2017
ROLLINS CENTER
ANNUAL REPORT
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BYU ROLLINS CENTER
2017 AN N UAL REPORT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ACADEMIC DIRECTOR
Scott R. Petersen Stephen W. Liddle
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OPERATIONS
Jeffrey D. Brown
ASSOCIATE ACADEMIC DIRECTOR
Michael Hendron
PROJECT MANAGER WRITERS
EDITOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER PRINTING
CONTACT THE CENTER
PHONE EMAIL ONLINE
Maddie Hunt Cheri Earl Madelyn Earl Michelle Kaiser M’Leah Manuele Kellene Ricks Adams Jason Longhurst Press Media
Rollins Center 470 Tanner Building Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 801.422.7437 rollinscenter@byu.edu rollinscenter.byu.edu
THE ROLLINS CENTER ANNUAL REPORT IS PUBLISHED BY THE ROLLINS CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP & TECHNOLOGY IN BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY’S MARRIOTT SCHOOL OF BUSINESS IN PROVO, UTAH. COPYRIGHT 2017 BY BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
B Cover photo BYU ROLLINS by JarenCENTER Wilkey, BYU Photo
CAMPING OUT
Trying out the SHEL hammock cover, created by BYU startup Khione. The SHEL successfully funded on Kickstarter for nearly $100,000. Photo courtesyANNUAL of Khione REPORT Outdoor| 2017 Gear
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CONTENTS
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THE NEW CROP
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POINTING TRUE NORTH
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LET THE GAMES BEGIN
4A NEW MISSION
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20 ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTS
24 INSIDE INVESTORS DAY
22 ALUMNI UPDATES
26 FROM PATENTS TO PROFITS
FROM THE DIRECTORS
Photo by Sam Hart
Dear Friends, Entrepreneurship is so much more than creating successful new ventures, wealth, or even self-reliance. Michael Gerber (author of The E-Myth) queried me in my Rollins Center office a few years ago, “What about the masses? How are you reaching them? In so many countries there are simply no jobs to be had... what are you doing for them?” We then talked about his new book, (Awakening the Entrepreneur from Within) and its thesis, “We were born to create!” Universities have long been institutions of broad learning, and entrepreneurship centers began cropping up in the 1980’s. However, it has only been within the last decade that entrepreneurship has begun to emerge on college campuses with majors, minors, maker/accelerator space, and being taught in a rigorous methodological approach that is effective to dramatically increase a new venture’s chances for success. Enter the Lean Startup Movement. The Rollins Center at byu was the first university in the world to fully adopt lean principles. In 2010 all byu entrepreneurship professors agreed to implement the lean process into all of their courses. In 2011 the Center launched the International Business Model Competition (ibmc). What started with 6 universities has now morphed into nearly Above › Jeff Brown (left), Scott Petersen, and Stephen Liddle
600 participating universities globally, with more than 5,800 teams competing this year. The result has been a complete overhaul of how entrepreneurship is viewed and taught the world over. Scott Petersen, the Rollins Center Executive Director, reported to its Founders/Donors, that recent data suggests that if global entrepreneurship (gei) rose by 10%, the global gdp would rise by 22 trillion dollars, effectively wiping out poverty. This reality drives the Rollins Center to attempt to reach every student on campus to educate them, to inform them of the opportunities and potential impact, to connect them with other like-minded students, and to train them in the latest principles of building successful enterprises. Our efforts and approach in teaching entrepreneurship have been impressive, as you will see in the pages of this year’s report. One thing you will notice is the PIVOT we have made addressing topics of character, integrity, family, flexibility, and balance. Entrepreneurship does NOT mean abandoning these hallmarks of historically successful societies. It is specifically in these areas in which we aim to lead. We move forward together with you on this bold venture of changing the world through entrepreneurship. ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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A new
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Mission:
tepping through the glass doors of the Tanner building, you’ll find the atrium filled to the brim with potential. Students fill the tables from all majors and walks of life, each one working towards their dream, their ambition, and four floors above them lives one of the best resources Brigham Young University has to offer. The Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, dedicated to preparing men and women of faith and character to enter the entrepreneurship world, has been ranked in The Princeton Review’s top ten graduate and undergraduate programs for the previous eight years, with last year’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program taking third. “Our goal is not to help students acquire more things,” says Executive Director Scott Petersen, “but to acquire more skills, experience, and leadership capacity.” The program’s mission and values stray away from the stereotypical ideas of success, focusing on preparing their students to make a meaningful difference both in the world and within their own homes. It is this idea that has lead to the remodeling of the Rollins Center’s mission and vision. “Our vision before was strong, but it didn’t anticipate that achieving a sort of balance or harmony in life is more important than just making a lot of money,” Petersen explains. “Refining our vision doesn’t alter our overarching goals. It does make certain that in the process of achieving financial success, our students don’t forget who they are; they don’t forget their roots.” With this in mind, the program
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intends to push beyond old boundaries, reenergizing their efforts in curriculum, mentoring, and competitions. Working side by side with their experienced founders, they will help students “achieve high levels of success while also retaining faith and succeeding with home and family.” Replacing the focus on temporal success with high values and strong relationships has only strengthened the rising generation of entrepreneurs. Enterprises coming out of this nationally recognized and top-tier program consistently place first at state, national, and international competitions. Recent notable Rollins Center graduates have gone on to lead successful ventures such as Scan, sold to Snap for $54 million; Owlet, accepted into Techstars and raised almost $25 million while achieving current revenues of almost $30 million, and voted best baby monitor of 2017; FiberFix, featured on Shark Tank and now in over 30,000 retail locations worldwide; and SimpleCitizen, accepted into Y Combinator and successfully solving the problem of streamlining the process of getting green cards and applying for citizenship. Here, students are taught to realize their full potential and build their dreams, all the while learning that true success is measured by more than just money. “Our goals are still to lead… to be the best… but wealth creation will not be the overarching goal in our entrepreneurship program,” Petersen says. “We’re about training the rising generation to be capable of building something bigger than the individual, to change and lift the world by lifting the people who will lead it.”
