With innovative style and iGoDigital class, President and Founder Eric Tobias took some time Monday night to chat with the Indianapolis-rooted Orr Fellowship.

So what is the Orr Fellowship?

It's Match.com for top recent graduates and high-growth companies in Indianapolis. The mission is to keep the best and brightest graduates of Indiana colleges from darting to Chicago, NY, or the West Coast. iGoDigital has taken part in the program for 2 years now, and has two Orr Fellow-Alumni.

As a supporter of the program, Eric took some time to show us around the SpeakEasy, Indy's newest hot-spot for entrepreneurs who are looking for an exclusive, hip, and a bit quirky spot to be used as a common workplace or frequent work hideout.

Everyone left fired up--about entrepreneurship, about Indianapolis, and about innovation. Here's my stab at what he had to say (I'm paraphrasing and drawing from memory here)...

On The SpeakEasy: People growing a business quickly realize that a common workplace is hard to come by. There's a tipping point where everyone can't simply work at home, roam from coffee shop to coffee shop, and the like. The SpeakEasy gives those folks an option. It also will hopefully attract a diverse crowd of experienced veterans and young go-getters who can work in a cool environment and maybe learn a thing or two from each other.

On Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital: At the end of the day, what I took away from Eric's chat is that starting a business has highs, and it has lows. Stepping back and finding the middle ground is what's hard, but absolutely imperative. The middle ground is where an entrepreneur must live.

On Company Culture: You've seen it all over the iGoDigital blog. We build our desks, we play music over the stereo, have chili cook-offs and baking contests, company meetings where we acknowledge the little things....the list goes on. It's a large piece of what fuels employees to wake up in the morning ready to do great work, and has been a huge part of the iGoDigital success in 2011.

Product Improvement/Innovation: A few folks asked, "How do you know a good idea when you see one?" Eric's focus, as well as that of iGoDigital, is around the customer. Before any idea can be validated, take it to the customer and ask questions. Learn from them. And most importantly, listen to their challenges and opportunities. 

To stay innovative, it can take a lot of effort to detach yourself from a product or service. Always looking for new opportunities and listening to customer feedback will take you from follower to leader.

Check out more about the Speak Easy on twitter @thespeakeasy. Coming in January.