Latest / MountainWest Capital Network: Welcome to the Winners' Circle / The Best of The Winners' Circle | A Compilation of Utah's Top Founders

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The Best of The Winners' Circle | A Compilation of Utah's Top Founders · MountainWest Capital Network: Welcome to the Winners' Circle

0:00
Speaker 1: Over the past year, we've sat down with some of
0:02
Speaker 1: Utah's most remarkable founders, the people behind the fastest growing
0:06
Speaker 1: companies in the state, and across every single conversation, two
0:10
Speaker 1: questions keep coming up.
0:12
Speaker 2: What makes Utak such a special place to build a business?
0:16
Speaker 2: And looking back, what do you wish you'd known?
0:19
Speaker 1: We asked, they answered, and what we heard wasn't just
0:23
Speaker 1: about business. It was about fear, about community, about showing
0:28
Speaker 1: up when it's hard.
0:29
Speaker 2: This is what we know now welcome to the winner circle.
0:38
Speaker 2: We want to start where every great company starts, with
0:41
Speaker 2: a place, because it turns out where you build matters
0:46
Speaker 2: just as much as what you build. Trevor Larsen is
0:49
Speaker 2: a CEO and co founder of Nectar, the number one
0:53
Speaker 2: fastest growing company on our Utah one hundred last year.
0:56
Speaker 2: Nectar helps companies build culture through employee recognition, and they've
1:01
Speaker 2: grown over seven hundred percent in three years. Trevor came
1:05
Speaker 2: to Utah from Arizona for school and never left.
1:08
Speaker 3: Here's why there is no better place to build a
1:12
Speaker 3: software company than Utah. The talent here is insane between
1:18
Speaker 3: you know, we have all all these universities like right
1:21
Speaker 3: here to recruit from so there's like this great farm
1:25
Speaker 3: system of talent. We've had so many like successful software
1:30
Speaker 3: exits between. Like I mean there's like the word perfect days,
1:33
Speaker 3: all those whatever, right, like they were kind of the
1:35
Speaker 3: first generation. But then I think a lot of like
1:39
Speaker 3: qual tricks, plural site like Dome, all of those back
1:43
Speaker 3: in those days. I'm sure it was harder to build.
1:45
Speaker 3: It's harder to raise money because it like nothing was
1:47
Speaker 3: flowing through Utah. And then you have a lot of
1:50
Speaker 3: like first timers that have never seen the film before
1:53
Speaker 3: in software, they're just like young scrapping. They build, but
1:55
Speaker 3: then they leave and they start companies or they take
1:58
Speaker 3: their talents elsewhere, and they've now seeing this journey in
2:02
Speaker 3: the business and they know how to do it like bigger, better,
2:05
Speaker 3: faster than before. And so I think, yeah, there's no
2:10
Speaker 3: better place to really build software. And for the price too, right,
2:13
Speaker 3: You're not paying Silicon Valley lease prices or salaries or
2:16
Speaker 3: all those types of things. So I mean we've been
2:19
Speaker 3: very well resourced with great mentors investors out of Utah.
2:24
Speaker 3: In fact, one funny anecdote I was thinking about Drew
2:27
Speaker 3: before was our series investors actually out of Phoenix and
2:32
Speaker 3: part of the original terms that they offered us were like,
2:35
Speaker 3: you have you have to move the business and all
2:37
Speaker 3: of you down in the next twelve months Arizona, which
2:41
Speaker 3: was a little tempting to us because that's where we're from.
2:43
Speaker 3: But ultimately we were we love Phoenix. I hope they
2:47
Speaker 3: don't listen to this podcast. Ultimately we're like, there's no
2:50
Speaker 3: better place to build than here, Like we cannot leave Utah,
2:53
Speaker 3: Like this is where all the talent is.
2:55
Speaker 1: Andrew Hollis is Trevor's co founder and head of growth
2:58
Speaker 1: at Nectar. It's something specific for giving him the courage
3:02
Speaker 1: to take the leap in the first place.
3:04
Speaker 4: When I was a BYU, they had an entrepreneurship lecture series,
3:09
Speaker 4: and I mean I was sitting in the front row
3:12
Speaker 4: just taking avid notes. And I attribute a lot of
3:15
Speaker 4: the risk to that, hearing all those stories being in
3:19
Speaker 4: an ecosystem where people take big risks, encouraging people to
3:23
Speaker 4: do it early before we had kids, so that we
3:26
Speaker 4: could survive for four or five years, and when it
3:28
Speaker 4: was tough on just our wives, nannying and doing every.
3:33
Speaker 5: Possible job so that we could could make it work.
3:36
Speaker 4: But just again, hearing the infectious attitude from the local
3:40
Speaker 4: entrepreneurs that took an hour of the day to come
3:42
Speaker 4: talk to BYU groups.
3:43
Speaker 5: That was it for me. I was like, we have
3:45
Speaker 5: to do this.
3:47
Speaker 2: Bobby Clayson co founded tax Bit, one of Utah's unicorn companies,
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Speaker 2: valued at one point three billion dollars, and he's now
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Speaker 2: building crofter Market, a platform connecting consumers directly with local farmers.