In the process of achieving financial success, our students don’t forget who they are; they don’t forget their roots
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By Madelyn Earl
Vision We lead in developing responsible entrepreneurs of faith and character
Mission Prepare men and women of faith and character to be world-class leaders in entrepreneurship and innovation, to facilitate life-changing mentorship between learners and successful role models, and to promote and support relevant faculty research
Strategic Imperatives 1. We will integrate principles that build faith and character into our program 2. We will develop the infrastructure necessary to build innovative and scalable ventures 3. We will provide a complete suite of startup services to support all types of ventures 4. We will train students in the principles of innovation and intrapreneurship in addition to entrepreneurship 5. We will build entrepreneurial communities within every college and department on campus 6. We will build a women’s entrepreneurship movement that inspires more women to engage in our program 7. We will create a consistent, successful brand that is attractive to all our stakeholders 8. We will connect with and engage the entrepreneurial community in order to bless more lives 9. We will build the largest and most engaged donor organization in the world ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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The new
crop
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F
or a seasoned farmer, nothing is more rewarding than seeing seedlings poke through the soil. That small sign of growth can make all of the long hours and grueling work worthwhile, even if most people enjoy the finished product without thought of how it came to be. Just as seeds grow with hard work and nurturing, so do startups. This year’s Rollins Center crop has faced the up-and-down battle of finding the best places to plant, tilling the soil, weathering the storm, and finally seeing growth and an upcoming harvest. Though the path to success can be grueling and long, the new crop of companies has what it takes to make it to the harvest.
Planting the Seed
By Michelle Kaiser
Before a farmer can plant, he must first prepare the field. Without investing significant time to make sure the field is ready for planting, the farmer won’t see as successful of a harvest. Farmers can create a better breeding ground for their seeds by adding materials such as compost to ensure their crops are planted in nutrient-rich soil. Similarly, startups can have greater success by utilizing additional resources. OmniEarth founder Joseph Walker knew he had good soil with his idea for an organic fertilizer made of worm manure, but he needed to add an understanding of soil science to his business knowledge. Joseph spent three thousand hours researching and creating the formula for his fertilizer by traveling and touring farms and greenhouses, researching best practices, and even getting a part-time job as a soil lab assistant. Joseph went from not having any
knowledge of soil science to creating an organic formula that is unlike anything else on the market. The extra time it took to gain knowledge, or prepare the field, before starting his business allowed the startup seed to truly take root and grow. When choosing a seed, farmers need to consider if what they are planting is in season. If a business idea isn’t in season or there isn’t a need for it, it will likely face difficulty growing and could lead to struggling crops when harvest time nears. FaiRepair founders thought they had a viable crop with their first idea of a third-party mechanic service that involved local mechanics bidding on jobs. However, research proved that the idea wasn’t of interest to mechanics, so the team moved on to its next idea—an app to help car dealerships communicate with customers on the progress of their vehicle’s repair. That seed also faced difficulties. It wasn’t until the third seed of an antifraud camera system for service departments that the team found something that was in demand—or a seed ready to be planted. With the right seed, the work finally took root.
Beginning to Sprout
Once the seeds have been planted, the work to grow a sustainable crop begins. Plants must be waterd on a regular basis before they can grow. Just like a farmer waters his crops for days before sprouts start to appear, entrepreneurs must water their business crops before they know if anything will grow. That water often takes the form of adding team members, testing ideas, creating prototypes, and selling through grassroots efforts. ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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Left › The Khione SHEL hammock cover.
Sometimes farmers find things growing that they didn’t even mean to plant. Graduate engineering students Caleb Lystrup and Casey Messick weren’t planning to start a company when they entered their SHEL hammock cover in the Student Innovator of the Year competition. But after coming in first place, they planted seeds in a successful fundraising effort and now lead a rapidly growing outdoor company, Khione Outdoor Gear. The team began to see things sprout when they launched a Kickstarter campaign, hitting their original goal within two hours and gathering more than six times their original target in just 30 days. With the seedlings sprouting strong, Lystrup and Messick could move forward to manufacture their product and get it in the hands of eager backers and customers—all from a seed they didn’t expect to plant. As seeds start to sprout, weeds often develop. Removing weeds that take away resources and nutrients from the real yield is vital to the success of any crop. Removing weeds allows the rest of the crop to flourish. Venga founder Lee Chang’s original business idea was to create a screening app for landlords, similar to a dating app, but he had to weed out that idea after realizing that it was Right › Matthew Liddle of TrashTalk takes a hands-on approach with his startup. 8
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taking away from the more robust crop of an app to buy and sell housing contracts. Although casting aside his original idea was difficult, Lee learned that letting go can lead to something bigger. The success and scalability of Venga would never have been possible without his original seed.
