StartFEST colliding talent to get Utah’s powerful business culture noticed
Joshua Proulx competes in a ping pong tournament during the Startup games on Monday, August, 31, 2015. The games are part of a weeklong event known as StartFEST, a large multi-day conference for entrepreneurs and business leaders. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Koozies are given to competitors during the Startup games on Monday, August, 31, 2015. The games are part of a weeklong event known as StartFEST, a large multi-day conference for entrepreneurs and business leaders. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Russ Zimmerman and Ben Larson compete in a foosball tournament during the Startup games on Monday, August, 31, 2015. The games are part of a weeklong event known as StartFEST, a large multi-day conference for entrepreneurs and business leaders. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Yoshiki Schmitz competes in a ping pong tournament during the Startup games on Monday, August, 31, 2015. The games are part of a weeklong event known as StartFEST, a large multi-day conference for entrepreneurs and business leaders. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Competitors play foosball during the Startup games on Monday, August, 31, 2015. The games are part of a weeklong event known as StartFEST, a large multi-day conference for entrepreneurs and business leaders. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Hundreds of business executives, entrepreneurs and business hopefuls, old and young, strode through Center Street in Provo this week, hoofing it between various downtown venues for Provo’s first StartFEST.
StartFEST is the brainchild of Clint Betts, founder and CEO of Beehive Startups, an organization dedicated to highlighting local startups and the tech scene. For StartFEST, Betts partnered with an extensive network of business leaders and experts to create a five-day event devoted to educating local business men and women on better business startup practices, how to secure investors, and running successful businesses. Opportunities for networking and collaboration were also sandwiched between the hundreds of classes and events.
“We did StartFEST to get all of the startup community together all at the same time, and see what types of connections and collisions happen,” Betts said.
Governor Gary Herbert started the festival off Sept. 1 voicing an appreciation for how powerfully the private sector is moving Utah’s economy forward. He assured listeners that his office is dedicated to continuing to ensure Utah is business friendly.
“Utah’s best years are ahead of us in the marketplace, policy development, leadership. You can take us to new heights,” he said, and later tweeted as well.
None of the business expert speakers and presenters were paid, but the festival still pulled in most of the business movers from Utah Valley and the Salt Lake City areas. Betts said the speakers and backers came together out of a desire to “benefit and give back to the community, and promote Utah and celebrate what’s happening.”
Among the many speakers and presenters were Michelle Mccullough of Startup Princess, Freshly Picked CEO Susan Petersen, Pluralsight founder and CEO Aaron Skonnard, Health Catalyst CEO Dan Burton and managing director of Epic Ventures Nick Efstratis. Each shared advice learned through their own businesses or insights on the local business landscape.
Michelle Mccullough, Startup Princess
Michelle Mccullough is the managing director of Startup Princess, an Utah-based organization for women entrepreneurs. As one of the opening presentations Sept. 1 at StartFEST, she discussed how to take a the idea of a business to actualization, and how to avoid the common mistakes many inexperienced startups initially make.
She encouraged entrepreneurs to always create a business plan and have it in place before starting. Thinking through a business plan in advance is essential in creating a sustainable company, she said.
She also warned against skimping on branding for new businesses — especially when it comes to a logo, website, and online or offline content. There are ways to do these things inexpensively, she said, but they must be done well, regardless of the money spent on them.
“You should also balance traditional and emerging marketing strategies. As cash-strapped startups, we get excited about social media. But people aren’t on social media all the time. Businesses can’t forget more traditional methods like billboards, newspapers and magazines, and signage,” she said.
One of her most important bits of advice was about entrepreneur’s time. She is a huge advocate of setting realistic goals and prioritizing how entrepreneurs use their time for the tasks that are most needed.
“Delegate. Don’t do everything, even if you are the business. Get people to help you,” she said. “Your greatest asset in your business is not the product, not the money, not the people — it is your time. I’ve seen business owners with the best products fail, because they don’t manage their time.”