4:01
Speaker 2: Bobby has one of the most original takes on Utah
4:04
Speaker 2: we've ever heard. He doesn't just say Utah is great
4:07
Speaker 2: for business, he explains why, going all the way back
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Speaker 2: to the pioneers.
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Speaker 6: I think one of the things about our heritage as
4:17
Speaker 6: a state that's very unique from the rest of the
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Speaker 6: country really stands out, and it's actually something that you
4:25
Speaker 6: wouldn't normally associate with entrepreneurship, and that is where a
4:29
Speaker 6: highly collective community here America is really interesting because we
4:36
Speaker 6: are immediately or in not too many generations past, self
4:42
Speaker 6: selected to be here, right, And this is where a
4:44
Speaker 6: country of immigrants, so to speak, self selected to leave
4:48
Speaker 6: whatever stability and known quantities that we came from into
4:53
Speaker 6: an unknown pioneer setting in the last few hundred years.
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Speaker 7: Right.
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Speaker 6: Utah definitely has that it's got that pioneer spirit to
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Speaker 6: enter the wilderness, not even the wilderness the desert to
5:08
Speaker 6: the tough we wilderness, you know, get here and just
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Speaker 6: find a bunch of grass and mountains. But what's interesting
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Speaker 6: is that our pioneer ancestors, if you will, were collectivists.
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Speaker 8: They did this together.
5:24
Speaker 6: As an intentional thing, as you could even say, a
5:29
Speaker 6: hierarchical thing, as an institutionalized pioneerism, which is a very
5:34
Speaker 6: unique combination. I don't know anywhere else that you find
5:37
Speaker 6: that there was a company. I'm sure there's still around.
5:42
Speaker 6: Zinger Folkman is their name. They're they're like business consultancy,
5:47
Speaker 6: and they did this study that's really interesting about what
5:52
Speaker 6: characteristics are likely to make a company succeed. And they're
5:58
Speaker 6: two basic things. One of them is competency and the
6:02
Speaker 6: ability to effectively execute right no surprise. The other one
6:07
Speaker 6: was cooperation. How well do the people in your organization
6:10
Speaker 6: cooperate or do they compete with each other? And if
6:14
Speaker 6: you look at the numbers, if they didn't have either
6:17
Speaker 6: of those things, it's like five percent chance they were
6:20
Speaker 6: going to succeed if they had a strong collective spirit.
6:24
Speaker 6: But they didn't have strong execution, it was like twenty
6:28
Speaker 6: percent if they had strong execution, but they weren't cooperative.
6:32
Speaker 6: It was a little more cutthroat there at that environment,
6:35
Speaker 6: you had forty percent, little higher. But what they discovered
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Speaker 6: is that if you have both of those, you're eighty
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Speaker 6: percent plus likely to succeed as a business. It's still
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Speaker 6: the other the ability to effectively execute, to be able
6:50
Speaker 6: to identify priorities, to be able to get things done,
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Speaker 6: and also be pulling in the same direction without being
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Speaker 6: at each other's throats.
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Speaker 1: And if you've been.
7:00
Speaker 6: In any company, you have seen all of those configurations
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Speaker 6: in one form or another if you think about it.
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Speaker 6: And so I think culturally we actually fit into that
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Speaker 6: eighty percent category. And you can see that with the
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Speaker 6: fact that we have an outsized number of billion dollar
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Speaker 6: companies for our population.
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Speaker 1: Bobby's theory isn't just a feeling. Every year, Mountain West
7:24
Speaker 1: Capital Network publishes the Utah Dealflow Report, the state's only
7:29
Speaker 1: comprehensive look at equity transactions. Matt Bartholomew is a principal
7:33
Speaker 1: at Clifton Larson Allen and one of the people who
7:35
Speaker 1: makes that report happen. He spent years watching Utah's deal
7:39
Speaker 1: ecosystem from the inside and from the outside.
7:43
Speaker 7: I do think Utah has a distinct identity compared to
7:48
Speaker 7: other markets that reflects capital flow what I call capital
7:51
Speaker 7: flow sustainability, and a lower cost relative to other markets
7:55
Speaker 7: for companies that have come and invested and continue to
7:58
Speaker 7: grow and expand here, and then also individuals that are
8:01
Speaker 7: very entrepreneurially focused with an awesome pipeline of great talent
8:06
Speaker 7: and young workforces coming out of our colleges and universities
8:08
Speaker 7: that fuel these companies and opportunities. So I'd characterize Utah
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Speaker 7: as something unique, a more sustainable, more efficient, and livable
8:17
Speaker 7: ecosystem that produces the great results that we are beneficiaries of,
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Speaker 7: quite frankly, and so I call Utah most next wave
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Speaker 7: rather than kind of copycat relative to whether it's Silicon
8:29
Speaker 7: Valley or other markets.
