Paul Allen – Keynote Speaker, Tech Visionary, Soar.com & Ancestry Founder
I wrote a Connect magazine article recently where I praised Josh Coates, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who moved to Utah a couple of years ago to build an exciting company that offers free remote backup for any computer user. You can back up all of your most important files at no cost!
This is a no-brainer! Check it out. It\’s especially nice for backing up your laptop.
I recently wrote an article for Connect Magazine about business incubators and Provo Labs in particular. It explains what we are trying to do at Provo Labs and why we think it will work.
One thing we have learned already since December is that our internal team needs to focus on one major project at a time and get it to completion, rather than having 5-10 simultaneous projects that are "on the brink" of completion but aren\’t generating any value for customers.
The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum has a great lineup for this Thursday\’s meeting. (Meeting will be April 13th at noon at the Novell Cafeteria.)
I will probably be out of town, but otherwise would love to be there. I know all four speakers — Adam Edmunds (Allegiance), Dave Bateman (PropertySolutions, DealElder.com), Brian Buetler (Alianza) and Gary Williams (BYU) — they are superb. I hope at least 6-8 Provo Labs people make it to this luncheon.
Wasatch Digital IQ has a nice article about Utah\’s deal flow in 2005. A great quote from Steve Grizelle about several Utah companies getting big and acquiring other companies.
I\’m particularly impressed to learn that SkyWest is now the nation\’s largest regional carrier with 2,400 daily flights and 14,000 employees. Here\’s a very intesting fact: SkyWest has 380 aircraft compared to Southwest\’s 441 aircraft. (Probably a major difference in the size of the aircraft, though, I\’m guessing.)
Congratulations to Infopia for closing on an $8 million funding round from Hummer Winblad and Trident Capital. Infopia is an ecommerce platform that helps customers get their products onto sites such as eBay, Amazon, Google, Overstock, Shopzilla and others. Bjorn Espenes and his partners have made some very powerful breakthroughs in e-commerce automation. This funding round is great to see.
So yesterday Verisign bought Kontiki, a managed peer-to-peer broadband video streaming company for $62 million. I believe it offers similar value (low cost video streaming) to MoveMedia (which is not based on peer-to-peer), a company founded by Drew Major of Novell fame. Kontiki was launched a few years ago by some Silicon Valley veterans. I think its location was probably key to this acquisition.
Score: Silicon Valley 1, Utah 0
Yesterday at the monthly UVEF luncheon, Scott Frazier gave a masterful presentation about investing in and selling companies. He reviewed his 5 most successful investments to date (including 2 where he was CEO) and how they were valued during the early and later stages.
His bio from a BYU web site says this:
My friend Tim Stay is an incredible entrepreneur. His ventures work. He knows how to dive in, learn everything about an industry, and find a way to make his businesses succeed. He has great partners and they work well together.
So keep an eye on his new, fast-growing blog network, Know More Media. They are barely over 30 days old. Have dozens of excellent bloggers. And check out this 3 month Alexa chart!
Here are the winners of awards from UVEF this year.
1. Mike Proper won the Ron Community Service Award. He was orphaned at age 10 and didn\’t finish high school, but he has created more than one multi-million business, and his current company DirectPointe is growing by 200% per year. Mike speaks often to high school and college students. He has helped create a public private partnership to help single moms escape the dead end of low paying jobs.
I should have blogged about this a few days ago. UVEF is holding it\’s annual December awards banquet at noon today at the Provo Marriott. Keith McCord will be the master of ceremonies. Pay $20 at the door and learn about the top entrepreneurial businesses in Utah this year (as judged by our UVEF board of trustees.) This is always a great networking opportunity for Utah entrepreneurs.
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