Facing the Storm
Sprouting crops are often exposed to the elements, and sometimes, those elements force the farmer to make difficult decisions about the future of his crops. TrashTalk, a trash can sensor company founded by Matthew Liddle, faced a storm after the planned business model of selling to waste companies didn’t pan out. Matthew thought it would be easier to sell to these companies, but he realized he had to keep exploring his options. Instead he decided to sell to waste consultants, who were eager to use the sensor technology to save money and increase efficiency. Matthew’s sensors are now in a growing number of public trash cans and dumpsters operated
by trash consultants—a demographic he wouldn’t have been targeting with his original selling strategy. Skilled farmers know there isn’t one path to success and that the best ideas often come through trial and error. Teeth-whitening subscription service Dentium Club faced storms as it experimented with marketing solutions and pricing strategy. Founder Peter Gallagher wasn’t sure what groups to target and what messages to use to successfully sell his service. Through trial and error, he found the best approach to reach the right customers. By pivoting the messaging from a vanity beauty service to a professional-level experience, the group has been able to nail down messages that resonate with customers, and the crop survived the storm to continue to grow. The solidified pricing strategy that matches the target audience has allowed the company to get in front of potential customers using more effective strategies, including influencers and video and blog content.
Seeing Growth
As crops are nourished and sprout, the fields bloom and can be seen for miles. For storage company Neiybor, nationwide growth has naturally happened through word of mouth. Customers looking for cheaper storage solutions and people looking to make extra money heard of the company from friends and family and wanted to get involved. What started as a good idea in a college town has not only spread throughout Utah but is organically spreading throughout the rest of the United States. For the founding team, seeing
Left › OmniEarth founder Joseph Walker shows his organic fertilizer.
how their solution makes people’s lives easier has been a huge reward and has encouraged them to continue growing their business. After seeing the success of its maternity bands to measure prenatal kicks, Rubi Life decided to expand from a single product to a technology licensing company. Founder Eric Stopper realized he had potentially revolutionary technology on his hands and that sensors like those used in the maternity band could be added to a variety of existing items to turn them into smart products.
He licensed the maternity band to a company better able to handle the customer moving forward and put his effort into expanding the sensors and licensing the technology to a number of other companies. What started as a single successful crop has grown into a field of different plants ripe for the harvest. After initial growth, farmers often must make adjustments to their planting plan before the next crop is harvested. With the preparation complete, additional crops can continue to grow and thrive. Khione is focused on distributing the SHEL to its Kickstarter backers and building a strong brand through a quality flagship product. TrashTalk’s next goals focus on customer relationships and refining the product. Having nailed down its target market and pricing strategy, Dentium Club looks to throw fuel on its best-performing marketing channels. FaiRepair has signed deals with multiple dealerships around Utah and is saving clients thousands of dollars a year. Venga is expanding its contract sharing service into areas such as phone and car contracts—both places with huge potential for growth. OmniEarth is working hard to keep
up with demand and sending manure to customers around the country who buy it as quickly as the worms produce it. Neiybor is growing its customer base for student and seasonal storage and expanding around the country. Rubi Life, now Sensable Technologies, is currently fundraising $1 million at a $5 million valuation to continue to grow the brand and is in licensing talks for its sensors with large sports-tech companies. Just like the newest batch of tested entrepreneurs has learned, seasoned farmers know that most things take longer, are more expensive, and are more difficult than originally anticipated, but if they stick to their planting plan, they will experience the reward of the harvest.
Enjoying the Harvest
While these Founders may have already enjoyed harvesting their ideas, the work isn’t over for any of these innovative and proven crops. Now experienced farmers weathered by the winds of the field, these entrepreneurs will continue to carry on with their crops as another wave of crops prepares to be planted.
THIS SEASON: STARTUPS TO WATCH Khione Outdoor Gear
planted: May 2017 work: Outdoor gear, including a
hammock shelter called the SHEL
FaiRepair
planted: June 2017 work: Antifraud camera system for
planted: January 2017 work: Management platform and
founders: Caleb Lystrup and
founders: Tanner Beckstrand and
mobile app for buying and selling housing contracts founder: Lee Chang
OmniEarth
Dentium Club
TrashTalk
Casey Messick
planted: April 2016 work: Organic fertilizer created from
natural ingredients and worm manure
auto dealership service departments
Venga
Caleb Wagner
planted: October 2016 work: Subscription service profes-
sional-grade teeth whitening
founder: Joseph Walker
founder: Peter Gallagher
Sensable Technologies
Neiybor
planted: January 2017 work: Sensors to turn any item into
a smart product
founder: Eric Stopper
planted: July 2016 work: Trash can and dumpster sensors
that alert trash companies when the bins are full founder: Matthew Liddle
planted: July 2016 work: The “Airbnb of storage” to connect people looking for storage spaces
with people who have extra space to rent out
founder: Preston Alder, Colton Gardner, and Joseph Woodbury
ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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Pointing
true north By M'Leah Manuele
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ntrepreneurship is a mix of sharp turns, cascading hills, and roads less traveled—or sometimes not traveled at all. Each Rollins Center Founder has an individual roadmap, a different destination. But they all agree that the best part of their entrepreneurial adventure is the journey itself. These are their stories of entrepreneurial success, navigating life, and helping others pave their own paths.
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JEREMY ANDRUS
RELATIONSHIPS AND A RISKY ROUTE
J
eremy Andrus is a consumer product prodigy. Andrus always gravitated toward entrepreneurship and, even at a young age, could often be found creating business plans and brainstorming product ideas. Years later, after receiving an undergraduate degree from byu and an mba from Harvard, Andrus began his career. Through years of mistakes and “making it up as he went,” Andrus picked up a few things along his entrepreneurial journey. After finding success with Skullcandy, Andrus is now the founder and ceo of Traeger Pellet Grills, and his secret sauce consists of two key ingredients: taking risks and building relationships. “I sought out opportunities, was willing to take risks, and followed my gut,” he says. “Those risky decisions
paved the way for where I am now.” As one can imagine, Andrus’s path to success wasn’t always easy. Ten hard years into his career, with many mistakes behind him, Andrus realized the value of mentorship. Since then, he has spent countless hours talking, white-boarding, counseling with, and learning from others. “My philosophy changed, and I recognized the importance of relationships,” he says. “Now my focus is
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on people—creating a culture that is aspirational for my employees, identifying mentors who can be helpful to me, and consciously looking for ways to be a mentor to others.” For Andrus, the perfect intersection between entrepreneurship, people, and giving back has been the Rollins Center. “I love speaking to students, talking about entrepreneurship, and sharing my journey in a way that’s helpful to other people.”