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Speaker 1: Kyle Freebairn is the CEO of Frasele, the largest and
8:34
Speaker 1: fastest growing frozen slash brand in the United States, with
8:37
Speaker 1: over fifty thousand machines across the country. Kyle came to
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Speaker 1: Utah for his NBA at BYU and ended up building
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Speaker 1: his whole team here. His co founder, Sam Owens is
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Speaker 1: Frasele's chief marketing officer, and he was on the episode
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Speaker 1: as well and would tell you Utah is not just
8:52
Speaker 1: a great place to hire, it's a great place to
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Speaker 1: launch a.
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Speaker 9: Brand on the marketing front, Utah Mammoth. You know, the
9:00
Speaker 9: big reason why we did that is that it's Utah
9:02
Speaker 9: in our backyard, and we thought it was the perfect
9:05
Speaker 9: opportunity to just we saw this exciting thing that was happening,
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Speaker 9: and so our marketing is differentially focused on Utah, i'd
9:16
Speaker 9: say in a lot of ways, just because we know
9:18
Speaker 9: that the territory, the influencers, Utah influencers are tightly knit
9:22
Speaker 9: group as well. Once once the promotion that you like
9:24
Speaker 9: freefreesl Friday hit, it seemed like it was just like
9:26
Speaker 9: pop just popping up everywhere. They're all kind of playing
9:29
Speaker 9: off of each other. So it's a great place to
9:32
Speaker 9: kind of build a brand as well, a great place
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Speaker 9: to be.
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Speaker 10: Utah is such a strong technological, you know, Silicon Slopes
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Speaker 10: development community, which made it really easy to tap into
9:43
Speaker 10: this ecosystem of amazing talent that's very technologically savvy, entrepreneurial
9:50
Speaker 10: you know, want to just you know, in for an adventure,
9:52
Speaker 10: so pulling those people into the company was a lot
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Speaker 10: easier in this in this area because there is such
9:57
Speaker 10: a wealth of talent, so, you know, a really strong
10:00
Speaker 10: connection to a lot of people all across Utah, which
10:04
Speaker 10: is great for recruiting and building out a world class team.
10:07
Speaker 2: Sometimes it takes someone from outside to put into words
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Speaker 2: what those of us who live here already feel. Scott
10:14
Speaker 2: Porter is a founder of San Dieblo Artisan Turos, a
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Speaker 2: company he launched in three days that's now on shelves
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Speaker 2: at Target and growing nationally. Scott chose Utah over Los Angeles.
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Speaker 2: Here's what he saw.
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Speaker 11: One of the most important reasons that we launched here
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Speaker 11: is just because of the strong entrepreneurial community. It's just
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Speaker 11: so powerful. Everything from the way that the tax structure
10:44
Speaker 11: and government programs and opportunities and support for small businesses
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Speaker 11: to get going, how easy it is to get started here.
10:52
Speaker 11: And the thing that has been one of the most
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Speaker 11: valuable things to me as an entrepreneur has been the
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Speaker 11: supportive community. You know, people like yourselves and and other
11:02
Speaker 11: like we go to your event, which is so wonderful.
11:05
Speaker 11: Thank you, by the way for putting on such a
11:08
Speaker 11: just a top tier event. It's just absolutely wonderful and
11:13
Speaker 11: really an honor to be a part of it all
11:16
Speaker 11: and to just rub shoulders with others and the abundance
11:20
Speaker 11: mentality that exists here of like helping your fellow entrepreneur,
11:24
Speaker 11: because we all know how grueling and how much of
11:28
Speaker 11: a roller coaster and how difficult and challenging it can be.
11:31
Speaker 11: And just to be surrounded by people that you are
11:35
Speaker 11: cheering each other on and you're here to help each other,
11:39
Speaker 11: and I mean, it really is powerful. And I've traveled
11:43
Speaker 11: and lived in other parts of the country and there
11:45
Speaker 11: are good people that exist everywhere, obviously, but the environment here,
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Speaker 11: the supportive small business and entrepreneurial environment, is just electric.
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Speaker 7: It's awesome.
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Speaker 1: Corey Benson grew up in Sugarhouse. He's now the founder
12:02
Speaker 1: and CEO of Skyshare, the largest private aviation operator in Utah,
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Speaker 1: with one hundred and forty employees and a fleet serving
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Speaker 1: the entire Western US. He travels more than almost anyone
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Speaker 1: we know, which makes his answer about Utah all the
12:17
Speaker 1: more meaningful.
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Speaker 12: I mean, I think it's got to be one of
12:20
Speaker 12: the best economies. Is a state that's out there, absolute
12:24
Speaker 12: very lucky in Utah. I just I love the people.
12:27
Speaker 12: If you're dealing with someone flying a private jet that's
12:29
Speaker 12: out of the Northeast, it's a very different personality than
12:32
Speaker 12: someone that's focused on the family, focused on the business
12:35
Speaker 12: type of person that's out here in Utah. So I'm
12:38
Speaker 12: very lucky. I tell everybody Utah is the best place
12:41
Speaker 12: to live, especially I travel so much that it's the
12:44
Speaker 12: best place to come home to, Like, it's clean, and
12:46
Speaker 12: it's the people again are very nice and beautiful. The
12:49
Speaker 12: mountains here, so the business, it's a perfect place for
12:53
Speaker 12: our headquarters.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Stephen Neeleman founded Health Equity in two thousand and two,
12:59
Speaker 2: while still practicing, is a trauma surgeon. Today, Health Equity
13:03
Speaker 2: is publicly traded, manages nearly thirty six billion dollars in
13:07
Speaker 2: health savings accounts, and has been on our Utah one
13:10
Speaker 2: hundred for thirteen consecutive years. Doctor Neilman started the company
13:15
Speaker 2: in Arizona and then made a deliberate decision to move
13:19
Speaker 2: it to Utah. He looked at every option. Here's what
13:22
Speaker 2: he found.
