Tapping Into an At-Home Workforce
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Spring 2018 siliconslopes.com 10 TAPPING INTO AN AT-HOME WORKFORCE 22 PEEK 32 TECH RIDGE 44 CORNERSTONE TECHNOLOGIES STARTING A NEW LIVE, WORK, PLAY—IN A TECH-FUELED EVENT PRODUCTION COMPANY JOURNEY IN UTAH ST. GEORGE Silicon Slopes Features Photo by Christopher Ferguson Peek: Discovering Tech Ridge: The Build- Cornerstone the Slopes ing of a Community Technologies Why the travel activities Visionaries in St. George How this local company platform expanded into are creating a new hub for became a tech-fueled, 22 Silicon Slopes in order 33 business and technology— 44 industry-leading event to grow its business. set within a landscape that production provider. By Chris Rawle offers unparalleled quality By Chris Rawle of life. By Chris Rawle Cover Story Mutual Beneficence Part-time, at-home fl exible work can be a win-win 10 for employees and the companies they work for. By Meg Morley Walter Keeping small legal problems from becoming big ones. SALT LAKE CITY | LEHI | OGDEN | ST. GEORGE | LAS VEGAS | DJPLAW.COM 4 | Spring 2018 siliconslopes.com Keeping small legal problems from becoming big ones. SALT LAKE CITY | LEHI | OGDEN | ST. GEORGE | LAS VEGAS | DJPLAW.COM Silicon Slopes Carta and Salt Lake City: Why? Using Unity to Defeat Prejudice 08 Carta jumped into Utah in late 2017, looking to 30 Understanding stereotyping in order to build tap into the area’s workforce, networks and cultures of transparency and fi nd commonality. quality of life. By Amy Osmond Cook By Mike Wu Future forward Education that Works 36 What the history of Silicon Slopes can teach us 09 Neumont College of Computer Science seeks to about its future potential. send out graduates who are immediately ready By Blake McClary to work on large-scale, critical projects for their employers. Dope Flow By Aaron Reed, Ed.D. Why the tech community should collaborate to 38 defi ne and promote Utah’s tech brand. Are You Ready for PR? By Brad Plothow 16 A few questions to ponder before you bring in a PR agency. Teaching Hub By Joshua Heath Identifying and implementing strategies to make 40 Utah a world-class education destination. Social Impact Done Better By Ari Bruening 18 A partnership between Salesforce and United Way will help companies connect their employees with Put Gratitude to Work opportunities to make an impact. Tips for helping your employees feel more By Jerilyn Stowe 42 appreciated in 2018. By Crystalee Beck Why Utah Won't Birth the Next 20 Twitter Founder Liquidity With a rich heritage of foundational tech, paired When is the right time to take some money off with our unique strengths and opportunities, Utah’s 48 the table? prepared to launch a tech revolution all of its own. By Robert Shelton and Richard Seal By Andrew Joiner The Secret ofthe internet Spreading the Love What’s the common thread that unites the world’s 27 How Salt Lake County is working to bolster 50 biggest tech companies? small business. By Joseph Woodbury By Garrett Clark Growth Hacking Humans 28 Human problems can’t be solved by better understanding your market, your technology or your organization any better—you have to learn to “hack humans.” By Jason Herndon PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR | PUBLISHER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF PUBLISHER Published by: Clint Betts Donnie Welch Utah Media Partners, LLC | 90 S. 400 West, SLC | Tel: 801- 568-0114 MANAGING EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR Heather Stewart Silicon Slopes Chris Rawle Address: 2600 West Executive Pkwy Suite 140 Lehi, UT 84043 DESIGNERS Phone number: 385–374–0880 ASSOCIATE EDITOR Email: [email protected] Brian Hugo CULINARY Meg Walter SPRING 2018 Amanda Nogales Volume 2 • Number 2 CRAFTS 6 | Spring 2018 siliconslopes.com Silicone Slopes Ad Spring 2018 FINAL.indd 1 4/5/18 10:27 AM CULINARY CRAFTS Silicone Slopes Ad Spring 2018 FINAL.indd 1 4/5/18 10:27 AM Silicon Slopes Carta and Salt Lake By Mike Wu, City: Why? Head of People, Carta Silicon Valley is a great allows VC fi rms to monitor portfolios and manage their place to start a tech limited partners in a centralized dashboard. company. But it can be All told, Carta’s products and services are a signifi cant a diffi cult place to scale improvement in breadth and capability from the days when one, especially when the we focused on digitizing paper stock certifi cates. Since Henry mission of a company is Ward and Manu Kumar founded the company in 2012, we’ve to create seven billion raised almost $70 million in venture funding. We have over owners, map the global 350 employees in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Seattle, New ownership network and York City and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Last September, we unlock private market purchased Silicon Valley Bank’s analytics business, and