I was willing to take risks and followed my gut ... those risky decisions paved the way for where I am now.
Above › Jeremy serves ribs from one of his Traeger grills. ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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The real purpose of the Center ... is to become financially independent and to help others become financially independent
T
he year 1997 brought exciting changes for byu Marriott as school officials eagerly worked to launch an entrepreneurship program. Somewhere in the process, Provo received word of a renowned entrepreneur who may be able to help. As a ceo, Mike Morgan had just taken his company public. Morgan had cofounded Startek, a pioneer provider of business engagement processes, 10 years earlier. After a quick phone call and an hourand-a-half plane ride to Colorado, representatives from the entrepreneurship program knocked on Morgan’s door. He recalls being ecstatic about what they were building and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get involved. Since then, Morgan has witnessed the growth and development of what he describes as “the best entrepreneurship program I’ve seen,” and has seen students—some who are now Founders— become empowered to be creative and successful doing what they love. “The real purpose of the Center— and it’s a principle we are taught in the gospel—is to become financially independent and to help others become financially independent,” he says. Financial freedom is a product of entrepreneurship that Morgan has both witnessed and experienced in his own life. In fact, it has allowed him to dedicate the last two decades to two things he treasures: his family and charity work. Morgan notes that his family—specifically his wife, who enabled him to focus on business—was the key to his success. Together they run multiple foundations and give all they can to help others along their own journeys.
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Above › Mike Morgan spending time with family
MIKE MORGAN
HELPING OTHERS ALONG THE WAY
JILL KRISHNAMURTHY
PAVING THE PATH FOR WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS
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rom serving as both president of the byu Marriott Undergraduate Student Association and the Entrepreneurship Club to becoming a partner at a venture capital firm and ceo of her own company, Jill Krishnamurthy is a true pioneer in entrepreneurship. A graduate of byu Marriott and product of the Rollins Center, Krishnamurthy describes her undergraduate experience as enlightening. “It helped me realize that I could craft my own life—that I could fill it with experiences and things that I was passionate and excited about.”
Above › Jill Krishnamurthy graduating with her undergraduate degree at BYU. Left › The Krishnamurthy family.
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[The Rollins Center] helped me realize that I could craft my own life—that I could fill it with experiences and things that I was passionate and excited about.
And she did just that. Krishnamurthy’s life has been enriched with opportunities, travel, and success. She is now the founder and ceo of DUO, the largest event venue company in the country. She’s taken on roles of cfo and coo at various other companies, helped found numerous startups, taught entrepreneurship at byu, backpacked through India, and ventured across the globe from Los Angeles to France. Along the way she’s also filled her life with valuable relationships and experiences, and created a platform to encourage other women in entrepreneurship. “I want these women to know that they too can create their own lives,” she says. In addition to meeting with and mentoring students multiple times per week, Krishnamurthy is working with the center on an initiative to support women in the industry. “There is a meaningful disparity in the world of entrepreneurship in the resources and opportunities that women get,” she says. Her hope is to see women leap over that disparity. In pursuit of that vision, Krishnamurthy personally invests in women entrepreneurs and their businesses. And money isn’t the only thing she’s investing. “Sure, it’s empowering to have capital,” she says. “But I want women to recognize their leadership potential, to create their own remarkable experiences, and to build their own foundations. Those qualities are the vehicle for meaningful influence in the world.”
ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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BEN PETERSON
THIS WAY TO WHAT MATTERS MOST
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f you ask Ben Peterson to tell you about himself, he’ll probably respond with something like, “I’m just a normal guy who’s been lucky in many ways.” Sure, Peterson may have a bit of luck on his side, but his success as an entrepreneur, husband, and father has come as the result of a lifetime quest to focus on the things that matter most. Peterson—cofounder and ceo of BambooHR, an innovative, worldwide HR software company—spent his early days as a student at byu Marriott and the Rollins Center. His college career was not only “full of fun” but also full of inspiring people. Early on, he had mentors who proved that “integrity in leadership resulted in successful outcomes.” Knowing he wanted the freedom of an entrepreneurial career but that it would
not be an easy road, Peterson began by building his own principled foundation. “My experiences as a young entrepreneur involved starting a business while staying true to my principles,” he
Above › BambooHR employees enjoy the company culture at the corporate retreat to Aspen Grove Family Camp and Conference Center. 14
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says. “Keeping covenants, meaningful time with family, and working hard-those things matter most to me.” Sticking to his guns—as some may say—paid off. BambooHR is thriving and evolving. As Peterson moves from the startup phase, his focus has shifted to maintaining a high quality of life for his family and employees, growing and improving the product, and cultivating a positive culture—changes that have been easier thanks to a rooted set of values. Recently Peterson has taken an opportunity to be a Founder and mentor at the center, where he hopes to help young entrepreneurs build their own foundations. “For me, it’s about challenging students to deliberately engineer their lives around values and principles that will provide them with the highest quality of life possible,” he says. “It’s about truly being happy.”