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Speaker 8: We need people that also understand healthcare. We need people
13:27
Speaker 8: that really understand great customer service, and so we looked
13:31
Speaker 8: around the country at different markets because we knew we
13:33
Speaker 8: probably were in Tucson, and Tucson's a great area of
13:37
Speaker 8: the country, but it's not where we found we could
13:40
Speaker 8: really scale the business for different reasons, and so we're
13:42
Speaker 8: looking at different areas, and we kept coming back to
13:45
Speaker 8: Salt Lake because of the fact that there's so many
13:49
Speaker 8: quality business professionals. And then we realized early on, look,
13:52
Speaker 8: this is going to be a giant technology enabled service play,
13:55
Speaker 8: because if we're going to be able to serve tens
13:58
Speaker 8: of millions of families, we have to incorporate the technology
14:02
Speaker 8: into it. And so we're sitting here right in the
14:04
Speaker 8: middle of Silicon slopes, and it was one of those
14:06
Speaker 8: things where we looked and looked and looked, and we said,
14:08
Speaker 8: you know, we think it's Utah. So we came here.
14:10
Speaker 8: I was born in Utah. I lived away from the
14:12
Speaker 8: state for about seven years, but we came back here
14:15
Speaker 8: because we realized that if we wanted to find people
14:18
Speaker 8: that understood tech, understood healthcare, understood financial services, and we're
14:24
Speaker 8: going to work hard and take care of people all
14:26
Speaker 8: over the country, maybe someday all over the world. Languages
14:30
Speaker 8: things like that that Utah excels in. Then this is
14:34
Speaker 8: where we wanted to build and spell the company.
14:37
Speaker 2: Bud Scruggs is a co founder of Sinisher Group, a
14:40
Speaker 2: private equity firm managing nearly ten billion dollars in assets.
14:44
Speaker 2: Rooted in Utah's Ecchos family legacy, Bud has spent his
14:48
Speaker 2: career working alongside some of the most visionary leaders in
14:52
Speaker 2: the state. He puts it simply, Utah asked something of
14:56
Speaker 2: you if you want to build here, and that's a
14:59
Speaker 2: good thing.
15:00
Speaker 13: Number one. This is just such a great lifestyle state
15:03
Speaker 13: that people want to return here and want to work here,
15:07
Speaker 13: and so we make the most of that. But if
15:11
Speaker 13: you're headquartered in Utah, you do have to go the
15:14
Speaker 13: extra mile. How's that for a biblical reference? When I'm
15:17
Speaker 13: sure I'm not talking about religion, but you do have
15:20
Speaker 13: to let people know this is the company that has
15:22
Speaker 13: values that are universal.
15:25
Speaker 1: Every one of those founders, whether they were born here
15:28
Speaker 1: or chose to come here, found something in Utah that
15:31
Speaker 1: shaped who they became as leaders, and the data backs
15:35
Speaker 1: it up. Utah isn't just producing great companies, it's producing
15:40
Speaker 1: a pattern.
15:42
Speaker 2: And when we ask them to look back at the
15:44
Speaker 2: early days, at the hard nights, at the version of
15:47
Speaker 2: themselves that was just starting out. Their answers brought everything
15:51
Speaker 2: full circle.
15:53
Speaker 1: Here's what Utah's fastest growing founders would tell their younger selves.
16:01
Speaker 2: We'll start where Nectar started, with two guys detailing cars
16:06
Speaker 2: in a vivid parking lot, completely convinced they were onto something.
16:11
Speaker 2: Andrew Hollis has built his entire philosophy around one idea.
16:15
Speaker 2: Don't wait for the perfect plan, get in the game.
16:19
Speaker 4: There's a phrase work begets work, like everything that we've
16:24
Speaker 4: accomplished started with somebody somewhere taking at least a small
16:28
Speaker 4: risk and then asking more questions. And that curiosity has
16:32
Speaker 4: driven every change that we've made up to this point.
16:35
Speaker 4: And there's actually more changes happening now in Nectar than
16:37
Speaker 4: ever think. We're more bullish on what's happening, and it's
16:40
Speaker 4: that just consistent curiosity.
16:43
Speaker 5: What if we had this, What if we do that?
16:44
Speaker 4: That's our favorite part of work, just a whiteboard session
16:48
Speaker 4: to figure out what we're going to do. But to
16:49
Speaker 4: get there, you have to get out in the arena
16:52
Speaker 4: and you have to do some work. Then you're going
16:54
Speaker 4: to realize all the business opportunities that exist. There's a
16:56
Speaker 4: million different ways to make money, which I think is
16:58
Speaker 4: really exciting mh.