Susan Petersen, Freshly Picked
Susan Petersen started Freshly Picked in 2009, to fill a need she saw for well-designed baby shoes. In a short TED Talk-style presentation Sept. 1, she shared the lessons she learned early on when her new business blossomed overnight. She explained that during a special sale her young company offered, she had more orders than she could fulfill. She called her business mentor and friends and whined that it wasn’t possible to do it all.
“She told me, ‘You’re going to wake up tomorrow, put on your big girl panties, and you’re going to get to work,'” Petersen said.
From that experience, Petersen said she learned three very important things that have helped her run her business successfully since — to face things head on, to be completely transparent with her customers, and to celebrate the business milestones with customers. She shared how she and her small team at the time just worked nonstop and filled box after box of orders. For the orders she couldn’t fill, she sent out an email explaining the whole process, what the delay was from, and how soon the customer could expect their product. In her presentation Tuesday, she shared just one example of how answering one person’s frustration about the slow delivery times with that explanatory email turned that person into a repeat customer — 26 times.
When all the orders finally all went out, she posted about the achievement to her customers. Celebrating with customers, she said, shows your gratitude for keeping you in business, and builds a community with them, sometimes better than any marketing campaign would.
Panel on ‘What is Driving Utah’s Tech Success?'
To address the big picture of the business atmosphere in Utah, StartFEST included a panel of leaders who sat down with leading tech columnist Jefferson Graham of USA TODAY. To talk about the unique draw Utah has for tech startups, Graham was joined by Betts; Aaron Skonnard, founder and CEO of Pluralsight; Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst; and Nick Efstratis, managing director of Epic Ventures. The group estimated that there are about five, billion dollar companies in Utah, with more to come in less than a decade.
Graham started the panel asking what made Utah unique, and why the startup culture and business economy is so successful. The group felt the answer to that question was multifaceted and nuanced to the culture of the state and its people.
“It’s in our social fabric. We have smart people who want to stay here. In Provo, we have two great universities putting out top talent, and in Salt Lake we have the University of Utah that has started the Lassonde Institute to really drive startup businesses,” Skonnard said.
Burton talked about how Utah also has always been known to be a different state — mostly because of the prevalence of the LDS religion and its culture. Today, that uniqueness has naturally bled over into the way Utahns approach business, and entrepreneurs in the state aren’t afraid of being different.
“A great strategy in business is to be different than others. Utah does this well,” he said.
Betts attributed some of Utah’s success to the path laid early on by companies like Novell and Wordperfect, and the others that carried it from there. Skonnard said Utah has been strong in business for a long time now, but is only just getting more national notice. His company Pluralsight , and many of the successful businesses dotting the landscape today, have had to bootstrap it from the beginning because until recently, investors weren’t looking at the state.
As with his company, Skonnard said businesses in Utah have had to be “revenue positive” from day one because of the lack of an investor base, like in Silicon Valley. At Pluralsight, they learned early on how to provide real value to customers, how to position their business with the ability to scale, and have something of substance for when investors did come knocking.
“Before, we were a ‘flyover’ state. It was easy sometimes to feel trapped in this state when so many people were flying over us to get to other places. As a state, we’ve been forced to figure out how to produce capital, because there were no venture capitalists here,” Skonnard said. “That’s not what it’s like today. We’re no longer a flyover state.”
Efstratis agreed with Skonnard. One third of Epic Ventures’ investments are in Utah, and the rest are in various industries throughout the nation. Instead of Utah businesses being required to tout themselves and go searching for investors today, more and more financiers are looking to Utah as a place for solid investment potential.
“Wherever we go now, they ask us how they can be like Utah,” he said.
This sentiment is the end goal for Betts and backers of the StartFEST — to get Utah’s business landscape noticed, and to build connections with other business hubs throughout the country, including Silicon Valley, Boston and New York.
“Our goal is to make this a national startup convention that happens to be in Provo. We want to showcase Utah while bringing in people from across the nation,” Betts said.