WE DEVELOP MEN AND WOMEN OF FAITH AND CHARACTER TO BE WORLD-CLASS LEADERS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION. THE ROLLINS CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP & TECHNOLOGY
8 YEARS IN THE TOP 10 ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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LET THE
GAMES BEGIN BYU’s top-ranked International Business Model Competition trains student entrepreneurs around the globe to fail fast if they want to succeed.
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n May 11, 2017, thirty-nine hopeful student teams from all over the world flooded into the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Once the headquarters of Silicon Graphics, the bright futuristic building is nestled in the heart of Silicon Valley, surrounded by high tech firms such as Google, HP, Cisco, Intel, Apple, ebay, Yahoo!, Netflix, Adobe, and Facebook. The setting couldn’t be more perfect for young innovators vying to win the 2017 International Business Model Competition (ibmc) hosted by Brigham Young University’s Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology.
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TRAINING STUDENTS TO FAIL—FASTER
Unique among business competitions, the ibmc is international and focuses on business models rather than business plans. But the most distinctive feature of the competition is the mentoring— professional entrepreneurs mentor qualifying student teams before and during the event. For the entire first day of the competition, students spend time in groups and one-on-one with educators and thought leaders, such as this year’s keynote Ash Maurya. That means that students receive feedback on their presentations before they even enter the competition trials.
By Cheri Earl
Photo by Tri Nguyen
ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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The ibmc is the first and largest Lean startup competition in the world, and its goal is to educate and inspire students to be smarter entrepreneurs who will build viable and successful businesses. Students are encouraged to focus on the inputs rather than the outputs of the entrepreneurial process, which is why the competition rewards students for • listing and validating key business model hypotheses instead of executing a business plan; • testing and validating their most crucial hypotheses with customers; and • changing their business plans based on customer feedback throughout the process. The lean startup method pushes student entrepreneurs to move from idea to prototype faster than a traditional business plan would allow and then test the product on actual consumers early in the development cycle to determine viability. When students miss the mark or fail, they are told to iterate and pivot until they hit on the right prototype or scrap the idea all together. In other words, students are trained to fail faster, iterate and adapt, and be smarter about creating a startup because smart entrepreneurs build smart, viable businesses.
MATTHEW’S STORY
Matthew Rooda, president and ceo of SwineTech, is one of those smart entrepreneurs. SwineTech, a student startup from the University of Iowa, placed first
Judges aren’t as concerned about whether the student entrepreneurs have all the right answers as they are that the students are learning and thinking through the unknowns.
in the 2016 ibmc, hosted by Microsoft Ventures on its twenty-nine-acre campus in Redmond, Washington. Matthew represented his team at the competition where he presented his business model for Echo, an alert system that keeps mother pigs from crushing their newborn piglets, the leading cause of death among baby pigs. Matthew recalls his experience with a mentor on the first day of the competition. “The [mentor] told me, ‘There’s no way you’re going to win with this. This is not what we’re looking for.’ I thought, ‘Oh, awesome.’ But he was trying to help me.” Matthew tweaked his presentation based on the feedback, and on the second day, the elimination rounds began—and the feedback kept coming. As he advanced from round to round, he heard again and again, “You barely squeaked by.” But he took the feedback and persevered. “I rewrote my script three times in a day and half,” he said, laughing. “Everything changed. I ended up rewriting my whole script an hour and a half before the final round based on the feedback.”
Above › Abraham Espinoza (left) and Matthew Rooda, co-founders of SwineTech 18
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Matthew believes that judges aren’t as concerned about whether the student entrepreneurs have all the right answers as they are that the students are learning and thinking through the unknowns. “They’re trying to instill in us the whole fail-fast method, that we should allow every aspect of our business model to switch at any time. That’s the purpose of the competition.”
SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE
The lean startup movement is spreading like wildfire across the globe, and eager young entrepreneurs around the world are clamoring to be a part of it. Launched as an international competition in 2011, the ibmc attracts a widening circle of students beyond the United States. For example, the thirty-nine student teams that received an invitation to participate this year qualified in ibmc-affiliate competitions in the United States, Cambodia, Jamaica, Brazil, India, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Japan, and Peru. So, what makes the lean startup movement so compelling to entrepreneurs all over the world? In his iconic
Photos courtesy of SwineTech
Above › Jeff Brown meets with competitors at the 2016 IBMC.
Harvard Business Review article, “Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything,” Steve Blank, godfather of the lean startup movement, argues that “disruption, globalization, and regulation” have affected the world’s economies to such an extent that new ventures will be the surest source of employment growth in the twenty-first century. “Using lean methods across a portfolio of startups will result in fewer failures than using traditional methods,” he writes. “A lower startup failure rate could have profound economic consequences.” Another appeal of the lean startup business model concept is that it propels student entrepreneurs out of the building seeking solutions to actual problems that actual people face. Steve Paterson, director and cofounder of the Mekong Business Challenge at the University of Toronto, an ibmc affiliate, noticed that when the Mekong challenge transitioned from a business plan to a business model competition five years ago, his students abandoned their classrooms and their “pro-forma financial statements and break-even points to interact with real customers and stakeholders.” He tells the story of one successful team that left their computers and traditional business processes, “which are often divorced from the real-world situation,” and focused instead on the problems faced by the
depressed elderly population in Phnom Penh. They got outside and listened to what their potential customers had to say, and as a result, they began forming hypotheses and testing solutions early in their process. “They first organized some community events where elderly persons could interact together at a center. Turns out the elderly persons who participated in this activity did not really enjoy it as they just went from being inside a home to being inside a community center,” Paterson says. “They expressed an interest in traveling, so our students launched an elderly travel business, which emphasized community work and did a few pilots to test this concept.” Paterson believes that the competition’s shift to business models has not only benefited real people, but “it has also increased the launch rate for the university’s startups.” Mary Kilfoil, lead educator for the Starting Lean course at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia— another ibmc affiliate school—has seen the power of the lean startup methodology in the local business ecosystem. She says that her students are also going where the actual customers are to test their business hypotheses, asking about customers’ needs and creating solutions to fill those needs. As a result, many students have created successful
Photo by Bella McLaws
startups in Nova Scotia “including biomedical, big data, and innovative product design companies” that have “helped to drive the province’s economy.” At the Atlantic Leader’s Summit in January 2015, Peter Halpin, executive director of the Atlantic Association of Universities, pointed out that creating new business startups has “become integral to regional and provincial economic development and talent retention strategies,” emphasizing again the impact of successful entrepreneurial ventures to local and global economies worldwide.