17:00
Speaker 5: But you're never gonna know about it until you take
17:02
Speaker 5: a risk.
17:03
Speaker 1: His co founder Trevor couldn't agree more.
17:06
Speaker 3: It's funny because, similarly to Drew, the first thing that
17:09
Speaker 3: came to mind was like being the arena. I think
17:12
Speaker 3: that's been true for us. I think so many people
17:15
Speaker 3: that are temp, like a lot of people want to
17:17
Speaker 3: go build something right and to kind of blaze their
17:20
Speaker 3: own trail or start a business. But I feel like
17:23
Speaker 3: the majority I talked to they're just like waiting for
17:26
Speaker 3: an idea or like trying to come up with an idea,
17:30
Speaker 3: and I just think that's like a faulty way to
17:32
Speaker 3: go about it. I think you just you have to
17:34
Speaker 3: be like in the game, right, like the off the
17:38
Speaker 3: bleachers in the game, doing something, and that something will
17:42
Speaker 3: lead to something else. I've always thought of our journey
17:45
Speaker 3: as if you remember back a couple of decades ago,
17:48
Speaker 3: maybe the paper clip guy, where he started with a
17:51
Speaker 3: paper clip and like did bigger and better. So you
17:54
Speaker 3: go to and he's like, do you have anything bigger
17:56
Speaker 3: better than the paper clips? Here's a water bottle, and
17:58
Speaker 3: it like kept going and all of a sudden he
18:00
Speaker 3: had like a snowmobile, and then I can't remember the
18:03
Speaker 3: time frame, but it was like within a year he
18:05
Speaker 3: had a house. I've always thought of our journey like that,
18:08
Speaker 3: Like you start somewhere with something and you're just always
18:11
Speaker 3: looking for like how can I make this bigger and
18:13
Speaker 3: better and get it to evolve? But it's like getting
18:18
Speaker 3: into the arena learning, growing, being vulnerable, versus like sitting
18:23
Speaker 3: back and waiting for some idea to land in your head,
18:26
Speaker 3: because ultimately, the good ideas are a diamond dozen, like
18:29
Speaker 3: it all comes down to execution.
18:32
Speaker 2: For Corey Benson, the lesson wasn't about action. It was
18:35
Speaker 2: about identity. Corey built Skyshare over seventeen years without a
18:40
Speaker 2: single dollar of outside investment, and the thing he wishes
18:43
Speaker 2: he'd figure out sooner what he wanted the company to
18:46
Speaker 2: be before the pressure hit.
18:49
Speaker 12: The last few years had been easier than the first,
18:52
Speaker 12: but there was many nights that I'm like, I don't
18:54
Speaker 12: know I'm gonna make payroll the next day. Yeah, But
18:57
Speaker 12: I do believe if you do the right thing and
18:59
Speaker 12: you don't cut corners and you work really really hard,
19:03
Speaker 12: that the universe will give it always worked out. I
19:05
Speaker 12: don't know how, and I'm very lucky that it always
19:08
Speaker 12: has worked out that way. But what would I say,
19:11
Speaker 12: I wish I would have done what I did five
19:15
Speaker 12: years ago. Really get clear on core values and really
19:19
Speaker 12: clear on what you're trying to deliver, not necessarily the product,
19:23
Speaker 12: but what is the company, Who are you, what are
19:26
Speaker 12: you trying to be, and what the goal is, and
19:29
Speaker 12: then kind of work backwards from that, and also keep
19:32
Speaker 12: it simple, like don't try and be everything to everybody.
19:36
Speaker 12: The shiny new object, which has happened to me many
19:39
Speaker 12: times that takes your energy and your focus away from
19:43
Speaker 12: what the main focus is will really hurt you in
19:47
Speaker 12: the business and take you out in a totally different direction.
19:51
Speaker 12: So that's what I would say. Get really clear on
19:54
Speaker 12: what it is you're going to do, and it's just
19:57
Speaker 12: it's not easy. It's not an overnight success. This has
19:59
Speaker 12: been seven almost seventeen years now, and for the first
20:03
Speaker 12: many many years we didn't make money and it was very,
20:05
Speaker 12: very stressful, but you got to be persistent.
20:08
Speaker 1: Bud Scruggs has had more chapters than most shipyards, politics, academia, film,
20:15
Speaker 1: private equity. He's worked alongside governors, senators and some of
20:20
Speaker 1: the most remarkable deal makers in the country, and at
20:23
Speaker 1: nearly seventy, he's found his greatest satisfaction in helping younger
20:27
Speaker 1: people succeed. His advice to his younger self is simple,
20:31
Speaker 1: and it's the kind of thing that only makes sense
20:33
Speaker 1: when you've lived it.
20:35
Speaker 13: What I would say to my younger self, his things
20:39
Speaker 13: are going to be okay, and you're going to have
20:44
Speaker 13: a few years where the month is going to last
20:47
Speaker 13: longer than your money. And hold firm and cheer up.
