Start-up company by IU graduate faces challenges

Charlie, a start-up company cofounded by IU alumnus Aaron Frazin, runs a mobile application that provides information about interviewers and clients five minutes before a meeting begins.

The app pulls information from the Internet and social media profiles, Frazin explained.

The idea for Charlie sprung from Frazin’s experiences during the blitzkrieg of job fairs and interviews of his senior year, and it’s a product he said anyone can use.

Now, the same creative team that helped develop Charlie is facing complications as a result of the United States visa policy. Some of Frazin’s team members are being forced back to their home countries in the midst of the start-up’s new growth.

“I couldn’t imagine making the U.S. my home and then having to leave,” Frazin said. “It’s a terrible issue.”

In September, the Charlie team was selected to participate in Dreamit, one of the top-rated entrepreneurial accelerators.

Dreamit provides capital to chosen start-ups to help them get off the ground and provides entrepreneurs with mentors and connections in the business world to help teach them how to improve their strategies, Frazin explained.

To participate, Frazin is currently in Philadelphia, where he lives among entrepreneurs of the 14 other chosen start-ups. Many of them face similar challenges, he said, and one of these challenges is international team coordination.

Rendy Schrader, director of international student and scholar advising at IU, said most international students have an F-1 visa and have options that allow them one year of either pre- or post-graduate work, as long as it relates to their field of study.

Students can also obtain the H-1B visa, which allows them to work for up to six years, but this requires sponsorship from an employer and is subject to a yearly cap, Schrader said.

Some students can be sponsored for a permanent residency visa, widely known as a green card, but there are hurdles in obtaining these permits, Schrader said.

The entrepreneur visa issue has been nationally recognized, Schrader said.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a visa was created in 1990 for international investors in “new commercial enterprises.” Yet visa holders must be noted job creators and generally must invest $1 million into their venture.

Frazin also faces other challenges working with a team.

“He is very bright and hardworking but is running into the types of problems that more experienced managers run into as they progress up their careers,” Janet Hillier, assistant clinical professor at the Kelley School of Business and mentor to Frazin, said in an email. “How do you manage people and teams, how do you motivate your team, how do you get them to do what needs to be done in a timely and effective way?”

The international element makes it even more difficult, Frazin said.

“If there’s a conflict, conflict can get dragged on for a few days,” he said. “If you are next to each other, you can just talk about it. I wonder how a lot of teams do it.”

Charlie is a particularly global company, sort of by accident, he said.

Frazin searched for team members on talent websites and by posting flyers at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology while participating in a scholars fellowship.
A lot of talent is global, he said.

“We are losing talented people,” Hillier said.

In the meantime, Frazin is working in Philadelphia on starting up Charlie. A beta of the program will soon be released at trycharlie.com, he said. From there, they hope to receive feedback and give a strong presentation at Dreamit’s Demo Day on Dec. 5.