change in the Indiana tech community. And in 2017 won the Trail Blazer Award, which recognizes visionaries, whose contributions have had lasting and significant impact on our technology ecosystem.

It is my pleasure to sit down here today with Angie Hicks. 

Angie, thanks so much for being here with me in Toph. Oh, I thank you for having me. This is very fun, very exciting. It’s really exciting for me too. I would not be in Indiana today probably, if not for you. Angie’s List is a big reason why I stayed in Indiana after graduating. And we can get into that later, but figured I would I would start with how did you end up kind of staying in Indiana after

Editor’s Note, February 19, 2013: Angie’s List reported profits on Feb. 13 for the first time in the company’s 17-plus years, showing a take of $2.4 million in its most recent quarter. The story below on founder Angie Hicks hails from the May 2006 issue of IM.

Angie Hicks settles into a loveseat at an immaculately remodeled Lockerbie home to tape a few of her regular news segments for WISH-TV. Today she’ll do one piece on mortgage refinancing and another on companies that are in the Angie’s List Penalty Box—her company’s hall of shame. Two businesses enter the Box this month, meaning Hicks and her namesake company are cautioning consumers about using their services. To the guilty parties—a lawn-care company that failed to fulfill a contract and a concrete firm tagged for poor workmanship—Hicks’ declaration is a costly black eye, a juicy bit of home-improvement gossip devoured by tens of thousands of empowered consumers. Yet she delivers the news in a straightforward, non-condescending manner, like a grade-school teacher announcing the cancellation of recess.
With her no-nonsense haircut, conservative outfit, and understated demeanor, Hicks’ approach is a far cry from the styles of other top businesswomen—Oprah, Martha—who market themselves by their first names. Her company, a self-proclaimed “homeowners’ grapevine,” allows consumers to file reports about the service providers they use—firms in more than 250 categories, from plumbers to funeral directors, boat upholsterers to private investigators. More than 300,000 subscribers in 33 cities rate providers on an A to F scale, and consult the ratings whenever they need any sort of service. The roster of Angie’s List members and the cities it serves is growing like crazy, and the company plans to be in the country’s 50 biggest cities by the end of 2007. Over the past decade, Angie’s List has grown to become a well-known national brand, though Angie herself is a reluctant celebrity.
Hicks, 33, who grew up in Fort

American home services directory website

Not to be confused with Annie's List.

This article is about the website. For the Davey Graham instrumental, see Anji (instrumental). For the parent company, see Angi Inc.

Angi (formerly Angie's List) is an American home services website owned by Angi Inc., a publicly traded subsidiary of IAC. Founded in 1995 by Angie Hicks and William S. Oesterle, it allows users to search for contractors to provide paid home improvement work.

The service was originally developed as a database of reviews for local services. Angie's List was a subscription-based service for most of its existence, but shifted to a freemium model in July 2016. In 2017, the company was acquired by IAC and merged with HomeAdvisor. HomeAdvisor became Angi Leads. In January 2025, IAC announced plans to spin-off Angi in the second quarter of 2025.

History

Angie Hicks and William S. Oesterle founded Angie's List in 1995. The idea resulted from Hicks's search for a reliable construction contractor in suburban Columbus, Ohio, on behalf of Oesterle, a venture capitalist who was Hicks's boss. Hicks moved to Columbus to join Oesterle in creating Columbus Neighbors, a call-in service and publication with reviews of local home and lawn care services. The name and concept were based on Unified Neighbors in Indianapolis, Indiana. Hicks went door-to-door, signing up consumers as members and collecting ratings of local contractors.

After Hicks recruited over 1,000 members in Columbus within one year, she turned to Oesterle to raise money from investors to develop the business. In 1996, the company bought Unified Neighbors from its creator and moved the company's headquarters to Indianapolis.

By 1999, the database of local services and reviews was moved to the Internet. In the following years, the customer base and business relationships grew throughout the United States, while