20:53
Speaker 13: And the lessons that I somehow learned that I'm not
20:57
Speaker 13: sure where, but I learned early on that who you
21:02
Speaker 13: work with is a lot more important than how much
21:04
Speaker 13: money you make. And my career has been a series
21:08
Speaker 13: of benign betrayals. All Right, I'll work for somebody, and
21:13
Speaker 13: when I get up one morning and realize I've learned
21:16
Speaker 13: everything from that person, I can I move on. And
21:20
Speaker 13: I've been so fortunate. I've had mentor after mentor after mentor,
21:25
Speaker 13: and the ones that gave me an opportunity when I
21:28
Speaker 13: was young, I'll be forever grateful for. But the fact
21:31
Speaker 13: that somebody, when I was almost forty years old, was
21:34
Speaker 13: willing to give me again. The guys that Lukadia.
21:37
Speaker 2: Refuse to be enslaved.
21:41
Speaker 13: By expertise, okay, and the fact that I didn't know
21:45
Speaker 13: the jargon or the lingo. But I just am for
21:48
Speaker 13: ever grateful for being forty years old and forty five
21:52
Speaker 13: years old and fifty years old and having two brilliant
21:54
Speaker 13: deep deal makers routinely call me up and say you
21:58
Speaker 13: got to do better, and do better, now go do it.
22:02
Speaker 2: Doctor Stephen Neilman has been mentored by surgeons, by entrepreneurs,
22:07
Speaker 2: by his family, and, in his own telling, by Abraham Lincoln.
22:11
Speaker 2: After decades of building health equity alongside some of the
22:15
Speaker 2: smartest people in healthcare and finance, his answer to the
22:18
Speaker 2: younger self question is the same one that got him
22:21
Speaker 2: to where he is.
22:23
Speaker 14: Look.
22:24
Speaker 8: I think mentoring is critical because it really comes back
22:29
Speaker 8: to this concept of humility. If someone's willing to come
22:32
Speaker 8: and learn from you, doesn't mean they're going to follow
22:35
Speaker 8: everything you tell him to do, but at least they're
22:37
Speaker 8: willing to listen. I think it's one of the true
22:40
Speaker 8: keys to success in life. So I've been blessed by many,
22:44
Speaker 8: many mentors. I didn't mention my surgical mentors, right, these
22:47
Speaker 8: folks that taught me how they take care of patients.
22:50
Speaker 8: That taught me how to really look in the patient's
22:54
Speaker 8: eyes and learn them, learn about them, not just learning
22:58
Speaker 8: about their illness, but learning them as a human being.
23:01
Speaker 8: And so I love being able to be a mentor
23:06
Speaker 8: if the person thinks there's value in it.
23:09
Speaker 2: Bobby Clayson built one of Utah's unicorn companies, and then
23:13
Speaker 2: he lost his seat at the table. He had time
23:16
Speaker 2: a lot of it alone during a pandemic lockdown to
23:19
Speaker 2: figure out why what he came back with might be
23:23
Speaker 2: the most honest thing anyone has said on this podcast.
23:27
Speaker 6: It is one of those things that it gives you drive,
23:29
Speaker 6: and gives you ambition, ego, gives you identity, and it
23:33
Speaker 6: can also make you be really stupid. And like I
23:36
Speaker 6: was part of tax Bit, I'm not still part of
23:39
Speaker 6: tax Bit, and there's some good reasons for that. And
23:42
Speaker 6: a lot of that came down to behavior that was
23:46
Speaker 6: a self centered and egotistical and I drove in a
23:50
Speaker 6: certain direction and I bucked leadership and I created problems
23:55
Speaker 6: around me to some degree when I thought I was right,
23:58
Speaker 6: And that was a really hard lesson to learn once
24:02
Speaker 6: I got removed from tax Bit. The process of learning
24:06
Speaker 6: that was really interesting because I actually was released. The
24:12
Speaker 6: decision was made to separate me from the company two
24:16
Speaker 6: weeks into twenty twenty lockdown, so I had no place
24:21
Speaker 6: to go. I had nothing to distract me from the
24:24
Speaker 6: fact that I had been separated from a company that
24:27
Speaker 6: I started, and I had nothing to do but think
24:31
Speaker 6: about it and try and figure it out and try
24:33
Speaker 6: and parse through like what happened. And as is our nature,
24:38
Speaker 6: it was really easy to early on point fingers and
24:42
Speaker 6: mentally say this wasn't my fault and all these other things.
24:47
Speaker 6: I came across a person who's just a really really
24:51
Speaker 6: great content creator. You know who Jocko Willink is. You
24:55
Speaker 6: know who that is. Name's He's a X Navy seal
24:59
Speaker 6: that has a business leadership program that he has really really,
25:05
Speaker 6: really excellent. He's very much about taking extreme ownership of
25:10
Speaker 6: your circumstances and looking inward and figuring out, no matter
25:15
Speaker 6: what happened, how you can adjust what you're doing to
25:20
Speaker 6: obtain mission success. And he's got a really he's got
25:23
Speaker 6: a multiple great books and i'd read previous to the
25:26
Speaker 6: one I was reading at the time was called Leadership
25:28
Speaker 6: Strategy and Tactics.