we are liquidity. With such now the country’s leading 409A valuations provider. ambitious goals, Carta Carta is a FINRA broker-dealer and serves as a qualifi ed needed to add more custodian for RIAs. We are also an SEC-registered transfer locations to attract talent, scale quickly and keep costs low. agent, and our software can help companies run structured With this in mind, Carta expanded operations to Salt liquidity programs and assists clients in staying compliant Lake City at the end of 2017. Utah is a business-friendly with the SEC and IRS. state, and Salt Lake is full of young and talented fi nancial There isn’t a better product on the market for professionals graduating from schools like Brigham Young companies and investors to create a single-source of truth University and the University of Utah. Utah-based companies for their cap tables and manage their equity ownership. raised $623 million from private investors in 2016 and $627 million in the fi rst three quarters of 2017. The growth CARTA AND SILICON SLOPES in private market funding and Utah’s industrial banking We already have 50 employees in our new space on West infrastructure positioned Salt Lake as an optimal place Temple. Typical of a fast-growing startup, there are plenty to scale Carta’s operations. The proximity to Park City, desks to fi ll. As we continue to develop the underlying mesh Snowbird and Alta didn’t hurt, and neither did the short that connects the 500,000+ employees, investors and 90-minute fl ight to San Francisco. founders of the Carta network, we’re looking forward to The business and logistical arguments were too Utah’s impact on our growing company. compelling. Salt Lake City was the clear choice for Carta’s We’re also looking forward to becoming a valuable largest planned offi ce. contributor to the Silicon Slopes community and Utah-based We moved into our new space across from the Salt businesses. We attended Silicon Slopes Tech Summit 2018 in Palace on the seventh fl oor of 175 S. West Temple in late January—this was the fi rst step in deepening the relationships February. More importantly, Carta has committed to adding with our fellow VC-backed companies in the Beehive State. 464 jobs in Utah by 2022. Up next is creating as many owners as possible here. You can learn more about Carta’s culture and see open WHAT IS CARTA? positions at carta.com/about. Carta’s goal is to create more owners. We enable the thousands of private companies using Carta to issue, value Nothing contained in this post constitutes tax, legal, and transfer securities while mitigating the risks of error insurance or investment advice, nor does it constitute a associated with tracking, compliance and accounting. At solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any security or other the end of 2017, we introduced a similar all-in-one platform fi nancial instrument. Carta Securities LLC, Member FINRA for public companies that provides equity administration and SIPC. and transfer agent services. Additionally, Carta for Investors 8 | Spring 2018 siliconslopes.com Silicon Slopes Education that Works Creating the next generation of tech leaders By Aaron Reed, Ed.D., President, Neumont College of Computer Science Over two decades ago, shortage. Neumont’s sole focus is to prepare students for after graduating from careers in technology. Our goal is that when graduates college with a degree leave Neumont, they are immediately ready to work on in computer science, large-scale, critical projects for their employers—perhaps I launched my career even in an office with a window (or at least without a at a local software broom). company. On day one, Neumont’s curriculum is continually refined I was escorted to my through employer feedback. Our faculty members have new office. My “office” experience working in the technology industry, not was actually a closet traditional academics. We emphasize problem solving, with some brooms, a communication and collaboration skills as students work small desk, a computer and a stack of books. Despite my on large-scale, real-world projects. eagerness to jump into some code and change the world, Our employers tell us that we’re hitting our target. I was told that now it was time for me to learn. I was Most of our graduates contribute immediately to their confused. I had already learned; I had a degree to prove companies through software development, quality it—I was wrong. The small, individual assignments from assurance or system administration. Although we’re not textbooks and outdated tech I had learned in college left perfect, and we continue to evolve, our educational me woefully unprepared to work in the real world. Luckily model appears to be working. That’s why we’re working I was a fast learner, and I found myself in full-on code with K-12 teachers and the Utah State Board of Education monkey mode in a matter of months.