ITERATING THE MISSION & VISION
If innovation is the name of the game, what’s the next innovation for the Rollins Center and the ibmc? According to Jeff Brown, associate director of the center, a crucial revision of the existing mission and vision is in the works. Brown says that “students can lose focus on what is important when they experience success,” which is why the new mission focus will help students achieve a harmony of values. Scott Petersen, the Rollins Center’s new director, says that their conclusions will be based on how well graduates are succeeding in life “as parents, spouses, and contributors to the whole of society and not just at making money. That will be an important difference we will emphasize more than ever before.” ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
SalesRabbit:
Reshaping the Sales Industry If you’re even slightly familiar with Utah’s culture, you know door-to-door sales is a hopping industry. Brady Anderson, cofounder and ceo of SalesRabbit, was once a door-to-door salesman himself. Little did he know that he would one day create a company and an app that would shake up the slowly evolving sales industry. In 2013, while studying computer engineering and business at byu, Anderson saw an opportunity to fix common pain points in the selling process and launched SalesRabbit. With the help of fellow entrepreneurs, business plan competitions, and mentorship from the Rollins Center, Anderson and his fledgling company took off. One of the biggest breakthroughs for Anderson and his team was their participation in the Miller New Venture Challenge—an event put on by the Rollins Center.
Above › The SalesRabbit app in action 20
BYU ROLLINS CENTER
“We were able to raise capital and get early introductions through the New Venture Challenge that were extremely instrumental down the road,” Anderson says. “Participating in that competition also taught us to formulate and define our business—allowing us to concisely convey our strategy and success to third parties.” Anderson calls his involvement with the center highly motivating. “You see the success of others, and it reinforces the idea that you can do it.” That initial motivation and passion picked up by the SalesRabbit team has only amplified since its involvement with the center four years ago. Anderson’s app has completely revolutionized accessibility, organization, and efficiency for sales teams not only in Utah but across the nation. The company has captured the attention of investors, entrepreneurs, and customers and continues to see astronomical growth. In fact, SalesRabbit is currently working to expand to in-home and business-to-business sales markets in the next year. Anderson knows as well as anybody that internal investments are as important as external exchanges, and he attributes much of the company’s growth to operational changes made in the last year and a half. “Early on, we were just focused on proving the concept and gaining customers,” he says. “But in the last part of 2016, we realized that we had a thriving business with big potential, and we knew we needed to seriously
Top › SalesRabbit co-founders (from left) Jeff Lockhart, Brady Anderson, Barima Kwarteng
invest in our infrastructure if we wanted to continue to see success.” SalesRabbit’s recent overhaul of operations included: investing in business intelligence and data analysis, automating billing, building a marketing department, creating a scalable engineering process, and revamping sales systems. “The impacts have been significant,” he says. “We have been able to develop and innovate much faster than before. Our customers, in turn, understand the value of our product, and we are seeing higher retention.” Anderson also recognizes that entrepreneurship is a crazy ride, so he is sure they will continue to redefine and restructure as the company grows. “It’s definitely a process,” he says. “I never thought I would be running a company, and I never thought we would see such success. But here we are—a company of fifty people, growing like crazy—and it’s incredible.” By M'Leah Manuele
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Podium:
Innovating Products and People
Top › Eric Rea, founder of Podium Above › The sales floor at Podium
Eric Rea, Podium founder and ceo, describes his entrepreneurial experience as “uniquely typical.” A Canadian by birth and technological junkie by choice, Rea first came to Utah to pursue a degree at byu. As a student, he enrolled in an entrepreneurship lecture series that left him yearning for more. “I found myself fascinated by the people presenting,” he says, “and it made me want to do my own thing.” That initial spark drove Rea to the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, where he met founder and mentor Craig Earnshaw. “He gave such candid, useful feedback and was so honest,” Rea recalls. “After graduation, Craig continued to be a mentor for me and became one of the first investors in Podium.” Podium, the customer interaction platform for small businesses, was founded by Rea in 2014—only two years after his graduation from byu. Inspiration for the prosperous customer By M'Leah Manuele
interaction company came from an ongoing problem Rea’s father experienced as a tire shop owner in Canada: the inability of small businesses to gather positive, sharable feedback online. Rea speared the issue head on— building a product from the ground up with a small team of engineers and going door-to-door trying to acquire customers. The positive response the team received was immense, but they were ready to further capitalize on the opportunity. So in 2015, Rea and his team applied for Y Combinator—a startup accelerator program in Silicon Valley. “The program has a lower acceptance rate than Harvard, but we got accepted and moved to California for a threemonth crash course on how to build an awesome product,” Rea says. Back in Utah—and thanks to subsequent success—the bedroomturned-office in Rea’s apartment no longer fit the bill, so Podium moved to the second floor of a bike shop in downtown Provo. The vintage space had a single small heating and air conditioning unit, leading to visible breath on frigid winter mornings and sweltering summer days. Two thousand new customers and the addition of 100 employees meant the company outgrew the unforgiving bike shop in less than year. Currently, Podium’s customer base sits at 13,000, and its team has more
than doubled in size. After outgrowing three more spaces, the company is building a massive new office building in Lehi—one with plenty of room to expand. Podium’s numbers do the talking. But what launched a bedroom-startup to such success? The answers—according to Rea—are innovation and enlisting the right people. “Early on, we were always innovating—the product got better, faster, and smarter every week—and it continues to evolve and improve.” As for choosing the right people for the company, Rea and his team are very deliberate about who they bring onboard. “Podium is where it is today not because of me,” Rea says, “but because we have a team of 250 people who are smart, who care about what we’re doing, and who want us to succeed.”
ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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Alumni Updates FOUNDERS
Grant Gordon and Dallen Allred 2013 Analytics platform that provides actionable data on benefit programs, opportunities, gaps and easy-to-use tools, enabling companies to cut spending costs by making informed decisions. Raised over $26M in funding to date.
FOUNDERS
Riley Adamson and Josh Albrechtsen 2015 Developer of a software platform for healthcare providers to manage clinical follow-up calls. It enables healthcare organizations to outsource calls to stay-at-home registered nurses. Raised over $200k in funding to date, lifetime revenue of $270k, and has saved dozens of lives and increased the quality of life for thousands of patients.
FOUNDERS
Evan Teshima and Joel Ragar 2011 All-in-one golf course management software that provides one, simple platform for managing everything at a golf course, club, or pro shop. Used by top public golf courses from coast to coast, including Torrey Pines and Bethpage Black, recently recognized by MountainWest Capital Network as an Emerging Elite company.
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BYU ROLLINS CENTER
FOUNDER
Matt Alexander 2014 The world's first toilet bowl night light. Raised over $600k in crowdfunding to date and made a deal with Kevin O’Leary on Shark Tank. Recently acquired by Spark Innvoation.
FOUNDERS
Josh Bird, CJ Lewis and Tyler Slater 2012 Employee management software suite that includes smart checklists and forms, employee scheduling, time and attendance tracking, and date code labeling in addition to several hardware integrations. Thousands of operators rely on Jolt to run their business including some of the biggest brands in the world. A few of these include McDonald's, Subway, Baskin-Robbins, Chevron, 7-Eleven, Legoland, and The Bellagio.
FOUNDERS
Wade Anderson, Bryan Whiting, Ethan Grabau, and AJ Hamner 2014 4-in-1 home security product with real-time picture notifications, motion and smoke detection, and a 90dB siren; all with no contracts and no monthly fees. Raised $1M in VC funding and crowdfunding to date.
ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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Inside By Jeff Brown
Investors Day T
his year’s Investors Day companies were as good or better than ever before. And that’s saying something considering that this event has launched the likes of Scan (sold to Snap for $51 million), FiberFix (made deal on Shark Tank and is now in over 30,000 retail locations worldwide), Owlet (has raised almost $25 million in funding), SalesRabbit (has raised almost $5 million in funding), and SimpleCitizen (the TurboTax® of immigration) among many others. Ten of this year’s top companies pitched to a full room of engaged investors. Student companies were selected from the most promising teams in the Miller Competition Series, a year-long, robust series that includes: • A workshop series, • The Big Idea Pitch, • The Business Model Competition, • The Miller New Venture Challenge, • Founders Launchpad (patterned after Y-Combinator) Since the event in early October of this year, all ten companies have been funded, which speaks to their quality and potential.
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BYU ROLLINS CENTER
Photos by Sam Hart
All › Student companies tell their story to a captive audience and later meet with attendees for mentorship and investment discussions.
Khione
The SHEL is an elegant hammock camping solution that keeps you comfortable in any weather condition and raised almost $100k on Kickstarter.
Neiybor
The Airbnb of storage, connects people with extra space at home with those looking for affordable storage.
Piero FaiRepair
Builds camera systems and software to prevent fraudulent vehicle damage claims by consumers or businesses.
Fuse
The Sidewinder is the ultimate MacBook charger accessory that raised almost $300k on Kickstarter.
GATE (now Accelerate)
Helps companies become more efficient by using tax strategies to monetize deferred tax assets (DTAs).
GPR
A patented pellet sponge that removes virtually all phosphate from water and aims to conomically solve the global algal bloom crisis.
Leverages proximity technologies to enable hands-free door opening for people with physical disabilities.
Sensable Technologies
The Nano Stretch SensorTM can be easily integrated into any product and provide real-time feedback.
SyncTimes
Aligns busy healthcare professionals with their patients, improving the patient experience and increasing overall efficiency.
TrashTalk
Uses internet of things (IoT) technology to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of waste collection.
2017 INVESTORS DAY COMPANIES ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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By Michelle Kaiser
Above › One of the many patents availabe to license from the Tech Transfer office.
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BYU ROLLINS CENTER
TO PROFITS ucked in a corner of the Harold B. Lee Library is a team of five people who transform creative ideas into successful businesses. Inventions come into the office as blueprints or plans and often leave as profitable products or companies. Chances are you’ve seen the results of the byu Technology Transfer Office, perhaps without realizing it. The office is responsible for licensing technology created by byu professors. Every professor who creates a new invention or technology discloses his or her work to the office. From there, the Tech Transfer team files a provisional patent that allows a year to gauge interest in commercializing the product. Of the eighty to one hundred inventions created on campus each year, the office ends up filing a full patent on about half. The Tech Transfer team can then move forward with licensing to an existing company or using the technology to create a new startup.