25:30
Speaker 5: It's a really great book, and.
25:32
Speaker 6: I was listening to it and I was hearing all
25:35
Speaker 6: of these things, and I was agreeing with what he
25:38
Speaker 6: was saying in terms of like, hey, if you're in
25:41
Speaker 6: this situation and you feel this way, that's your ego
25:44
Speaker 6: and you need to curb that ego and here's how
25:46
Speaker 6: you need to act. And I was like, yeah, definitely,
25:48
Speaker 6: I'm all about that. And then I got to one
25:51
Speaker 6: section that was like talking about something specific that I
25:55
Speaker 6: had gone through, and I immediately felt that like defense
26:00
Speaker 6: and this well up, and I was like, whatever he's
26:02
Speaker 6: wrong is turn.
26:03
Speaker 14: Off the book.
26:06
Speaker 6: And didn't listen to it for like three days, right,
26:09
Speaker 6: And then like three days later, I'm on a walk
26:11
Speaker 6: and I'm like, I guess I'll start listening to it.
26:13
Speaker 6: And I'm listening and defensive feelings come up, and I
26:16
Speaker 6: stop and I'm like, why did I agree so much
26:19
Speaker 6: with everything that he said? And now, all of a sudden,
26:21
Speaker 6: with this one particular point, I'm suddenly very upset. And
26:26
Speaker 6: I'm like, it's when he's been talking about this whole book,
26:30
Speaker 6: and that is that is a sign of your ego,
26:33
Speaker 6: and you need to recognize that.
26:35
Speaker 2: This is just poked your ego.
26:36
Speaker 6: In a particular way.
26:38
Speaker 1: Scott Porter started his cheuro company in three days. He's
26:42
Speaker 1: catered over nine thousand events. He's on shelves at Target,
26:46
Speaker 1: and when we asked him what h'd tell his younger self,
26:50
Speaker 1: his answer stopped us both because it really wasn't about
26:54
Speaker 1: churios at all.
26:56
Speaker 11: I would tell myself to like, just keep going and
27:04
Speaker 11: stay true to what you feel in your heart. That
27:08
Speaker 11: is who you are, who God wants you to be,
27:13
Speaker 11: who you feel inspired to be, and just continue to
27:19
Speaker 11: stay true to that, and when you do get disheartened,
27:23
Speaker 11: take comfort in that. And I'm actually saying this and
27:26
Speaker 11: I'm like, I need this advice now to write Yeah,
27:30
Speaker 11: like I need that then, but I also need it
27:33
Speaker 11: now I walk through that mental exercise that I just
27:38
Speaker 11: verbalize is a mental exercise that I walk through now
27:43
Speaker 11: where I'm like, well, what is what have I felt?
27:48
Speaker 7: My mission?
27:49
Speaker 11: So this isn't about churos and it's not about tacos,
27:52
Speaker 11: even though those are amazing, right, But for me, this
27:57
Speaker 11: is about human connection. This is about happiness, This is
28:01
Speaker 11: about uplifting others. And if truro's are the vehicle for
28:06
Speaker 11: us to do that, great, if tacos help us understand
28:10
Speaker 11: a little bit of more how to be human with
28:12
Speaker 11: each other, then let's do that and take inspiration from
28:17
Speaker 11: all those things. So anyway, for me, I when I
28:21
Speaker 11: have hard moments, and those moments come frequently, I have
28:26
Speaker 11: to walk myself through that same mental exercise that you're
28:29
Speaker 11: asking me to tell my younger self to do. Yeah,
28:32
Speaker 11: because it helps ground me and remind me of the
28:37
Speaker 11: inspiration that I felt up until this point. And can
28:41
Speaker 11: that change?
28:42
Speaker 5: Sure?
28:42
Speaker 11: Absolutely? Can it take another turn? Can it take a
28:45
Speaker 11: complete one eighty Absolutely?
28:47
Speaker 7: And I'm open to that.
28:49
Speaker 11: But like, if this is what's right, and this is
28:52
Speaker 11: who I am and what I can like my contribution
28:56
Speaker 11: to the world in society and or just one individual is,
29:00
Speaker 11: then I want to embrace that and be true to that.
29:05
Speaker 2: Mary Crafts built Culinary Crafts from a red wagon and
29:09
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty dollars into a multimillion dollar catering company.
29:14
Speaker 2: She did it as a single mother on welfare with
29:17
Speaker 2: two small children. She handed the company to her kids,
29:20
Speaker 2: and then at seventy two, launched a new chapter as
29:23
Speaker 2: an author, speaker, and entrepreneur of the year. Her advice
29:27
Speaker 2: isn't something she figured out young it's something she's still learning.
29:32
Speaker 14: At this age. I still believe that my very best
29:36
Speaker 14: year is next year, because you get this accumulative value
29:41
Speaker 14: of lessons and wisdom the good news. I didn't always
29:45
Speaker 14: live my life that way. I was call ub in fear.
29:49
Speaker 14: I was called up in protecting myself. I was being
29:52
Speaker 14: my best self, but I wanted to be only one
29:54
Speaker 14: that was my best self.
