WHO TO KNOW
BYU grads Josh James 13 and
Ryan Smith are considered
the godfathers of Silicon Slopes. Smith, whose Qualtrics
is now a $2.5 billion analytics
behemoth, is a longtime buddy
of James, who sold his first data company, Omniture,
for $1.8 billion. James—now on
to his second data play, Domo —is known for his wit and
panache. “People see him as
this Willy Wonka character,” says Banyan’s Carine Clark, a
fellow board member at the
Lehi-based startup network
Silicon Slopes. “He does a lot for people that they don’t even
know about, including support-
ing education, technology in schools, and women in tech.”
Salt Lake City
Why Silicon Slopes—the region between the
Utah state capital and Provo—is bustling with hot
brands and data nerds. By Zoë Henry
The Destination
; Dozens of companies are based in
and around
River-woods, a commercial and residential
paradise with
192,000 square
feet of retail, at
the base of the
Wasatch Range
and just an eight-minute drive from
BYU. A mile down
the road are the
headquarters for
Vivint, a smart-home company
valued at $3 billion.
; One of Salt Lake
City’s artsier neigh-
borhoods, Sugar
House is home to a
cluster of startups,
along with fashion
boutiques, a street-
car, and gastropubs
that sell local craft
beers Polygamy
Porter and Big Bad
Baptist.
; Lehi-based farm,
garden, museum,
golf, and shopping
complex
Thanksgiving Point,
hatched decades
ago by WordPerfect
founder Alan
Ashton, has
become a bustling
hub for Utah Valley
founders, not far
from the northern
stretch of Utah
County housing
dozens of companies, including
genealogy website
Ancestry.com.
STARTUP NEIGHBORHOODS
; When Washington, D.C., native
Jeremy Andrus—
the former CEO
of headphone
maker Skullcandy—
acquired Traeger
Grills in 2014, he
relocated the now
$350 million company from Portland,
Oregon, to Salt
Lake City to access
more experienced
talent. “I knew I
could hire great
people here,”
Andrus says.
; Entrepreneur
couple and BYU
grads Vanessa and
Nate Quigley were
living in Florida
when they decided
to move back to
their old college
town to launch their
digital photobook
company,
Chatbooks. “We were
having a hard time
finding people in
Florida to help
develop and design
this app,” says
Vanessa. “I never
thought I would
relocate to Utah,
but we had ties to
the entrepreneurial
community here.”
WHO’S BRINGING COMPANIES HERE
7
8
3
1
2
4
5
6
$104,000 Average salary for a
local software developer
Source: Glassdoor
24 ; INC. ; JULY/AUGUST 2018 ; ; ; ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES TAYLOR
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