The process is definitely working— the byu Tech Transfer Office was recently recognized as the fourth-best tech transfer office in the country by the Milken Institute, with special attention given to its ability to create startup companies. For the last twenty years, byu has been in the top ten in several categories, including the annual number of patents, startups, and licenses. According to Mike Alder, director of the office, that success boils down to the quality of inventions professors create, noting that the office receives five to ten world-class inventions each year. And all this from the university ranked number 146 in research funding, meaning that byu professors have just a fraction of the budgets of their counterparts at other universities. byu also tends to have more students making meaningful contributions to the technology—more than half of the patents filed have student inventors listed,
Left › Carter Smith of BYU startup IsoTruss demonstrates the strength of his product.
IsoTruss started as an invention created by a university professor.
a huge increase from the numbers at other schools. There’s also a pivotal entrepreneurship aspect to the Tech Transfer Office, and a growing number of students from the Rollins Center are jumping on board. Any student can look at available technology to see if there is anything they want to form a company around. Each semester multiple entrepreneurship classes work with the Tech Transfer Office to create startups. If a student team can create a viable business plan, the team is given three months to test its idea with the technology before it is charged a licensing fee. In order to turn a Tech Transfer invention into a business, students must have someone with experience in their domain acting as the ceo or chairman. “The opportunity for students to have patented technology created by university professors gives them a huge advantage over creating their own
ideas,” Alder says, noting that using proven inventions takes out a lot of the frustration of building a startup. The Tech Transfer Office does more than just protect byu’s intellectual property and provide resources for students—it earns real money. Student-run company VyKon, which measures tremors in Parkinson’s disease patients, is currently being acquired, and many other companies and technologies have earned significant amounts of money. The technology behind X-ray manufacturer MoxTek came out of the Tech Transfer Office decades ago, and it now has more than a 60 percent share of the market. Other inventions are poised for great success, including a number of antimicrobial compounds and potential drugs in the pipeline. With state-of-the-art inventions and strong entrepreneurial insights, the Tech Transfer Office has the power to turn patents into profits.
Above › Relationships with partners like the University Police have led to the creation of new technologies, like this portable ballistic barricade.
ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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BYU ROLLINS CENTER
WHO'S WHO
FULL & PART TIME STAFF
ACADEMIC FACULTY
Scott Petersen
Executive Director
Brian Reschke
Entrepreneurship
Steve Liddle
Academic Director
Bryan Howell
Industrial Design
Chad Carlos
Entrepreneurship
Jeff Brown
Associate Director, Operations
Mike Hendron
Associate Academic Director
Chris Mattson
Mechanical Engineering
Taunya Brown
Events Manager
Curt Anderson
Law
Maddie Hunt Jennifer Hutchins
Office Manager Financial Manager
STUDENT STAFF
Alecia Holmes Brennan Steiner Cole Davis Courtney Hurley Elena Arana Eliza Terry Elizabeth Elieson Jace Wade Jared Packard Kendall Nelson Sam Erickson Sam Hart Tanner Jones Tyler Jones Zach Hosman
Production Manager IBMC Student Director Marketing Manager, Student Adviser Graphic Designer Assistant Production Manager Assistant Office Manager Multimedia Specialist Assistant Office Manager Student Adviser, Mentoring Coord. Financial Assistant Lecture Series TA Multimedia Specialist I-Corps Coord., Lecture Series TA Student Adviser, Web Developer Intro to Entrep. TA, Student Adviser
Davis Busath Derek Hansen
Scott Petersen
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Chairman
Design
Gary Rhoads
Marketing
Geoff Wright
Technology & Engineering
Gibb Dyer
Strategy
Gordon Smith
Law
Jason Weaver
Manufacturing Engineering
Jeff Dyer Jeff Humpherys Jeff Jenkins
Strategy Mathematics Information Systems
John Salmon
Mechanical Engineering
Ken Rodham
Computer Science
Marc Hansen
Life Sciences
Neal Bangerter Nile Hatch Rick West Steve Liddle Taylor Nadauld
Electrical Engineering Entrepreneurship Education Information Systems Finance
PROFESSIONAL FACULTY
Alan Boardman DONOR ORGANIZATION
Life Sciences
Corbin Church Craig Earnshaw
BD Medical Church Properties LifeLink Corporation
Don Mullen
Bryan Welton
Board Member
Gary Williams
Corbin Church
Board Member
Gavin Christensen
Kickstart Seed Fund
Craig Earnshaw
Board Member
Kim Scoville
Silvermark Services
David Royce
Board Member
Mike Hendron
Arcwise Consulting
James Clarke
Board Member
Nick Greer
Skipio, One on One Marketing
Jeff Danley
Board Member
Ralph Little
Little & Company
Jeremy Andrus
Board Member
Rob Cornilles
Game Face
Michael Morgan
Board Member
Scott Johnson
Motivosity
Nick Greer
Board Member
Sid Krommenhoek
Susan Petersen
Board Member
Taylor Halverson
Scott Moscrip
Board Member
Tom Peterson
BYU ROLLINS CENTER
Sterling Wentworth Corp. / SunGard
Peak Ventures Creativity, Innovation, & Design Group Trammell Crow Company
KING OF THE CROWD The Side Winder, created by BYU student Logan Bailey and his company Fuse Reels. The product has raised over $300,000 on crowdfunding sites Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Photos courtesy of Fuse Reels
ANNUAL REPORT | 2017
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