29:55
Speaker 10: I care what.
29:57
Speaker 13: Like?
29:57
Speaker 14: I will look better if you look bad. Yeah, we've
30:01
Speaker 14: all had to say to live there, Okay, And so
30:04
Speaker 14: the great message about this podcast is that it is
30:07
Speaker 14: never too late and nothing is impossible. This shriveling mass
30:13
Speaker 14: of fears from Iowa actually grew up in her fifties
30:19
Speaker 14: and began to live the life that I've wanted in
30:22
Speaker 14: my sixties, in my seventies. That's where this is going
30:25
Speaker 14: to be my best decade. Yeah.
30:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. Kyle Freebairn and Sam Owens have built something most
30:31
Speaker 1: people told them was too simple to take seriously, a
30:34
Speaker 1: slushy company. They now have two hundred employees, machines in
30:38
Speaker 1: every corner of America, and a culture people talk about
30:43
Speaker 1: their advice. One word people, and then one more word flywheel.
30:49
Speaker 10: If I could go back to my earlier days out
30:53
Speaker 10: if there's a question do we lean in to you know,
30:57
Speaker 10: how good of a resource can we bring in? How
30:59
Speaker 10: much can we pay versus you know earlier it's like
31:02
Speaker 10: I don't know if we have the money, you know,
31:04
Speaker 10: so you're really just kind of going how far to
31:06
Speaker 10: the left can we bring someone in? Like how low
31:09
Speaker 10: can we go right versus how high can we go?
31:13
Speaker 10: In terms of it still making sense, you know, how
31:15
Speaker 10: do we get the upper end of the talent pool
31:17
Speaker 10: not the bottom? So that just just invest and bring
31:20
Speaker 10: in the best people you can, Yeah, and then you're
31:22
Speaker 10: going to win.
31:23
Speaker 9: My observation has been in the last four years not
31:28
Speaker 9: so much an inflection point, but more like the Jim
31:31
Speaker 9: Collins concept of the flywheel, where things just kind of
31:34
Speaker 9: speed up faster and faster. It would be nice, I
31:37
Speaker 9: think if you could just say, oh, because of this,
31:40
Speaker 9: this happened or whatever. But what I've noticed and we
31:43
Speaker 9: go to this big trade show every your next and
31:44
Speaker 9: it's kind of a good like barometer of how things
31:47
Speaker 9: are going. And every year it's just like there's less
31:49
Speaker 9: people coming up, Like it's like we got to have
31:52
Speaker 9: this tough conversation with this person and more people just
31:54
Speaker 9: coming up to say hi and that things are going great,
31:56
Speaker 9: you know, like the ratio changes every year gets better
31:59
Speaker 9: and better. And I don't know what one activity causes
32:03
Speaker 9: those things. You know, it's kind of like the flywheel
32:06
Speaker 9: where things just get a little easier that used to
32:09
Speaker 9: be harder, and it could be something that it's most
32:12
Speaker 9: likely a series of things that you did two years
32:14
Speaker 9: ago or whatever it was, that's just creating that. And
32:17
Speaker 9: so for me, the lesson is you have to enjoy
32:21
Speaker 9: the journey and the work you're doing, because if you're
32:24
Speaker 9: doing it to like X to get why result, I
32:27
Speaker 9: think you're going to get disappointed because it's really hard
32:29
Speaker 9: to just exactly attribute those things. You have to enjoy
32:32
Speaker 9: it every day and then over time the flywheel turns faster.
32:37
Speaker 2: Nine companies, nine founders, and a team of people who
32:42
Speaker 2: track every deal in this state year after year, different industries,
32:47
Speaker 2: different start lines, but the same thread running through every.
32:51
Speaker 1: Story, community, courage, and this place this state that keeps
32:58
Speaker 1: producing something the rest of the country notices.
33:02
Speaker 2: If there's one thing Utah's fastest growing founders wants you
33:05
Speaker 2: to know, it's this. The environment you build in shapes
33:09
Speaker 2: the leader you become.
33:11
Speaker 1: And if there's one thing they'd tell their younger selves,
33:14
Speaker 1: keep going, stay in the arena, be humble enough to
33:18
Speaker 1: learn from everyone. The best year is always next year.
33:23
Speaker 2: From all of us at the Mountain West Capitol Network,
33:26
Speaker 2: thank you for joining us in the Winter.
33:28
Speaker 1: Circle, and a huge thank you to each of our guests,
33:32
Speaker 1: Bud Scruggs, Kyle freemirn Sam Owens, Mary Krafts, Bobby Klaisen,
33:38
Speaker 1: Corey Benson, Trevor Larsen, Andrew Hollis, Scott Porter, and doctor
33:43
Speaker 1: Steven Neelaman. And to Matt Bartholomew, Katie Reese and Kevin
33:47
Speaker 1: Jessup for the work they put into understanding Utah's business
33:50
Speaker 1: story every single year. We're proud to celebrate all of you.
33:55
Speaker 11: Well Welcome to.
33:55
Speaker 1: The Winner Circle.
34:00
Speaker 10: The Pared